Naked Light: New Mac Non-Destructive Image Editor

[EH21]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

As with Carsten, I too would like to see the original image. I've tinkered with LightZone but it appears to be the kind of program you have to spend a lot of time to get used to.

 

Your image is nice but IMHO it has been pushed past a palpable rendering.

[Advertisement]

The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[Guest malland]

Mitch, I would love to see the same image you just posted before PP, and a small description of why you used LightZone, and if the same work could be done in other applications.

 

I use Lightroom, which is very good and competent in all, or almost all areas, but which in some ways lacks any particular strength, except possibly file management, and sometimes I wonder if there is something better out there for what I want to to. I love the look of that image.

Carsten, certainly the original file does not have the contrast of the photograph above. But there are better things to look at than my original file: the first is Anselm Adams two books, The Negative and The Print, which I feel that every photographer should read, (in the latter look particularly what he does with the picture of the storm in Yellowstone — how he transforms a flat rendition on the negative and straight print into a dramatic expressive print); the second is the following book on darkroom photography, which present a series of straight prints from negatives and sows by diagrams how, through selective burning and dodging, they are made into expressive or fine prints — the book is just as useful for digital printing as for the darkroom:

 

Amazon.com: Black & White: Photographic Printing Workshop: Books: Larry Bartlett,Jon Tarrant

 

The type of selective burning and dodging that I do and that is illustrated in the above book can certainly be done in Photoshop: it's just that making selections is much easier and faster in LightZone because the selections are vector based and are seen as lines and points on the screen that can be easily pushed and pulled until you get the shape that you want to select; and feathering is also seen immediately and interactively on the screen — much, much easier than doing this in Photoshop. Moreover, all the changes you make are non-destructive and do not generale huge files as Photoshop layers do; and the whole set of changes made in LightZone can be saved as a "Style", which can then be applied to other files and then adjusted for the differences you want, such as moving the selections around to apply to different areas of the picture in the other files. Finally, LightZone let's you select certain tones in the picture and change those without affecting other tones like Photoshop Curves do. In fact, when I started using LightZone, I missed Photoshop Curves and used work in pictures in LightZone and then finish it up with in PhotoShop by applying a final Curve or two; but, now, that I've become used to LightZone I don't need to do that any more.

 

As for Lightroom, it's a program for image management and "light" editing, that is, making overall contrast and tonal adjsutments, not for selective burning and dodging as you would do in the darkroom and as illustrated by the books recommended above.

 

—Mitch/Paris

Flickr: Photos from Mitch Alland

[Guest malland]

As with Carsten, I too would like to see the original image. I've tinkered with LightZone but it appears to be the kind of program you have to spend a lot of time to get used to.

 

Your image is nice but IMHO it has been pushed past a palpable rendering.

Certainly you cannot learn to work with LightZone in a few minutes; nor can you learn to make fine prints in the darkroom without a great deal of effort: of Photoshop, someone once wrote in a web posting, "Photoshop is not a computer program, it's a way of life."

 

On my picture, I think if anything you may mean that the rendering is all too "palpable". Clearly, this type of print is not to everyone's taste but, to me, it expresses what I wanted for this picture. Here are couple more from the same series, whose rendering may be more delicate:

 

 

 

 

 

 

In commenting on the first one on my flickr site, Howard French, who liked the picture, wrote, "As seen in a dream". I like that comment.

 

You can see the whole series of twenty pictures froma three-day trip last week to Chartre and the Chateaux of the Loire here:

 

Mitch Alland's slideshow on Flickr

 

The street scenes from the town and the river are from Romorantin-Lanthenay, the capital of the Sologne. It's a town ot 20,000 people on the Sauldre river, where I arrived towards sunset last Sunday last week and left Monday after breakfast. The impression was that of natural beauty along the river and a small town, where the young don't have much to do, hence motorcycles and cars driven by youth occasionally roaring down the desolate main street on Sunday evening.

 

—Mitch/Paris

Flickr: Photos from Mitch Alland

[msnyc]

As with Carsten, I too would like to see the original image. I've tinkered with LightZone but it appears to be the kind of program you have to spend a lot of time to get used to.

 

Your image is nice but IMHO it has been pushed past a palpable rendering.

 

I'm not sure what is meant by "a palpable rendering" In any medium of expression all renderings are "palpable" be it Stravinski, Cubism, postwar beebop, contemporary hiphop etc. The real issue is "does it work": and does it convey the intent of the artist. These images work for me and work beautifully -- enough that I intent to purchase Lightzone and make the effort to give my digital black and whites the same feeling.

 

Mitch's images remind me of Eugene Smith's black and white prints heavily manipulated in the darkroom through development by inspection and extensive use of ferrocyanide. I think of Mitch's prints as "digital ferrocyanide" the blacks are exquisite reminiscent of Smith and Bill Brandt and others in this tradition.

 

The beauty of working in a darkroom analogue or digital is that the original image-- be it a negative or a digital negative-- is is not an end point, but rather a starting point to the creative process. There is no endpoint. It's all a continual process. I find what Mitch does with black and white in the digital darkroom is inspirational -- it pushes the digital medium forward and is something to aspire to.

[Guest malland]

...The beauty of working in a darkroom analogue or digital is that the original image-- be it a negative or a digital negative-- is is not an end point, but rather a starting point to the creative process. There is no endpoint. It's all a continual process. I find what Mitch does with black and white in the digital darkroom is inspirational -- it pushes the digital medium forward and is something to aspire to.

Thanks for the kind words msnyc. You state very well the point that the negative is only the starting point. In this connection I would add that it's easy to get into a rut and just keep on applying the same type of processing or look or sensibiloity, say, as in the two pictures above, to all one's work, even to pictures that should be treated differently and have a different look. Indeed, I would have a hard time developing a high-key look, but, of course, some pictures require that.

 

In his landscape book Ray Metzker, a very good photographer, wrote criticising an exhibition by Salgado that all the prints were printed to the "same sensibility". In contrast, Metzker's landscape book has prints with both light and dark sensibility, something that is much more difficult to do than it appears.

 

—Mitch/Paris

Flickr: Photos from Mitch Alland

[ptomsu]

This SW is far too much in its kindergarden age and might need another few months before I would consider using it! Although it seems to have a lot new good features and implementations.

[henning]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Reminds me of Live Image, or something like that from the early 90's, which was supposed to revolutionize image editing. That was when it took just too long to edit 300dpi images of 11x14 or more in Photoshop, and this program was supposed to supplant PS. Didn't happen, of course, but some of the technology remains. Some of the claims and highlights were similar to Naked Light's.

 

Also, I'm not going to upgrade to Leopard while most of my utilities and many plug-ins and drivers are still incompatible, and especially since Lightroom isn't compatible.

 

Henning

[EH21]

Mitch,

 

Their your images and definitely you are the one they need to satisfy. When I wrote palpable, I meant that they are obviously manipulated in post - and I feel the same about most HDR images one sees these days. I'm only voicing my own opinion though. To explain this, I use the example of tattoos. Models I work with often have them and ask me why I want them covered up. Well to me if a tattoo appears in the image then it plant the image firmly in a point in time - like 1990-present when tattoos became ubiquitous - when the image could have been timeless without it. To me the hallmark of digital is the same as a tattoo and I want to cover it up to make my images transparent to that. But again that's my opinion only. YMMV

 

As an aside I find that even minor adjustments to my DMR files robs the image of depth (3D appearance) and leaves the image looking flat. Less so in Flexcolor than in lightroom. Wonder why?

[EH21]

Sorry, They're not their

[Guest malland]

Eric, you should have a look at the two Anselm Adams books, if not at the third book, that I recommended in the response to Carsten above — the point being that my pictures are no more manipulated than what is commonly done in the darkroom. The idea that "straight" prints are better — if that is what you're saying — is a myth that is not supported by the whole history of photography.

 

You say that even slight adjustment of your DMR images ruins their "depth": all I can say is that you'd better learn how to work on your images better. Have you ever done any darkroom work? I assume not, for then you would know what needs to be done to make expressive or fine prints from negatives.

 

—Mitch/Paris

Flickr: Photos from Mitch Alland

[Guest stnami]

Looks like you have brought up that misguided purity caper again if it ain't bullshit then....................http://www.thatsit.biz/Imants/art/Pple.jpg

[EH21]

Eric, you should have a look at the two Anselm Adams books, if not at the third book, that I recommended in the response to Carsten above — the point being that my pictures are no more manipulated than what is commonly done in the darkroom. The idea that "straight" prints are better — if that is what you're saying — is a myth that is not supported by the whole history of photography.

 

—Mitch/Paris

Alland[/url]

 

Sure, but its easier to spot digital manipulation in most cases. I'm not saying that one shouldn't manipulate, I'm just saying that I dislike it when its obvious because I don't see the image behind that. Its like when architects decided to build the buildings with the exoskeleton showing...and now we have a world that gets marketed to with the new XR7 88 mega pixel, 370 horsepower, 19 inch whatzzy. I don't want to see an image that broadcasts that it was edited using a fancy super contrast, shadow lifter, RAW converter. I want to see the composition, the soul, and feel the emotion, think that I was there, etc.

 

 

 

Immants sometimes its impossible to tell who you are directing your comments to or what you are talking about. If you are pointing at me, forget about it.

[rob_x2004]

Eeeyaa...Well if thats Erics site Id certainly be standing in line for his photoshop tutorials.

[Guest malland]

Eric, I enjoyed looking at the pictures on your website, but must say that I hated the music. And I think the latter is how you feel about my first picture in this thread: you don't like this type of photography, and I think you would have a lot of company there — but this has nothing to do with digital processing as I would have printed that picture the same way in the darkroom, with very heavy contrast, as the manipulation would have been just as obvious. It's like your Golden Gate Bridge picture: a lot of people wold ahte the barrel distortion of the wide angle lens, although I like it.

 

—Mitch/Paris

Flickr: Photos from Mitch Alland

[Guest stnami]

PP / photoshop is photoshop, a lot or little still alters the image so it is not straight out of the light box. This sorta negates your purity stance that you have taken in a couple of threads,

You seem to dislike a lot of things

[EH21]

You seem to dislike a lot of things

 

If you want to discuss images, image making tools or something like that then great. That's what this forum is all about and we all won't agree all the time, however there's no place for personal attacks.

[EH21]

Nothing personal here........................ nah didn't think so

 

I wrote about image properties that I like and don't like and not about the people that made them. And yes you didn't think.

[rob_x2004]

This thread is a good one :D :D

[Advertisement]

Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[Guest stnami]

I am thinking about sending a proxie to SF...............

[Veteran]

Many immature people on this forum...