Get in the Zone and stay on budget with Lightzone 2 Basic.

What are zones anyway?

By now you've heard about "zones" enough to make your head spin, but what is it really all about? After all, Adobe Lightroom offers already four "zones" called Highlights, Brights, Dark, and Shadows and generally speaking a tone curve could provide similar flexibility as the 16 zones in Lightzone.

Well, theory only gets you close since LightCrafts' idea indeed offers a much more powerful approach to the good old tone curve. Simply consider the standard histogram to be divided into 16 even "zones" (±4 stops dynamic range divided into 1/2 stop increments) and you're given the opportunity compress or expand each zone individually. Draggind a single handle expands one side of the histogram while compressing the other. Zone locks (the yellow rectangle in the zone mapper) allow to limit changes to the selected range only and selectively expand or compress a subset of zones. What this means is that you can detail features like shadows or mid tones much better.

Some photographers cringe when hearing about zones and rightfully so when relying on correct exposure and development techniques to separate the correct zones in order to better separate the "object" from the background to name just one application. The difficult part is that proper development requires just the right increase or decrease the film’s development time to achieve the desired flat or contrasty photography style and print well on the chosen photographic paper. Digital techniques make it a lot easier, but still require that zones can be identified either by color or luminosity. Lightzone's ability to define regions can help in cases where the tonal difference isn't in the picture (i.e. to separate similar colors from background and object). The advantage over masks is that zones can be applied to very intricate detail and typically without the stencil effect. As with many tools, it's often easier to describe than actually to master. However, the learning curve is not as steep as achieving the same in Photoshop or any other photo editor of your choice.

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The User interface

Lightzone's overall organization is relatively standard and the full version (as shown in the picture) only adds an explorer-style file browser on the left, an EXIF viewer/editor below that and an organizer panel on the bottom. Based on the same download, the Basic version simply hides those features --which are generally considered workflow tools. Basic concentrates on the process and the main preview gains the real estate of the hidden workflow tool. The palette on the right is both layer organizer and analysis tool (i.e. Zone Finder, Histogram or Sampler) with icons right above to access all available corrections (left to right: Zone Mapper, Tone Mapper, Sharpen, Blur, Hue/Saturation, Color Balance, White Balance, B/W, Noise Reduction, Clone, Spot and Red Eye). Right above the preview window, you find global tools like Crop, Rotate, Preview On/Off, Regions and Zoom. The menu holds more detailed versions of the generic commands including a zoom to fit or actual size.

Most icons convey the underlying effect well enough but some also depart far enough from standard conventions to make the first contact a bit of a quest . With a relatively short time of adapting it's very easy to navigate each tool (once you understood how it works). The Zone Finder is a unique tool to quickly find the level to modify as the preview highlights related pixels that are included in the active zone (one of 16). Functions can be applied multiple times and overlay the original basically like layers in Photoshop. Each function can be global or limited to one or multiple regions. Since each can be applied multiple times with a different purpose, the tab representing each function can be renamed and that certainly helps to jog your memory. To change the order of which effects applied, simply drag the respective tab to the new position.

Lightzone Basic is pretty much marketed as a plug-in or external editor for programs like Adobe Lightroom or Apple Aperture. As such, all workflow tools are disabled and not available, but one is likely to get another program anyway since Lightzone doesn't support optical corrections, chromatic aberration and the sharpening doesn't yield the same quality as DxO and others.

The relatively bright background of Lightzone Basic is slightly distracting, an especially the white background of the EXIF view in the full version, but also the light Grey of the tool panel on the right. At least it's neutral tone and doesn't affect the perception of the color rendition.

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Functions geared towards Photographers

Building on the zone adjustments, both zone mapper and tone mapper are very powerful tools that are currently rather unique. Sure, you can do similar effects in the picture editor of your choice, but this one is specifically geared towards photographers. What that means is that adjustments are done in photo terms like half stops. Beyond the core expertise, Lightzone doesn't offer much out of the ordinary and White Balance as well as Sharpening are average in quality at best. Yet, most standard tools like blur, color balance, saturation, hue, noise reduction and b/w conversion are along the expected features. Slightly unexpected are red eye removal, spot removal (i.e. dust) and especially cloning (i.e. to hide unwanted objects). Missing are any geometry functions and not even horizon leveling is available ... unless you use the rotate tool and guess where it's level. Distortions cannot be corrected with Lightzone.

Lightzone allows very quick result by detailing different exposure zones and tweak them to detail certain feature while compressing others. The picture on the right shows zones at work to extract detail and make the needles separate better from the similarily colored root area. Further, the needle tips (center) were siginficantly darkened for more contrast. While this is somewhat achievable for advanced editors like PhotoPaint, Photoshop and others, the time and expertise needed is condierably less in Lightzone (after understanding the zone concept).

 

From left to Right: Zone Mapper, Tone Mapper, Sharpen, Blur, Hue/Saturation, Color Balance, White Balance, B/W, Noiser Reduction, Clone, Spot and Red Eye

Zone & Tone Mapper: The zone mapper basically divides the histogram into 16 even portions, and the adjustment is done by either boosting or compressing the range of those "zones". Those were discussed earlier and their power is both enabling as well as

Sharpen, Blur, Noise: Sharpening is done to the RGB portion of any picture whether it's RAW or JPEG. The basic Unsharp Mask algorithm is average in both result and flexibility. Gaussian Blur is similarly basic and while helpful in masking off background and reduce distracting detail, it's not a replacement for more powerful blur methods (including motion and radial). Noise reduction is both luminance and chrominance based and results are good, but again nothing to brag about.

Color Corrections: What makes the standard Hue, Stauration and Luminosity adjustment so special is the ability to define the mixing method of the adjustment layer with the picture. (Hard & Soft Light, Average, Screen, Exclusion, Dodge, Burn ...) Combined with the ability to add as many corrections as desired and limit each optionally to its own region, Lightzone provides virtually infinite ways to affect color information. White Balance follows standard conventions and Color Balance allows to shift the whole spectrum analogous to a color filter. The advantage of the WB implementation comes from the regions as that allows to compensate shadows and sunlit portion according to each color temperature. The result can be surprisingly effective.

Clone, Spot, Red Eye: Considering typical application of a RAW converter as a front-end for another pixel editing software, Lightzone surprises with functions that aren't common. While Spot (dust) removal has become rather normal in some applications, the red eye removal is still special. Most unusual, however, is the clone tool that pretty much works like any photo editor (i.e. PhotoPaint) and allows to patch up small portions by copying similar content from another area and blend that into the picture while removing the old content like a light pole or similar objects. As most other funtions, the mixing modes add a layer of power and complexity that's unknown to other editors.

 

Basic RAW conversion is nothing out of the ordinary and limitations in geometry and color fringing as well as sharpening make Lightzone Basic more of a post-processing tool than a universal work horse. See the picture on the right for an example of chromatic aberration not corrected. Nevertheless, three features in Lightzone earn a solid recommendation to purchase this as a specialty editor where others fall short. Typically that's in tough lighting conditions or when global corrections won't work. Given the extreme flexibility of the tone mapper, zone mapper and regions; the shortcomings of the remaining functionality almost becomes insignificant. With 16 bit per color internal processing it's best to start with RAW files or TIFF. Naturally, using 24bit JPEG (8bit per primary) may cause problems to surface quicker as there is less color gamut to work with. This is not Lightzone's fault, but an issue that needs to be considered.

Add the ability to apply changes only to regions (with adjustable feathered masks) and the true power of Lightzone becomes clear. For instance, it's very easy to lighten an eye region while darkening the background in the same process. You can even limit different degrees of modification to individual areas and apply the same twice if a single setting cannot achieve the same result.

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Performance on an average computer

For normal use, Lightzone feels about the same as other established editors. Make a change or add a function and redraw will take a few seconds. Conversion heavily depends on the complexity of the correction and can reach easily a few minutes. Since Basic is stripped of the workflow tools, only one picture is being processed at a time and hands-off batching is not possible. Yet, the interface is responsive and Lightzone 2 supports multi-core processors. It is possible to add a virtually unlimited number of effects and ultimately you're going to be faced with long process times. Restricting it to 5 - 10 layers, however, seems to keep conversion times per picture to well under 1 minute (reference: 8 MPx RAW).

Case in point: The conversion of an 8 MPx portrait with 11 layers applied involved extensive use of regions and zone mapping as well as blur, spot removal, sharpening, white balance, noise reduction and B/W conversion. Converting that picture took roughly 35 seconds on my system with an AMD Athlon X2 4200+ dual core processor and 2 GByte of DDR400 memory.

The CPU diagram on the right shows the usage of a dual core processor (don't get distracted by the physical memory usage as there were a few other programs loaded at the same time). Since the Basic version does not support batch processing, it's worth mentioning that still both cores are utilized. CPU usage fluctuated heaviliy between roughly 20% and 100% indicating good support for dual core technology, but also with some head room for simultaneous batch processing (which is not available in the Basic version).

A much less demanding task where corrections were reduced to one tone mapper and one zone mapper as well as white balance and slight sharpening. There were no regions applied and the conversion completed in roughly 15 seconds on the same equipment as noted above. (Adding B/W conversion didn't show much increase in time and ended up with only 16 seconds.)

Granted, the performance comes in part from the lack of any optical correction (distortion, chromatic aberration etc.), but when those are not needed it's one of the fastest advanced RAW converters. Further, considering that the used test system is average at best for 2007, newer systems could clearly yield faster results, but the benefit of adding cores would have to be relatively low.

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How much computer does it need?

As with most demanding tasks, speed is relative and processing millions of pixels with more or less sophistiated algorithms a demanding task. However, since Lightzone Basic is reduced to a picture editor overall speed is less critical with only one picture at a time. Despite the XML technology, the preview is relatively responsive and most demandig task are redrawn in under 5 seconds. Most adjustments react in real-time, which means the preview updates the moment you change a parameter (slider) and at least with my system it works fairly interactive (i.e. 1 - 2 seconds for a full redraw). This is improved by dividing the picture in subdivisions and prograssively display the changes, or interrupt and restart depending on your actions.

 

I am currently running Lightzone 2.3 successfully on the following configuration ...

– Windows XP/SP2 HE and Vista Home Premium (32bit)
– AMD Athlon X2 4200+ (dual core processor)
– Physical memory of 2 GByte DDR400 (CL2)
– ATI Radeon x1900 XT (graphics card) @ 1600x1200
– ColorVision Spyder2 (for monitor calibration)

 

In order to use Lightzone Basic the following minimum requirements should be met ...

Windows PC:

– Windows XP/SP2 or 2000/SP4
– Windows Vista comaptible
– Pentium 4 (Pentium M) or higher
– 1 GByte RAM (2 GByte recommended)
– 35 MByte disk space for program files
– 1024x768 px display, (16 bit color)

Apple Macintosh:

– OSX Tiger (10.4.3) or higher
– PowerPC G4/G5, or Intel CPU
– 1 GByte RAM (2 GByte recommended)
– 90 MByte disk space for program files
– Sun Java 1.5 or higher
– 1024x768 px display, (16 bit color)

 

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