RandyDSok
Well-Known Member
Sometimes the difference between a good photo and a great one is just a little bit of post processing to help enhance it or even just to get it to look like what you originally saw when you took the picture.
If you are like me, you've used photo editors in the past and many may have felt they were either too limited or too complex to make it worth the time... Lightzone may make that a thing of the past for you... and it is completely free. It is focused on photo editing and not a full fledged graphics editor like say Adobe Photoshop or Gimp... it is in much the same vein of Adobe's Lightroom software but it works differently but still has a very similar tool/workspace layout as Lightroom does... and of course, you don't have to rent it month to month like you do with Adobe's software.
Lightzone began as a commercial software and then in 2011, the company decided to close business. Later, the owner/author of the software released it into the public domain so the current users wouldn't be left out in the cold and further development could happen to improve it further.
To get a copy... you have to go to the Lightzone Project's website at http://www.lightzoneproject.org/ and create a new account. They will then email you a verification link ( so you can prove you are a human ) that you click on, then fill out your account password and name. Then you will see the link to the download page... They also mention all of that on the website...
They provide how to's and videos to help you familiarize yourself with the software here http://lightzoneproject.org/node/35 ... Their set of Youtube videos including a into can be found here https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGob3KtUcRJqz-GwA5Owbdg ... and they have a forum so users can help each other with their questions etc.
For some examples of what you can do ( and I'm not using RC related photos for these ) ... I'll start with a pic of some clouds I shot with my smartphone... not a DSLR... I liked the general colors, it was nearing sunset so there was some neet magenta-ish hues in the clouds...
Ok... not bad... but there isn't much definition in the clouds and they seem a bit flat because of it... the trees on the left also don't show up very well and in real life they were certainly green even if a bit dark...
So I first used a tool in Lightzone called Relight... it's a simple contrast tool that adjusts shadows, highlights, details and fuzzyness... it's got several blend modes available but I just used the normal one and applied it to the whole pic. This really brought out the cloud details and the colors just seemed to pop better. Then... on the next layer, I used it again, this time I had selected just the color of the trees for it to work on... again made a couple of adjustments and
That was it... I didn't do anything more and the pic got a lot more dramatic and not near as flat looking.
Now for another example... this one is almost all about the contrast. Last January ( 2015 ) I captured a pic of Comet Lovejoy along with the star cluster Pleiades. The comet wasn't visible in town to the naked eye ( it was out in darker skys )... so I was pretty happy when I found the little fuzzy green blob ( it wasn't an exciting comet by any means ) in the picture. I used the photo tools I had at the time to do what I could to improve it... the following was the best I could get it without a bunch of color noise ( spots ) starting to show up...
The Pleiades is the bluish loose cluster of stars on the right side just above the center with a blueish haze on them ( that's the nebula they are in )... Comet Lovejoy is the green fuzzy blob on the right side of the pic just below center...
With Lightzone... using the Relight tool again, I was able to increase the contrast much further than before by excluding the background ( black ) from having it's contrast increased... so I was able to brighten the stars and comet without brightening the background which would have had a lot of noise show up... anyway... it was a simple one step set of adjustments...
Those are just a couple examples of how powerful Lightzone can be by only using a couple of simple steps.
Now... while the following wasn't done in Lightzone... I thought I should still have at least one RC plane in this post...
( Tony, this is Gordon's little white plane he flies/flew with pontoons on it, took this shot at the VA center )
Now go get a copy of Lightzone for yourself... and tweak those favorite pics of your planes, heli's, boats, cars or trucks... or whatever you want for that matter. BTW... some of your pics you may not have liked at first, could be a gem in the rough just waiting for you to tweak it out.
If you are like me, you've used photo editors in the past and many may have felt they were either too limited or too complex to make it worth the time... Lightzone may make that a thing of the past for you... and it is completely free. It is focused on photo editing and not a full fledged graphics editor like say Adobe Photoshop or Gimp... it is in much the same vein of Adobe's Lightroom software but it works differently but still has a very similar tool/workspace layout as Lightroom does... and of course, you don't have to rent it month to month like you do with Adobe's software.
Lightzone began as a commercial software and then in 2011, the company decided to close business. Later, the owner/author of the software released it into the public domain so the current users wouldn't be left out in the cold and further development could happen to improve it further.
To get a copy... you have to go to the Lightzone Project's website at http://www.lightzoneproject.org/ and create a new account. They will then email you a verification link ( so you can prove you are a human ) that you click on, then fill out your account password and name. Then you will see the link to the download page... They also mention all of that on the website...
They provide how to's and videos to help you familiarize yourself with the software here http://lightzoneproject.org/node/35 ... Their set of Youtube videos including a into can be found here https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGob3KtUcRJqz-GwA5Owbdg ... and they have a forum so users can help each other with their questions etc.
For some examples of what you can do ( and I'm not using RC related photos for these ) ... I'll start with a pic of some clouds I shot with my smartphone... not a DSLR... I liked the general colors, it was nearing sunset so there was some neet magenta-ish hues in the clouds...
Ok... not bad... but there isn't much definition in the clouds and they seem a bit flat because of it... the trees on the left also don't show up very well and in real life they were certainly green even if a bit dark...
So I first used a tool in Lightzone called Relight... it's a simple contrast tool that adjusts shadows, highlights, details and fuzzyness... it's got several blend modes available but I just used the normal one and applied it to the whole pic. This really brought out the cloud details and the colors just seemed to pop better. Then... on the next layer, I used it again, this time I had selected just the color of the trees for it to work on... again made a couple of adjustments and
That was it... I didn't do anything more and the pic got a lot more dramatic and not near as flat looking.
Now for another example... this one is almost all about the contrast. Last January ( 2015 ) I captured a pic of Comet Lovejoy along with the star cluster Pleiades. The comet wasn't visible in town to the naked eye ( it was out in darker skys )... so I was pretty happy when I found the little fuzzy green blob ( it wasn't an exciting comet by any means ) in the picture. I used the photo tools I had at the time to do what I could to improve it... the following was the best I could get it without a bunch of color noise ( spots ) starting to show up...
The Pleiades is the bluish loose cluster of stars on the right side just above the center with a blueish haze on them ( that's the nebula they are in )... Comet Lovejoy is the green fuzzy blob on the right side of the pic just below center...
With Lightzone... using the Relight tool again, I was able to increase the contrast much further than before by excluding the background ( black ) from having it's contrast increased... so I was able to brighten the stars and comet without brightening the background which would have had a lot of noise show up... anyway... it was a simple one step set of adjustments...
Those are just a couple examples of how powerful Lightzone can be by only using a couple of simple steps.
Now... while the following wasn't done in Lightzone... I thought I should still have at least one RC plane in this post...
( Tony, this is Gordon's little white plane he flies/flew with pontoons on it, took this shot at the VA center )
Now go get a copy of Lightzone for yourself... and tweak those favorite pics of your planes, heli's, boats, cars or trucks... or whatever you want for that matter. BTW... some of your pics you may not have liked at first, could be a gem in the rough just waiting for you to tweak it out.
