LightZone 3.1 Released...

[Raist3d]

The problem with Photoshop is what he said but also the whole
approach/interface to it is more powerfull in LightZone. You have a
tone mapper which shows you in the area of the image you are working
on, in real time, how the tones are spread using a 16-zone system
inspired after Adam's zone system (the analogy works within reason).

I know, I played with an earlier version. As I said up front I'm not
knocking it and I found many of the approaches more user-friendly
than Photoshop, but...

LightZone's interface is geared to make these changes fast,
seamlessly, re-editable and easy control over feathering right there
on the masks. In Photoshop (or Paintshop Pro) this is a complete
night mare the moment you want to change anything.

I'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree on that last part. I do
all my editing in a non-destructive way in Photoshop and I have
absolutely no problem going back and changing things. The point I was
trying to make was that LZ certainly offers some clever tools that
work differently from PS but their affects are not unique.

I would love to know how exactly you do this in Photoshop because I have looked and looked and I don't see an easy way. I don't know about CS3, but how do you do non destructive masks in photoshop between the different layers, with feathering (that part I know), and how you change them and modify them if you need to (that's what I want to find out). The closest thing I found is playing with vector selections in PaintShop Pro and I believe Photoshop works similarly, but I have to re-make the masks if I need to change and convert vectors to selections again.

How do you do this then in Photoshop?

--
John Bean [BST/GMT+1] ('British Stupid Time')

PAW 2007 Week 36:
http://waterfoot.smugmug.com/gallery/2321711/3/193058674/Large



Index page: http://waterfoot.smugmug.com
Latest walkabout (30 July 2007):
http://waterfoot.smugmug.com/gallery/3247039

--
Raist3d
Photography Student & Tools/Systems/Gui Vid Games Programmer
Andreas Feininger (1906-1999) at the 1990 interview
'Photographers — idiots, of which there are so
many — say, “Oh, if only I had a Nikon or a
Leica, I could make great photographs.” That’s the
dumbest thing I ever heard in my life. It’s nothing
but a matter of seeing, and thinking, and
interest. That’s what makes a good photograph. And
then rejecting anything that would be bad for the picture.
As I say, the wrong light, the wrong
background, time and so on. Just don’t do it,
not matter how beautiful the subject is.'

 

[John Bean (UK)]

The difference AFAIK is that the layers in LZ are applied
'on-the-fly'... and can be modified, shuffled in order, switched on
and off etc interactively - with vector (and now hue/luminosity)
based masks on each layer.

I've used it Brian, I know that's true. What you wrote earlier when saying that LZ was unique was:

"I suppose it's the combination of a high quality RAW converter with localised control over effects. Everything is applied in layers, and note the blend type is very important (i.e. normal, screen, multiply, soft light etc).
The layers can be switched on and off easily, and it's all very interactive."

And that was where I said there was nothing unique about it, all of that applies to PS too - if you want to work that way (as I do).

My impression of PS is that it's a pixel level paint package, and the
layer adjustments are an afterthought.

Oh dear. That's a bit like saying that a modern dSLR is just an old Zenith with some electronics added as an afterthought ;-)

I wasn't being critical about RT at all Brian, I was just pointing out that "Everything is applied in layers, and note the blend type is very important (i.e. normal, screen, multiply, soft light etc). The layers can be switched on and off easily, and it's all very interactive" would also be an exact description of how I use Photoshop, but it offers me other ways to work as well.

My impression of LZ is it's very quick to use and for many (most?) images it will do the job as well as Photoshop effortlessly. On awkward jobs I ran into restrictions fairly quickly and found I couldn't step outside the LightZone paradigm as I could in Photoshop; things that were simple to fix in PS by resorting to pixel-level editing were impossibly difficult in LZ.

LightZone is what it is but PS can be whatever you want to make it - but with the associated cost of a quite steep learning curve.

--
John Bean [BST/GMT+1] ('British Stupid Time')

PAW 2007 Week 36:
http://waterfoot.smugmug.com/gallery/2321711/3/193058674/Large



Index page: http://waterfoot.smugmug.com
Latest walkabout (30 July 2007):
http://waterfoot.smugmug.com/gallery/3247039

 

[John Bean (UK)]

I would love to know how exactly you do this in Photoshop because I
have looked and looked and I don't see an easy way.

You'll have to ask specifically which part, because an answer to a question like "how to edit non-destructively in Photoshop" needs a library of books to answer comprehensibly.

I generally use adjustment layers - often grouped in sets - and tend to use non-vector masks but that's personal habit, I like the freedom to "paint" on the masks and use pretty much any filter I can use on an image layer.

I make masks using a range of tools and techniques including selections, brushes, combinations with other masks and/or selections/alpha channels, filters, ... the list is huge. The affect is immediately visible of course and can be agjusted in all the usual ways - another huge list.

I don't really know what to say without writing a "how to..." book

how do you do non destructive masks in photoshop
between the different layers, with feathering (that part I know), and
how you change them and modify them if you need to (that's what I
want to find out).

I don't understand this question. All masks are non-destructive to the image data and can be edited in pretty much any way you want.

Here's a fairly trivial example of a method I use quite often, applying a "ND grad" non-destructively to an image.

1. Select "quick mask" mode and with the gradient tool draw the gradient you want on the image.
2. Deselect "quick mask" leaving the mask visible as a selection.

3. Add new adjustment layer, I usually use "levels" but it isn't important. The selection appears as a mask in the new layer.
4. Set blending mode to "multiply", adjust opacity to taste.

Ok, I don't follow that menu like an automaton but you get the drift. I can change the mask any rime I want by clicking on it and using almost any tool or filter I could have used on the image itself. The affect of the masked layer has an almost infinite range of adjustment and of course it's completely non-destructive.

If you want more in-depth Photoshop stuff this is rather OT in this forum, but there's lots of good info around. Believe me, PS isn't just a paint program with layers added as an afterthought any more than Windows is just DOS with a GUI added as an afterthought - although they both were, a long time ago

--
John Bean [BST/GMT+1] ('British Stupid Time')

PAW 2007 Week 36:
http://waterfoot.smugmug.com/gallery/2321711/3/193058674/Large



Index page: http://waterfoot.smugmug.com
Latest walkabout (30 July 2007):
http://waterfoot.smugmug.com/gallery/3247039

 

[John Bean (UK)]

The closest thing I found is playing with vector
selections in PaintShop Pro and I believe Photoshop works similarly,
but I have to re-make the masks if I need to change and convert
vectors to selections again.

How do you do this then in Photoshop?

Sorry, I meant to answer this in my last post but wanted to double-check something because I don't really use vector masks at all.

As expected they can be edited much the same as normal layer masks except using a different set of tools. A vector mask contains a path which can be edited by clicking on the thumbnail and using the usual pen and shape tools to modify it. No need to recreate anything. I have no idea why you need to convert to a selection in PSP to edit it but you certainly don't in Photoshop, and of course if you do this it can't be reversed.

--
John Bean [BST/GMT+1] ('British Stupid Time')

PAW 2007 Week 36:
http://waterfoot.smugmug.com/gallery/2321711/3/193058674/Large



Index page: http://waterfoot.smugmug.com
Latest walkabout (30 July 2007):
http://waterfoot.smugmug.com/gallery/3247039

 

[tex]

You'll have to ask specifically which part, because an answer to a
question like "how to edit non-destructively in Photoshop" needs a
library of books to answer comprehensibly.

and this statement, which you repeat in essence again in this post and another down the thread, speaks to the heart of why editing in LZ is so refreshing. power that remains inaccessible is no power at all.

there's no question in my mind that PS/CS is the most "powerful" graphics editing program today that handles photographs, but an entire cottage industry of support has arisen in order to make sense of it. and don't forget all the 'actions' and 'plug-ins', hundreds and hundreds of them, that so many PS/CS users avail themselves of to make their lives easier. the learning curve for true expertise in PS/CS is beyond steep. had adobe not seeded american academe with this program at bargain rates---which allowed many tens of thousands of students de facto 5-fingered discounts----i doubt it would have become significantly bigger than a program like quark, dominant in design circles but not anywhere else.

so, yes, if you need to do absolutely everything to your photos, such as paste human faces onto elephants or make your photo look like a bad 4th generation impressionist painting/pastel, and many other things, dubious and not, then the clear frontrunner is PS/CS [although PSP actually gets my vote---the enormous savings allows for other purchases]. and as far as really tricky shots go, the new improvements to V3.1 allowing for individual color, color range, tonal, and tonal range adjustments will do great service on that score.

i'l make this analogy: in the late 18th and early 19th centuries when britain's navy truly ruled the waves, the most powerful ship, without question, was the ship of the line [1st, 2nd and also 3rd rates]. but by far the most USEFUL ship was the frigate. nelson himself desired more of those. LZ is a frigate, and a beauty she is!

 

[tex]

This is news to me, how would you say the print quality compares with
that of Qimage Pro? I'm about to do some printing to my HP B9180, and
hadn't considered printing directly from LZ?

Kind Regards

Brian

you'll have to make that comparison yourself. i was just about to pull the trigger on a qimage purchase when i saw my LZ results and examined them under my loupe. i can't see how things could be improved, resolution -wise. no joke: some of my prints look better larger than at the size they "should" be printed.

over on the LZ forums are several guys who print out of LZ, including ed wolpov who's a beta tester and formerly working in the commercial printing industry---so he knows about this stuff at a level i don't---and there's another guy who's strictly a large format guy. ed and i have exchanged email and we both agree that the results we are getting straight out of LZ with 8mp cameras FAR EXCEEDS anything either opne of us were able to reliably and routinely get out of a wet darkroom---and for me that meant medium and large format negs, shot with excellent lenses, and printed through a top end minolta and besseler enlargers outfitted with the best enlarging lenses and cold-light heads on the very best papers held flat on a vacuum table.

so try it! now, i will say that i have experienced difficulties printing very dark crepuscular scenes in color. but i don't know if this is an LZ problem, or a problem with the combination of a cheap monitor, radeon graphics card and huey pro callibration [and there are known issues there], and some kind of issue with LZ's gamma=1 editing space [same as LR] vs. what should be the monitor's 2.2 [windows] gamma---but which actually reads more like 1.8, and the epson printer's inability to be set below gamma=1.5. so you see, it's not a straightforward answer....

 

[John Bean (UK)]

You'll have to ask specifically which part, because an answer to a
question like "how to edit non-destructively in Photoshop" needs a
library of books to answer comprehensibly.

and this statement, which you repeat in essence again in this post
and another down the thread, speaks to the heart of why editing in LZ
is so refreshing. power that remains inaccessible is no power at all.

Yes and no

I agree with the sentiment, as I've repeatedly said I'm not being critical of LZ but I am inclined to point out that it's not a replacement for Photoshop. My comment about libraries of books isn't a result of the difficulty of performing normal tasks in PS, more an indication of the vast number of ways any given task can be achieved; you don't need to learn them all, just the ones you need.

And that's why a general question like how to edit non-destructively would need millions of words to answer comprehensively yet my example of one scenario (the ND grad) shows how simple iany one of them can be.

so, yes, if you need to do absolutely everything to your photos, such
as paste human faces onto elephants [snip]

Enough. I won't even pursue this. I use Photoshop for photography, others can use it for graphic art as they wish; this is a meaningless argument against Photoshop as a photographer's editor.

This sub-thread started because I disagreed that Brian's description of the non-destructive layered and masked editing was unique - because it isn't. At no point was I critical about what it does, just that PS (in my case) achieves exactly the same thing in much the same way but the tools used are different. Sadly it's now degenerated into a slanging match about Photoshop and dubious comparisons with 17th century sailing vessels.

Just forget I said anything. PS is junk, all hail LightZone, lord of the universe of image editors.. and all that.

PS: I still actually like LZ despite your arguments

--
John Bean [BST/GMT+1] ('British Stupid Time')

PAW 2007 Week 36:
http://waterfoot.smugmug.com/gallery/2321711/3/193058674/Large



Index page: http://waterfoot.smugmug.com
Latest walkabout (30 July 2007):
http://waterfoot.smugmug.com/gallery/3247039

 

[knoblock]

but powerful photographic post processing tool... it seems to have
been designed from the ground up, by someone who understands
photography from a film developer's point of view, rather than a

I appreciate your comments. I could never understand why it took so long for an application to really live up to the name "photo shop" instead of an image editing application with tools intended for graphic designers and artists to use. I am looking at LightRoom and LightZone or any application that enables a photographer to work with images in photographic terms they are familiar with, exposure, tonality, color, etc. just as they did in the darkroom before digital photography. The camera and the image have not changed, only the technology to achieve it. It's about time photographers had an image processing tool designed for photographers.

--
http://www.flickr.com/photos/knoblock/ Equipment in plan.

Film will only become art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper. -- Jean Cocteau

 

[knoblock]

It is still a deficiency to not offer a dedicated CA correction tool. With LZ in particular, I find it a little preset happy, at least reading the features. I think what photographers want are good tools that manipulate photographic qualities they understand like tonality and color, but not dumbed down presets like "pop" or "glow" etc. Even if they are quality presets, they still are not the same as working with the basic elements of exposure, color, shadows, highlights, which is what worries me about spending a lot on LZ or the other alternatives.

--
http://www.flickr.com/photos/knoblock/ Equipment in plan.

Film will only become art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper. -- Jean Cocteau

 

[Raist3d]

I don't think I have been too clear, but this is the problem with photoshop. I wasn't saying Photoshop doesn't have non destructive editing. And the problem I want to highlight doesn't requires books and books to understand the issue as you pretty much touched on it unless I am missing something.

In photoshop masks are bitmaps. Dealing with the vector masks which are the closest thing to what LightZone does, you need to select, convert to masks, select feathering in the conversion, etc. What do you do if you need to modify these masks (forget about bitmap masks directly created with the paint tools- this has the huge issue that modification requires precisely that- repainting- a process that for using traditional burning/dodge is long as you are literally doing that-painting).

So for the vector masks you would have to modify them, then convert them to a selection (correct me here, this is the same PaintShop Pro issue also), then create a mask with a particular setting of feathering, then somehow bind it to the adjustment layer (forgot the exact process). These are many steps. This is what LIghtzone gives you in the end except in LightZone you do it all in real time and directly.

Your masks reshapes, literally, in real time as you adjust the countours, bezier curves or straight poly lines. No need to convert to a selection and then create a mask. Feathering is readily available at all times right there in the countour of the outlines as part of the interface by having a 2nd outline next to it that you can shape to your visual satisfaction of how it should end. Correct me here but this iterative process alone in photoshop would mean several vector selects-> convert to selection-> create mask-> type feathering, -> hit ok.

This in LightZone is bread n' butter, realtime, readily accessible at all times.

It is precisely in this sense that LightZone is far more tuned to be a Photographer digital darkroom aide, while Photoshop shows that it was NOT designed at first with photography in mind, and more like digital painting (nothing wrong with digital painting, but it's just not photography).

Also in LightZone all selections are inherently an adjustment layer.. there's no real separation between the two - either they are a global adjustment layer change or a layer bound to several selections (masks, the same thing in LightZone). All lightzone tools are heavily tailored towards dealing with local detail contrast, zones of intensity- all far more important to photography, in my opinion.

--
Raist3d
Photography Student & Tools/Systems/Gui Vid Games Programmer
Andreas Feininger (1906-1999) at the 1990 interview
'Photographers — idiots, of which there are so
many — say, “Oh, if only I had a Nikon or a
Leica, I could make great photographs.” That’s the
dumbest thing I ever heard in my life. It’s nothing
but a matter of seeing, and thinking, and
interest. That’s what makes a good photograph. And
then rejecting anything that would be bad for the picture.
As I say, the wrong light, the wrong
background, time and so on. Just don’t do it,
not matter how beautiful the subject is.'

 

[Raist3d]

The closest thing I found is playing with vector
selections in PaintShop Pro and I believe Photoshop works similarly,
but I have to re-make the masks if I need to change and convert
vectors to selections again.

How do you do this then in Photoshop?

Sorry, I meant to answer this in my last post but wanted to
double-check something because I don't really use vector masks at all.

As expected they can be edited much the same as normal layer masks
except using a different set of tools. A vector mask contains a path
which can be edited by clicking on the thumbnail and using the usual
pen and shape tools to modify it. No need to recreate anything. I
have no idea why you need to convert to a selection in PSP to edit it
but you certainly don't in Photoshop, and of course if you do this it
can't be reversed.

Correct me here, but I am not talking about doing a vector outline per se. Can you do a vector mask with feathering inside, bound to an adjustment layer? This is what I want to know. I looked in Photoshop for this and was never able to find it. Maybe CS3? Haven't played with CS3.

In PSP you also keep the vector, the issue is how you get feathering from a vector mask.. and if you do so in realtime for an adjustment layer. Never seen this in Photoshop or PSP, so if Photoshop has that now, that's what I am interested to know about - how.

--
John Bean [BST/GMT+1] ('British Stupid Time')

PAW 2007 Week 36:
http://waterfoot.smugmug.com/gallery/2321711/3/193058674/Large



Index page: http://waterfoot.smugmug.com
Latest walkabout (30 July 2007):
http://waterfoot.smugmug.com/gallery/3247039

--
Raist3d
Photography Student & Tools/Systems/Gui Vid Games Programmer
Andreas Feininger (1906-1999) at the 1990 interview
'Photographers — idiots, of which there are so
many — say, “Oh, if only I had a Nikon or a
Leica, I could make great photographs.” That’s the
dumbest thing I ever heard in my life. It’s nothing
but a matter of seeing, and thinking, and
interest. That’s what makes a good photograph. And
then rejecting anything that would be bad for the picture.
As I say, the wrong light, the wrong
background, time and so on. Just don’t do it,
not matter how beautiful the subject is.'

 

[Raist3d]

Brian Mosley wrote:

LightZone is what it is but PS can be whatever you want to make it -
but with the associated cost of a quite steep learning curve.

But I find this statement as absurd as those you have found on those who referred to Photoshop. I am going to download CS3 and see if I can find what I am looking for, regarding LZ's key functionality.

--
John Bean [BST/GMT+1] ('British Stupid Time')

PAW 2007 Week 36:
http://waterfoot.smugmug.com/gallery/2321711/3/193058674/Large



Index page: http://waterfoot.smugmug.com
Latest walkabout (30 July 2007):
http://waterfoot.smugmug.com/gallery/3247039

--
Raist3d
Photography Student & Tools/Systems/Gui Vid Games Programmer
Andreas Feininger (1906-1999) at the 1990 interview
'Photographers — idiots, of which there are so
many — say, “Oh, if only I had a Nikon or a
Leica, I could make great photographs.” That’s the
dumbest thing I ever heard in my life. It’s nothing
but a matter of seeing, and thinking, and
interest. That’s what makes a good photograph. And
then rejecting anything that would be bad for the picture.
As I say, the wrong light, the wrong
background, time and so on. Just don’t do it,
not matter how beautiful the subject is.'

 

[tex]

a number of us on the forums, earlier adopters and really earlier adopters, were kinda dismayed to see these.

but never fear: they do not clutter up the GUI---they're safely tucked away in the 'styles' menu [used to be 'templates', which again, most of us preferred]. basically they are simply tool stacks and are therefore manipulatable several are downright goofy or wrong-headed or aesthetically extremely dubious. some others are interesting to look at though to see a tool used in a way you might not consider initially. i've examined them for that purpose and learned a thing or two, even though i would never use them. it's so easy to create your own templates according to your own vision.

 

[Raist3d]

Seems like they have the paths concept. With that you need to create a selection and do the feathering. You have to convert just like in PSP.

You can't use vector masks with feathering directly, so when you edit those, you also have to convert to a selection (path first?) to get any feathering control.

Maybe I am missing something, since I used this a little and looked at the help, but Photoshop just can't do what LightZone is doing.

Editing with painting tools a mask, in layers, is not image-destructive, but IT IS mask destructive. It's all pixels, no mathematical recreation possible at all. This is what separates LightZone here and why it's so important.

Anyway, maybe I am missing something, you tell me

--
Raist3d
Photography Student & Tools/Systems/Gui Vid Games Programmer
Andreas Feininger (1906-1999) at the 1990 interview
'Photographers — idiots, of which there are so
many — say, “Oh, if only I had a Nikon or a
Leica, I could make great photographs.” That’s the
dumbest thing I ever heard in my life. It’s nothing
but a matter of seeing, and thinking, and
interest. That’s what makes a good photograph. And
then rejecting anything that would be bad for the picture.
As I say, the wrong light, the wrong
background, time and so on. Just don’t do it,
not matter how beautiful the subject is.'

 

[tex]

....or to degrade the thread!

I agree with the sentiment, as I've repeatedly said I'm not being
critical of LZ but I am inclined to point out that it's not a
replacement for Photoshop.

and that point is taken, if one is thinking in graphics terms. after all, CS stands for "creative suite" and it includes paint, web, and animation modules that work with it. and CS3 has some of that stuff built in. i mean, the original designers themselves have gone on record that their impulse to develop LightRoom was because they wanted to build a photography centered program from the ground up that was architecturally different. so LZ can indeed be a replacement for PS/CS if one is thinking strictly in photographic terms.

My comment about libraries of books isn't
a result of the difficulty of performing normal tasks in PS, more an
indication of the vast number of ways any given task can be achieved;
you don't need to learn them all, just the ones you need.

well, there are lots of forums here and elsewhere are filled with posts from people still struggling to find just the ones they need. i don't recall ever reading a post extolling the easiness of use of PS/CS. and therein lies a real problem---hence the designers developed a new program....

Enough. I won't even pursue this. I use Photoshop for photography,
others can use it for graphic art as they wish; this is a meaningless
argument against Photoshop as a photographer's editor.

hmmm, tetchy. again, my intent was not to insult or demean, but the fact is that photoshop is specifically designed to do just those very things, so it is not a meaningless argument at all. it's an argument about a huge program [even partisan afficionados deem it 'bloatware'] not designed to be photography specific versus one that has been.

This sub-thread started because I disagreed that Brian's description
of the non-destructive layered and masked editing was unique -
because it isn't.

and you were correct about that particular point.

At no point was I critical about what it does, just
that PS (in my case) achieves exactly the same thing in much the same
way but the tools used are different.

that's a bit more debateable

Sadly it's now degenerated into
a slanging match about Photoshop and dubious comparisons with 17th
century sailing vessels.

well, 18th and 19th century ones to be precise ;-} and that analogy was specifically crafted to be complementary to you in the fondest way, cousin.

Just forget I said anything. PS is junk,

no, just a bit of a beast...

all hail LightZone, lord of
the universe of image editors.. and all that.

AHHH! we have come to an agreement, i see ;-)

PS: I still actually like LZ despite your arguments

and maybe one day because of them.....matey.

 

[John Bean (UK)]

Correct me here, but I am not talking about doing a vector outline
per se. Can you do a vector mask with feathering inside, bound to an
adjustment layer?

Yes, that's exactly what I did before posting, just to check it actually worked as I expected it to.

This is what I want to know. I looked in Photoshop
for this and was never able to find it. Maybe CS3? Haven't played
with CS3.

Dunno about CS3 but it works fine in CS2.

I created a vector shape with a combination of shape and pen tools then created a new adjustment layer adding the shape as a vector mask. Then I altered the layer so the affect on the image was obvious, finally I modified the vector mask (in situ) using the pen tools, adding and removing points and making it fit some curves. I also adding feathering.

I prefer using bitmap masks in Photoshop because that's what I'm used to, but the vector masks are fine with a bit of a mental gear shift by me. If you want only vector masks I readily agree that LightZone's tools are much more elegant and easy to use, I've never claimed otherwise.

I'll state again (!): I disagreed only that LZ's underlying structure of masked layers and non-destructive editing was unique as Brian seemed to think, nothing more. In particular I made absolutely no critical comments about the tools it gives the user to interact with the underlying structure, they're actually very good at what they do and quite easy to use, especially for someone fairly new to image editing.

I never, ever recommend Photoshop to a new user because of the learning curve, but that isn't the point here; all I asserted was that PS can do things the way LZ does if that's what is needed, and it can.

Of course PS is a nightmare to a new user but any "old hand" can do things in seconds that takes much longer in other editors because PS has backdoors into almost everything - shortcuts abound, but are useful only when you learn to use them. A beginners first choice as an editor it's not.

--
John Bean [BST/GMT+1] ('British Stupid Time')

PAW 2007 Week 36:
http://waterfoot.smugmug.com/gallery/2321711/3/193058674/Large



Index page: http://waterfoot.smugmug.com
Latest walkabout (30 July 2007):
http://waterfoot.smugmug.com/gallery/3247039

 

[John Bean (UK)]

Seems like they have the paths concept. With that you need to create
a selection and do the feathering. You have to convert just like in
PSP.

No, I answered this elsewhere.

You can't use vector masks with feathering directly, so when you edit
those, you also have to convert to a selection (path first?) to get
any feathering control.

No

Maybe I am missing something, since I used this a little and looked
at the help, but Photoshop just can't do what LightZone is doing.

Maybe it changed in some version, I don't really use vector masks in anger. But in my CS2 I drew a path, made an adjustment layer using the path as a vector mask and then modified the mask in various ways including adding feathering. I used only vector tools and at no point made use of selections.

Worked exactly as I imagined it would, I didn't even need to consult the help.

Anyway, maybe I am missing something, you tell me

Well, I've tried my best to do just that but seem to be failing

--
John Bean [BST/GMT+1] ('British Stupid Time')

PAW 2007 Week 36:
http://waterfoot.smugmug.com/gallery/2321711/3/193058674/Large



Index page: http://waterfoot.smugmug.com
Latest walkabout (30 July 2007):
http://waterfoot.smugmug.com/gallery/3247039

 

[John Bean (UK)]

LightZone is what it is but PS can be whatever you want to make it -
but with the associated cost of a quite steep learning curve.

But I find this statement as absurd as those you have found on those
who referred to Photoshop.

Whatever. I can edit any way I want in PS, both on a bitmap or a vector basis. My choice, not the program's.

LZ does editing in only one way - the way the authors chose to do it. You get no choice.

Now that's great if LZ does all you want because it does it in a simpler and more elegant way than PS. But that's all it can do, and that's what I meant by my "absurd" statement.

--
John Bean [BST/GMT+1] ('British Stupid Time')

PAW 2007 Week 36:
http://waterfoot.smugmug.com/gallery/2321711/3/193058674/Large



Index page: http://waterfoot.smugmug.com
Latest walkabout (30 July 2007):
http://waterfoot.smugmug.com/gallery/3247039

 

[Scott Whittemore]

... my CS2 I drew a path, made an adjustment layer using
the path as a vector mask and then modified the mask in various ways
including adding feathering. I used only vector tools and at no point
made use of selections.

Not to belabor the point but, did you then save the file, go off & do something else, come back a few days later, open the file, decide to re-adjust the mask and find it there, still a vector path with all of its control handles still intact and ready for further adjustment? If you'd been working in LightZone, you would have. And the file you had saved could have just been a small lzn.jpg file alongside the original RAW file, as opposed to a huge PSD file.

--
Scott
http://smwhittemore.smugmug.com/

 

[John Bean (UK)]

... my CS2 I drew a path, made an adjustment layer using
the path as a vector mask and then modified the mask in various ways
including adding feathering. I used only vector tools and at no point
made use of selections.

Not to belabor the point but, did you then save the file, go off & do
something else, come back a few days later, open the file, decide to
re-adjust the mask and find it there, still a vector path with all of
its control handles still intact and ready for further adjustment? If
you'd been working in LightZone, you would have. And the file you had
saved could have just been a small lzn.jpg file alongside the
original RAW file, as opposed to a huge PSD file.

The path being used as a vector mask gets saved, yes. The vector tools in PS ave very different to LZ so comparison of presentation to the user is pointless, but the underlying vector mask can be non-destructively edited in PS and is saved with the file and can be edited further on reloading the file later.

Vector masks would be a bit pointless if they vanished when you saved the session.

--
John Bean [BST/GMT+1] ('British Stupid Time')

PAW 2007 Week 36:
http://waterfoot.smugmug.com/gallery/2321711/3/193058674/Large



Index page: http://waterfoot.smugmug.com
Latest walkabout (30 July 2007):
http://waterfoot.smugmug.com/gallery/3247039