@ Soren Christensen, # 14: Seeing as you claim to be a "professional photographer", how about giving everyone here the reasons -- in your expert opinion -- why this software is the "best and excellent alternative to other professional photo programs"? Or are you another fantasist who comes on here, peddling day-dreams that help neither the GAOTD community nor the developer?

As a retired semi-pro photographer who has worked with digital post-processing since Adobe's Photoshop 5 around 15 years ago, I'm well aware of what's out there in the marketplace as both freeware and commercial ware. Photoshop continues to deliver everything that's needed for post-processing, but also continues to be a massive over-kill in terms of price and facilities for the ordinary average home camera user: it costs too much; it does too much.

Today's GAOTD is pitched at those who, very sensibly, want image management software better tailored to their needs and their pockets. I thought I'd give this a little run through, so-oo. . .

This is the first time I've ever experienced difficulties with a GAOTD download. I wound up with a 3.14MB set-up, 6.33MB .gcd wraspper, and a 1kb text file. All that set-up achieved was to open a GOATD activation confirmed web page. The software installer didn't run at all. Two further attempts to achieve this with a fresh download achieved nothing either, so I went to the developer's site and DL'd from there.

Initial encounter with Light Developer was anything but impressive. Far from looking like an alternative to expensive pro software like Photoshop CS, it acted like it thought it was Picasa, opening the 'My Pictures' folder and populating the screen with image after image in which I've no interest at all. Any work-in-progress that I have is contained in Photography/Year/Month folder/sub-folders in C: My Documents.

Ignoring the Picasa-find-everything-and-show-all time-wasting routine, I used Windows Explorer to select an image file I'd like to look at / work on, and right-clicked to see if Light Developer appeared as an "open with" option. It didn't. I could always waste yet more time, going into C: Programs to make a shortcut to the executable. . . but really, this kind of context-sensitive omission is pretty naff in software retailing at $79.

After eventually getting to the image I wished to work on, Light Developer came up with an array of tools and options, the righthand side of the screen looking like a stripped-down early Photoshop version and the left, a stripped-down version of Photoshop's biggest rival (see later), a selection of various sliders and adjustments -- some of which, sadly, were not helped by bizarre translations of their function from the original German into English, viz: Enhance dynamic by bleding defog result. Er yes. Well.

Putting the image through various standard post-processing routines certainly showed how versatile this program is -- but unfortunately, how unintuitive it can often be: commendably lightweight though it is, there's a heck of a learning curve involved.

As to results? Generally, they're very good -- once you've figured out how to navigate around the program and have mastered its options and tools. But. . . and this really is a BIG "but". . .

The time taken to master Light Developer is only going to be worth it if the retail price of Light Developer is worth it. And it isn't. Free today though it may be, the prospect of having to fork out $79 for a re-install is. . . Absurd.

And the reason why it's absurd is because at $79, Light Developer is directly up against an image management program that's so far beyond Light Developer's class that comparison between the two is downright. . . Embarrassing.

That other program is, of course, Sagelight Image Editor, the go-to software of any photographer who can't be bothered with Photoshop CS and would like something that in many respects out-performs Photoshop anyway. Sagelight has been years in development and is backed by one of the best user forums around. It also has by far the best help, best context-sensitive operating routines, best video instructions and, well. . . It leaves all other pro software standing when it comes to learning-as-you-use:

http://www.sagelighteditor.com/

Currently, Sagelight is on offer at half the price of Light Developer. There's also a 90-day full program free trial available, so it's possible for any GAOTDer here today to download and run and compare Light Editor and Sagelight side-by-side and make her or his own decision.

To me, there's actually no contest. Light Player is a genuine attempt to provide a software program in the semi-premium class but at $79 is flattened by Sagelight at one end of the market and freeware Photoscape at the other. Taking time to master it as today's freebie makes sense only if it's likely to be a $79 keeper at the inevitable re-install time. . . and at $79, it's $50 too much.

Thanks, then, GAOTD and the developer, but no thanks.

MikeR  –  12 years ago  –  ¿Te ha parecido útil este comentario? si | no (+99)

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Installed and activated great (XP), program does nothing but the usual photo adjustments only this one has a very awkward interface.
Awkward enough to make me uninstall it after 15 minutes of use.
$79? I look forward to reading what others here think.

jimsock  –  12 years ago  –  ¿Te ha parecido útil este comentario? si | no (+84)

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How do I say this nicely?

I appreciate that programmers do their best trying to bring something swell to the end user, and they deserve thanks and appreciation for that.

Now, programmers, please, please, -p-l-e-a-s-e-:

Pretend that you have used a computer before, and
pretend that your end user audience has used a computer before.

So ...

MENU: please put a menu bar in view all the time that is logically structured to contain every feature your program has to offer.

KEYBOARD: please make your menu bar available via the keyboard, such as [ Alt ][ F ] File, then [ S ] Save, or [ A ] Save As, and so on.

MOUSE: -p-l-e-a-s-e- make every place we can place our mouse have a left-click and right-click menu allowing us to inspect and control the thing we are pointing at.

Please let us know when you have accomplished those minimum standards before releasing your next version for us to test.

Thank you very much.

See also prior posts on GOTD about allowing us to resize windows, with the ability to view the entire contents of what we are looking at inside the windows, and allowing us to take action on each item displayed.

==========

Now, regarding this program's three (or more) strikes: I presume the programmers want feedback, so here goes:

1 - If you don't want to work with less than 2 GB RAM, then say that before proceeding with install. It installed but failed to run on my 512 MB PC, yet installed and ran on my 1 GB PC, so I presume we're just dealing with bloated programming and lack of install pre-check.

But, how do I recover from perpetual crashing "... Light Developer has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience ..." during program load on even a 4 GB PC, I'll never know unless the programmers respond here.

I uninstalled and reinstalled it, but it appears to have inherited the prior version's defaults even after uninstall. I had changed the default directory to C:\DCIM instead of C:\My Documents\My Pictures, and the new re-install tries to load C:\DCIM even after removing the first version of the program and reinstalling a new one fresh -- go figure.

So, it crashes on load, and I cannot change settings, and I cannot test it further, but then, why would I want to test it further?

2 - If you're going to "develop" any image file as if you were in a chemical darkroom working with undeveloped film, then handle any Raw image file out there, especially the billions of legacy Raw files in dozens of Raw formats from cameras that still work and work well, Raw image files that FREE Picasa and FREE IrfanView handle without hesitation. Your program doesn't recognize my thousands and thousands of legacy Minolta Raw files, so again, why bother with your program?

3 - You do not allow us to view file lists in any format but thumbnails, you do not allow us to , search, re-sort, and select results through any displayed list, you do not show file name extensions, so how are we to manage different formats of the same file, such as JPG and TIF and PSD and Raw copies of the same filename?

4 - Your web site offers 32 and 64 bit versions, but GOTD only says this version works in 32 and 64 bit environments, so I presume this is only the 32 bit version.

5 - Price wise, Corel's AfterShot Pro for $40 has no such failures, reads all Raw files, has excellent noise reduction AND lens corrections, all manually controllable or automatic if we choose not to spend time tweaking individual files, and is -w-a-y- less expensive than $80 Stepok Light Developer. Trial: http://apps.corel.com/lp/aftershot/download/index.html

Off it goes. Please let us know when you've addressed our concerns, especially my own litany above.

Peter Blaise  –  12 years ago  –  ¿Te ha parecido útil este comentario? si | no (+84)

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I have Photoscape (Free) on my system and also Lightroom.

Having read the comments so far concluded that this is probably a 'personal choice' judgement so decided to test it for myself. Slow response & jerky. Very hit & miss with the 'Developing' sliders - not smooth. Not easy or indeed, natural to use and it doesn't have a pro feel about it. The animations are nice tho.

Against Photoscape this fails. It is a much more intuitive offering.

But I do urge anyone to try this as it just might fit in with your normal MO, but sadly, it doesn't, mine.

Thanks anyway GAOTD.

Terry  –  12 years ago  –  ¿Te ha parecido útil este comentario? si | no (+63)

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I like this little application-- it's fast on older hardware and opened my RAW files effortlessly. Good intuitive non-destructive see-what-you-get sliders. Plenty of tool tips, nice clean interface. It may not replace my everyday photo processing app, but I can see using it on my laptop for very quick previewing and white balance checking/adjustment. A keeper!

Darrel  –  12 years ago  –  ¿Te ha parecido útil este comentario? si | no (+44)

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