Press Release: New Digital Photo Editing and Image Processing Software
Debuts at DEMOfall 2005
Palo Alto, Calif. and Huntington Beach, Calif. --
September 20, 2005 -- Light Crafts, Inc. today announced LightZone for Mac OS X
Tiger. Unlike the pixel-paint model of many existing applications, LightZone
allows photographers to edit and process their images in terms of light and
objects instead of pixels. Designed specifically for photographers, the
intuitive solution significantly reduces the time necessary to produce better
photographs and optimizes the images for print or other media output.
LightZone for Mac OS X Tiger photo editing software
was publicly previewed for the first time at DEMOfall 2005. The annual DEMO
conference is one of the world's premier forums for new technology innovations
and focuses on emerging technologies and new products, which are hand-selected
from across the spectrum of the technology marketplace.
"Photographers want solutions that let them
spend more time on photography and less time learning technology and painting
with pixels," said Dean Tucker, CEO and president of Light Crafts. "LightZone
takes advantage of the integrated color management features of Mac OS X Tiger
and is designed to give serious photographers an advanced image processing
solution developed from the bottom up for digital photography.”
“The power, stability and ease-of-use of
Mac OS X has made it the operating system of choice for the majority of
professional photographers worldwide,” said Ron Okamoto, Apple’s
vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations. “We’re delighted
that LightZone has taken advantage of graphics processing innovations in Tiger
to create an excellent image editing application.”
“LightZone’s photographer-friendly
design and the quality of its editing and processing features will fundamentally
improve the workflow of professional photographers,” said Chris Shipley,
executive producer, DEMOfall 2005. “LightZone dramatically reduces the
time to perfect digital photographs and delivers more predictable and precise
results.
Significant Improvements in
Processing, Output and Productivity
Key
features in LightZone include:
StudioFinder™ An innovative image viewer
and file browser, StudioZone lets photographers view, organize, print and
publish their photographs using a true digital negative format. An integrated
RAW converter provides a seamless digital workflow from camera media to
LightZone.
ZoneFinder™ ZoneFinder
analyzes an image, recognizes and segments the digital negative, then displays
the shapes, light and color values in the same way photographers pre-visualize
their photographs.
ZoneMapper™
ZoneMapper provides an easier way to control and adjust the light and tonal
values of an image. ZoneMapper is the most powerful way for photographers to
precisely remap tonal values for color correction, contrast correction and to
set the optimal points for highlights and shadows.
RegionMapper™ Unlike the layer and mask
tools used by pixel-painting software, RegionMapper is the easiest way to select
areas and shapes in an image, intelligently and automatically blending the
transformations in the selected regions with the rest of the image. Light Crafts
Launches LightZone at DEMOfall 2005
Non-Destructive Editing LightZone treats the
original image as a digital negative, so the original image file is always
unchanged. Transformations made to the photograph are saved separately in such a
way that tells the application how the edited image should be displayed or
printed.
Linear color space Instead of a
gamma-corrected color space, LightZone works in a linear color space, allowing
more precise control and improved transformations and consistent color and
predictable results on a display or on paper.
About Light Crafts, Inc.
Light Crafts, based in Palo Alto, develops
digital photo processing software for professional and prosumer photographers.
For more information, visit www.lightcrafts.com
###
Light
Crafts, LightZone, RegionMapper, StudioZone, ZoneFinder and ZoneMapper are
trademarks of Light Crafts, Inc. All other trademarks and registered trademarks
are the property of their respective owners.
Company Contact
Dean Tucker
CEO and President
dean@lightcrafts.com
(650) 331-1989
Media Contact
Mike Jackman
Jackman Communications
mike@jackman.com
(415) 388-3216
Posted: Tue - September 20, 2005 at 07:44 PM