Farewell to a great product

[wdezell]

It's with a bit of sadness though not surprise I see the that the old link is now dead (http://www-old.lightcrafts.com/linux) and apparently LZ for Linux is no more. I'm not really surprised because I once dropped the "support" e-mail a brief thank you note for making such a great product available to the Linux community and received in response a rather abrupt "we DON'T support Linux" response (paraphrased).

I used 2.4 long enough to get used to its radical (to me) interface and fell in love with it. I was really hoping to see a 3.x become available (even for purchase) because I wanted Fill Light and hoped to see lens correction at some point. I've purchased Bibble Pro in the interim and am extremely impressed with its power (and price) and now have the two key features I was holding out for. In some respects, though, I honestly feel like I've taken a step backwards. Maybe the impression will dispell as I conquer the learning curve of a new (and powerful) program but it's certainly not as easy yet to get the results I was getting with Light Zone.

Kudos, LightCrafts, for making a great product for Linux and for making it freely available as you did. I regret to see the direction you have now taken. You will be missed.

Bill Ezell
Bill@CLM-Software.com,
Professional Software Engineer/Amateur Photographer

[Vaclav Stepan]

I've been using LightZone 2.1 for several months, as for certain tasks it's approach is rather elegant and it's faster to work with then using Gimp.
Now, when I changed to a camera supporting RAW capture, one of my first steps were to Light Crafts to see how the Linux version is going.

I know you at Light Crafts never supported Linux. But can we hope for that?

[jascha]

I just built a new desktop for myself and I was so happy I had saved the last 2.4 install when I went to look for latest. I would gladly pay the same price as Windows/Mac people do for the current version of LightZone. Since if I have to buy Parellels to run a Windows version of a photo editing suite I will go with LightRoom.

The saddest part is I just finished an article for JPG Magazine on building a digital darkroom using Linux. With LightZone being the centerpoint of the article. Time to do some heavy editing!

[pcls]

Yes. The latest version of LZ, available to purchase for Linux would indeed be wonderful. I too had come to depend upon LZ2.4. So my wish is for the release of the latest version in Linux.