Managing the Future of LightZone for Linux

[HDave]

I would also like to thank you guys for create a great product like this for Linux. I have used Adobe Camera Raw (and Bridge) for several years -- and am still trying out Lightroom. However, I have recently switched from Windows to Ubuntu because it is a better operating system. Do I like that Ubuntu is free? Sure, but I'd have paid for it all the same.

Likewise, if your product ends up being better than ACR, I'll be happy to pony up the $300 (or whatever you'll end up charging).

[mtwells]

Thank you for creating this product! I'm using it on Ubuntu 7.10, with Compiz, and it works flawlessly. It's fabulous. The install was uneventful, and everything just works. I would pay for this product as is.

[ScottMcGregor]

Today was my last day working at Light Crafts, but it definitely won't be the last time I use LightZone.

I am greatly appreciative of all the support that loyal Linux users have given Light Crafts. If, like me, you desire to continue having a Linux version of LightZone, please keep running the Beta and communicating problems you come across -- and remember to also communicate if there are no problems in the Beta. It is only through your communications that Light Crafts employees will know whether LightZone is stable enough on the common platforms to become a production release.

At this time you should direct all such communications to marketing@lightcrafts.com.

All the best to all of you.

[MarkusR]

Thank you for this great product! I would certainly pay for it.

[JLK]

Scott,

Good luck with your future endeavors!!!

Jim

[ScottMcGregor]

JLK,

Thank you for the good wishes. While I sort out what I want to do next in my life, I have also been reflecting over what Light Crafts and Light Zone means to me, and I'd like to share some of my thoughts with you all here.

My time as COO at Light Crafts was incredibly rewarding, and I invested a lot of time and personal energy into improving the current product's quality and usability, increasing communication with the customer base, re-establishing a connection to Linux users and contributing design ideas for products under development.

Although it has been about a month now since my departure from LC, and while I no longer have a personal financial stake in its success, I find myself still very emotionally connected to LC and I am both hopeful and concerned about its future.

Today, as a fellow user of LZ, I very much want the company to succeed for all the same reasons the rest of the members of this forum do. But as someone who has been involved in managing many companies through this stage of their evolution, I can perhaps offer some insights into the problems that companies like LC have to deal with, and more importantly, what we as users can do about it!

Light Crafts has incredibly talented employees capable of building truly astounding products. But like many companies, there are so many things to do and too few people to accomplish them all quickly. As is so often the case, available money determines what can be done, and when it can be done by. In this example, money means both money in the bank (raised from private investors) and money coming in from sales.

We users have the ability to influence both of these factors -- often much more so than many of us realize.

I am hopeful that some of the changes made in the last few months, especially the short LZ videos produced by Mark Heliger that are now on the Learning Center and on YouTube, will lead to more publicity for the product, and to greater adoption by new trial users.

Such a result would not only give the company more short term capital to work with (due to increased sales), but would improve its ability to raise substantial long term capital (new investment $) needed to grow and deliver even more of these capabilities we all want.

There are two things we can do to more directly affect the fate of the products we love:

1) We can write emails to management about company initiatives we value.

To ensure that the efforts we approve of continue, we users can (and should) write letters to management concerning what we think they are doing right! Such customer validation letters can be a powerful force when presented in a board room, or shared with potential investors enabling management to demonstrate customer recognized value of these programs to those investors whose funds are used to create these programs.

When I was COO, I greatly valued these emails, and I wish I had recieved far more.

Without such written evidence and customer guidance, boards of directors and senior management may not be sure which programs to continue or increase vs. which to cut. And when money is tight it is all the more critical that the available money is spent effectively!

We can email these letters to fabio@lightcrafts.com (Founder, CEO) and to beth@lightcrafts.com (VP Marketing).

2) We can help evangelize LZ.

Individually, we users may not be able to affect sales that much. We already have our copy and don't need to buy another one -- unless there is a major release requiring a paid upgrade. We can show our annoyance with decisions by NOT buying such an upgrade -- but this will only make it harder for the company to find money to implement the programs we want.

But collectively, we users have a lot of power! Together we can be a powerful evangelical force for LightZone, especially readers of this forum, because LINUX users know how to communicate with others! Imagine what happens if each current LZ user sings the praises of LZ to two friends and convinces them each to watch the new LZ training videos on YouTube, and if the videos convince them that LZ is a simpler way to improve their photos, to try it for themselves, and tell two more friends. Think what might happen:

Today, I may be one lonely voice singing the praises of LZ -- I can be easily ignored, people might just think I'm crazy. But I email the link to a couple friends.

Tomorrow, maybe there are two people watching the videos, getting excited, mailing links to their friends singing the praises of LZ in harmony -- people might just think they are both a little weird.

But then the next day, there are three people watching the videos, getting excited, mailing links to friends singing the praises of LZ -- other people might start to think it is a secret organization.

When fifty people a day are watching the videos, shouting and screaming and singing the praises of LZ, well maybe then the mainstream journalists will take note -- and then it will become a movement.

And that's just what it is, the LightZone Anti-Complexity Photo Enhancement Movement.

Once word of the Movement starts to get around, there are soon thousands, tens of thousands, and maybe even hundreds of thousands of people watching the LZ videos on YouTube, getting exciting, joining the LightZone Anti-Complexity Photo Enhancement Movement and shouting and screaming and singing about how this is how anti-complexity photo editing is supposed to be.

With tens of thousands of LZ videos viewed each day, these videos become some of the most popular on YouTube! Even people who haven't been sent links about these videos will check them out to find out what is so interesting that so many other people have viewed those videos.

And they will see for themselves that here is a product that can dramatically improve their digital photos with only a few clicks. Not the lengthy learning curve and complexity they fear they might face if they wanted to master Photoshop well enough to accomplish the same improvements.

When the LZ videos on YouTube reach that level, pretty soon LZ will be more than an underground hit. Having become a Movement the mainstream press will want to start talking about the new thing sweeping the nation in their own columns, blogs, podcasts, radio and TV shows.

And soon everyone will know about LightZone, the easy to use photo editor, which like David, has come out to challenge Adobe's Goliath.

That's an interesting news story, capable of selling a lot of copies.

And once LZ gets regular mainstream press attention, LC sales will be growing faster -- improving short term cash flow -- and LC will be in a far better position to raise long term investment money. And that money can be used to hire even more talented people to complete all the features we have been asking for.

Wishing you, and Light Crafts, all the best,

Scott McGregor InnovationStrategist@smcgregor.com
Innovation and New Product Strategist
"Transforming Innovative Technology into Market Making New Products"

[Obi-Wan]

Originally Posted by ScottMcGregor

Today, I may be one lonely voice singing the praises of LZ -- I can be easily ignored, people might just think I'm crazy. But I email the link to a couple friends.

Tomorrow, maybe there are two people watching the videos, getting excited, mailing links to their friends singing the praises of LZ in harmony -- people might just think they are both a little weird.

But then the next day, there are three people watching the videos, getting excited, mailing links to friends singing the praises of LZ -- other people might start to think it is a secret organization.

When fifty people a day are watching the videos, shouting and screaming and singing the praises of LZ, well maybe then the mainstream journalists will take note -- and then it will become a movement.

And that's just what it is, the LightZone Anti-Complexity Photo Enhancement Movement.

<whistling> You can get anything you want...

I'm just glad there's more than two of us already!

[JLK]

Hi Scott,

That was a nice follow-up. You know, the first time I tried Lightzone---I didn't get it (maybe v 1.1). Same for the second time. The third time---it finally clicked. I started smiling. And as someone who doesn't like to spend a lot of money on editing software---I said to myself that if I wanted these guys to succeed, I should pony up for a full license. Which I did.

Since then, it's been evangelization on the 'one user at a time' scale. Slow, but I have seen people recognize the value in this new paradigm---and it's great to see their eyes light up when they get it.

You make a lot of terrific points---I know that I'd certainly like to see wider adoption of this software, and it's good to hear that the management team is open to communication. It's hard to know this at times, because communication with the users has been spotty at best. But I'm impressed with the new Learning center (it addresses some of the need regarding 'manuals'), and I hope that the development crew continues to take feedback and incorportate new features into the products...

Still looking for support for Foveon x3f files... I can understand that it might not be on top of the list, however!

Best,

Jim

[ScottMcGregor]

Like Jim, it took me a while for LZ to "click". I mean, I got it conceptually quite quickly, but developing an instinct about which tool or style to use, and in which order, when to use color selection vs. region selection, how far to push various settings, developing good habits with regards to ReLight and ZoneMapper settings, etc. all took a lot of trial and error.

I could see what Fabio could do instinctively to improve a photo in just a few seconds, but I couldn't figure out his thought process, and it was so automatic and fast for him that it was difficult to model his thought process.

But after spending just 15 minutes watching Mark Heliger's videos I instantly became a more effective LZ user -- even after 6 months of learning by trial and error.

The problem of today's photo editors is that when you first use them it is like being a novice and walking into a darkroom for the very first time. There are lots of bottles of various chemicals lying around, but their names are not meaningful to you and you don't know what to use them for, in what concentrations, length of time, or even which order to use them. In that situation, it may seem like what you want is a manual.

But I've worked on improving the learning and usability of over 25 different products, and as much as people say they want a manual, when you watch them try to LEARN a product or USE a product, you see that isn't quite really what the want -- They are feeling unstable and a pair of crutches seems like a better choice to lean on than just falling over. But we they really want is a better sense of balance so the crutches are unnecessary. And the request for manuals are like that. What people really want is to know what to do WITHOUT a manual.

That may seem like a tall demand for complex products, and a great many companies just give the customer a pair of crutches (manual) because that what the user asked for.

But actually, there are some really great examples of companies who teach 1st time users very complex skills without a manual. Their customers are very demanding and expect to learn enough to successfully master all the basics of these complex products in just 5 minutes -- and that isn't time to READ about all the complexities, let alone practice it.

Who are these companies that make complex software that people use easily without a manual, and how do they do it?

They are arcade video game manufacturers. They have to teach you everything you need to know to have a successful experience in just the time you get after putting in that first coin.

The first arcade game, SpaceWar, came with a 20 page "manual" attached by a string to the game housing. Not surprisingly, the string was easily broken, and the manual lost. And even when it wasn't not many people wanted to read a 20 page manual before playing a game. SpaceWar was a huge flop.

Nolan Bushnell learned from that first mistake, and created his second Arcade game, Pong, and Pong was a huge success.

What was different? Well the full Pong "manual" was now stenciled to the game housing, so it couldn't be lost: "1) Insert quarter to start game. 2) Turn dials to move paddles to hit ball. 3) Avoid missing for high score." It was pretty amazing that people correctly intuited that the rectangles were "paddles" and the moving square was a "ball", but they did!

And a key to why they correctly intuited these names will also help us to see why instruction 1) was necessary. The other thing that Pong did differently than SpaceWar was that it when it was "between games" the program ran a simulation of a game. Instruction 1) was necessary, because without it naive customers would wait for the game in progress to end.

Today, this "simulation mode" is usually referred to as "attract mode" by video game designers. Loud noises and flashing lights, etc. are used to attract the attention of potential customers away from other games who also have flashing lights and loud noises.

But attract mode has an even more important purpose that was first demonstrated in Pong -- Attract mode showed potential customers how to use the game, even before they put in their first coin. This not only helped sell the prospect on the idea that they might want to try playing the game, but it also simultaneously was showing them what success looked like and how to achieve it -- without reading a manual.

Since Pong, every successful arcade game has used attract mode in this way. Strangely, this powerful concept hasn't penetrated desktop software so effectively. So I wasn't surprised that LC had not applied this concept, and I made it my top priority while at LC.

I felt sure it would greatly improve both adoption and usability of LZ if a good "attract mode" implementation was done.

The trick is to make sure that people see those animations before trying the product. Putting animated banners on the web site, with before and after pictures and the name of the one click tool that changed the images, was the first step to implementing "attract mode" for LightZone. By putting these banners on the web pages, prospective customers would see for themselves what to expect before (or while) they downloaded and installed and before they used the product the first time.

Mark did a great job with the banners, but that was just the first step. The banners show you WHAT you can do with LightZone. But they didn't teach you enough about HOW to use it.

This is the second step, where Mark's videos come into the strategy. The videos show HOW to use it. Adding the videos to the Website (in the learning center) and into the product (in the 3.5) release completed the second step in implementing attract mode for LightZone.

Mark has done a great job with the both the web page banners and the learning videos. They are short, to the point, and people can learn to make impressive changes to their own photos with just a click. They can even practice on the same images themselves using the downloadable copies of the initial images and final images (step 3!).

Putting the videos on YouTube is the fourth step in implementing the attract mode strategy. The banners and videos on the LC website are great for people that already know about LC and where to get LZ. But they don't reach people that don't come to the LC website. By putting the videos on YouTube, it is like bringing the arcade game out of the back room into the main space. Yes, your noises and flashing lights are competing with all the other competing noises and flashing lights -- but if your attract mode is good you just might start getting some play.

The last step is "word of mouth". The flashing lights and loud noises can only get you so far. But a bunch of committed players pointing out which machine to play to all the newbies who wander into the arcade can do much more.

LC marketing has done what it needed to do to get attract mode into place in a public venue where millions of people can see it. -- now it is up to us fanatical users to tell others to "check out the video on YouTube".

The world, as I see it,

Scott McGregor

[direancora]

I say this because my experience over the past several hours has been very reassuring and not only does this version meet my general needs, it has a well thought out, intuitive design and implementation.

Right now I'm just waiting on some prints (I use http://www.drycreekphoto.com/icc/ profiles) to come back so that I can compare the conversion and image quality to some which I have produced using Bibblelabs.

But so far, so good! As it stands, if there are no conversion issues and if it becomes commercial and priced similarly (a little higher is OK, relatively speaking) to the windows & os x versions, you've got my money. I would even settle for a little less support.