Other Software > Found Deals and Discounts
Sagelight Image Editor - pay what you want promo (Apil 2010)
Dormouse:
Remember that the value of batch processing depends on how much you want precisely the same settings applied to each photo.
If you shoot mostly RAW, then you will want to batch process them. But if you are doing that, then you might want to look at a number of other options. I use DxO which tests each lens/camera combination and calculates the corrections needed for each photo setting; that gives DxO much more controlled automatic processing for these parameters (at much greater cost too though). I'm not trying to suggest the use of DxO (or equivalent), but I am saying that HF should be compared with other raw processors if that is a substantial element of what you are interested in. But most people who shoot RAW are well into the advantages/disadvantages of various RAW processors already.
If you aren't interested in RAW, then you have to work out how much you really will want to apply all the same settings across a batch. Mostly, I suspect, if there's the same colour cast across a number of photos.
Looking at the other differences, HF (even in its latest beta) seems to me to be a much more traditional photo processor in approach and Sagelight appears to encourage more playing around. I wouldn't like to hazard any sort of guess or evaluation of which is 'best' without a lot more trying out, but I would say that I see them both as photo processors rather than image editors. I cannot really see how you can sensibly edit images without using layers.
Curt:
one simple example of what I like about the Helicon:
The very first time I was trying Helicon I found this dark and dull demo original:
1920x1280 pixels:
Sagelight Image Editor - pay what you want promo (Apil 2010)
Within in a minute, still the very first time I tried the program, I made this version:
Sagelight Image Editor - pay what you want promo (Apil 2010)
There may be (many?) programs better than Helicon, but few if any as easy to use!
Dormouse:
~ HF has noise reduction - cant find any in SL [I just found a 'Smooth Skin/Image' edit which = Noise Reduction, preview of effect doesnt allow you to zoom in though, so you cant really see effect unless you apply it...]
-tomos (April 08, 2010, 04:14 AM)
--- End quote ---
Discussion of Noise Reduction in Sagelight
And another
Even more discussion on 26th March in the BLOG
Dormouse:
I'm finding the Sagelight forums quite interesting.
Batch processing is coming soon (interesting post on some advantages/disadvantages of raw processing in batches HERE) and layers in v4
Dormouse:
There may be (many?) programs better than Helicon, but few if any as easy to use!
-Curt (April 11, 2010, 02:17 AM)
--- End quote ---
It all depends on what is meant by easy to use.
Experienced users who use progs daily find a smooth workflow and shortcuts easaiest.
Users who understand what they want to do find it easy if those things are easily seen.
People who don't really know what they want to do or what is possible need an environment they can play around in or a set of clear instructions.
The limited set of main buttons in the new HF beta includes Chromatic Aberration. How many novice camera users know what that is?
This comes from their webpage:-
Some of the most interesting and unique features are:
* Live preview of all brushes
* Haze compensation
* Spectral sensitivity controls
* Chromatic aberration filter
* Vignetting and barrel corrections
I'm not sure how many people will understand why they would be interested in all these. Or what to do with them.
Don't get me wrong, Helicon Filter is a perfectly good program. I've used it before. And they have other programs that people might find interesting, particularly Helicon Focus which does what it does probably better than anything else around at the moment, including Photoshop. And in some ways it is quite easy to use.
I just feel that the thread was moving away from Sagelight and giving the impression that HF is better. I hadn't even looked at Sagelight before seeing this thread and it seems to me to have a different sort of UI to most photo processing progs and possibly more accessible to a lot of people. I haven't spent a great deal of time looking at Sagelight et, or the HF beta, but at the moment, I'd describe them as different approaches to doing many of the same things. Sagelight probably being in a currently much faster state of development. Whichever suits you best, is the one for you to use.
And there are a lot of free programs out there that do a lot of basic things, and some advanced ones, pretty well too.
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