Over the weekend I began to learn more about LightZone, which is one of the best photo editing programs available to Linux users (it’s also cross-platform).
I have previously tended to use DarkTable more often. LightZone is easier to learn, but is still quite a powerful non-destructive editor. It handles RAW formats of many cameras, has built in styles, and seems to have a more logical workflow. As in DarkTable or GIMP, one can select parts of an image to work on separately.
Years ago, LightZone was a commercial program, but its source was later released on GitHub. Since then it has been maintained by a couple of developers who have not always had enough time to give to the project. However recently it has been showing some new development. The version has been bumped up from 4.5.2 (available as a flatpak to 5.0 beta, which is available in a Debian depository. Yesterday I filed bug reports on two issues, and already today a new beta was released, which resolves the more substantive issue. Thanks to Masahiro Kitagawa, the current main developer, for this quick action. The ability to reach out to and communicate with developers is the best aspect of using open source software.
Additional resources for LightZone: