Works for color, but for BW, it analyzes the shade of gray into zones as in the Ansel Adams zone system. I worked with it years ago. This year it was resurrected by open-source org...
The Zone System is a photographic technique for determining optimal film exposure and development, formulated by Ansel Adams and Fred Archer in 1941. Many man-hours in the darkroom for Ansel Adams's landscapes made him forever famous; few shared his passion and patience.

The 11 zones in Ansel Adams’ system were defined to represent the gradation of all the different tonal values you would see in a black and white print, with zone 5 being middle gray, zone 0 being pure black (with no detail), and zone 10 being pure white (with no detail). Theoretically, each zone represents one f-stop in exposure. You’ll also notice there is then an 11-stop difference between pure black and pure white, with a 7-stop difference between the darkest black with detail and the lightest white with detail."

Wikipedia reports that "In mid-September, 2011, the Light Crafts website went offline without notice. It was reported that Fabio Riccardi, founder of Light Crafts and the primary developer of LightZone, was now working as an Apple.

Good News the zone system was reborn This is especially useful for IR with 720+ nm filter that yields BW images as well as those who love B&W photography. I had it years ago and I started a search... Photoshop has it version that only works in Photoshop. That prompted me to search, I found my old copy in my programs and that gave some direction but I encountered many dead ends until success... I found it and the free download.

"A zone preview at the top of the column divides the image into zones corresponding to these shades of gray. You can use the Zone Mapper to stretch or compress individual tonal ranges, and you will see the changes reflected in both the Zones preview and the image. [Isolates particular zones, shades, as I recall and leaves other zones alone]
By default, the settings are applied to your image globally, but there is also the Regions tool, which allows you to isolate areas of the image and apply corrections only to them. You can draw areas in the form of polygons, splines or Bezier curves."

About 25 years ago my wife bought me a woodworking lathe and a set of chisels. I had taken woodwork in high school in the 1950's and was a millwright / machinist until I retired in 2009. According to my wife, I had been telling her for most of our married life, (58yrs tomorrow), just how much fun lathe work was. She decided to put the matter to rest and buy me a lathe of my own.
For a number of reasons, the lathe remained in its un-opened box for many years. Eventually I did get it set up in a spare room and got to work. Results were a bit disappointing at first but I gradually improved, until about 2 years ago when I had a slight mishap. In a split second of less than total concentration, the beast snatched a chisel out of my hands, and threw it back at me. Somehow it wove its way between my fingers, point first, then slapped the back of my hand down onto the lathe bed.
Nothing broken and no stitches needed, but what a mess! It's all healed up with hardly any scars, but I am a bit nervous now and not quite as bold as I used to be. Everything is on hold right now anyway, as I await a replacement part for my obsolescent speed selector.
Looking back, the mishap with the chisel may have been partly because of an earlier mishap 11 years ago. My left forearm was disarticulated when our late stallion bit it off. It was successfully re-attached, but it has left me with a dexterity issue. That's a story for another time.
Hopefully I will have the lathe up and running again some time soon, but meanwhile I have attached a few examples of my bowls.

My trip to South America and Antarctica in January and February provided a wonderful variety of scenery and wildlife to photograph. While I've posted photos of some of the birds, the main focus of the trip, taken on land and from the deck of a cruise ship (see prior posts in the bird photos subdirectory), we also enjoyed wonderful views of the unique scenery and some non-avian wildlife, which I present here.

Fur Seals and Elephant Seals frequent the icy Antarctic, where cold currents foster lots of food. While we didn't see a lot of these pinnipeds, they did show up from time to time. This Fur Seal is shows the ears, long foreflippers, the ability to walk on all fours that demonstrate its closer relationship to Sea Lions than true seals.

I was fascinated by the iceberg that immediately reminded me of Moby Dick, the great white sperm whale in Herman Melville's whaling novel. (I cut off the other end of the iceberg to emphasize the "wholeness" I saw). While we did see Sperm Whales in the Antarctic waters, none of them were white and none were as huge as Melville's creature.

After a day of rain, snow, and fog when we first entered Antarctic waters, we were greeted by glacial, scenic views as we sailed south along the Antarctic Peninsula. I've included several photos of the beautiful but stark scenery, which is disappearing as global warming cuts back the ice fields.

Not really sure which are better swimmers, dolphins or penguins, but both were wonderful sights to behold. These Long-nosed Common Dolphins porpoised in and out of the surface of the icy waters, accompanying our ship for a while before bounding off on their own errands (presumably in search of food).

Fin Whales are the second larges whale species...after the Blue Whale. We saw several species of whale in the cold, southern waters, including a Blue Whale, Fin Whales, Humpbacked Whales, Sperm Whales, and Minke Whales. The icy waters of the Antarctic produce an abundance of krill and fish that attract the whales and other mammals and birds. While we saw a nice variety of whales during our cruise, a couple of weeks before we got there these waters were filled with over a thousand whales of varies species. That would have been fun to see. This photo shows the large, somewhat unique blow hole of the Fin Whale. A baleen whale, a Fin Whale eats up to 2 tons of food each day, taking large volumes of water into their mouths and then straining out krill and other creatures as they force the water out through their baleen. It was fun to watch for whale spouts and try to identify the whale from the spout, which varied in size and form...some being fairly compact and vertical, while others were broader and larger.

I'll probably post one or two more sets of bird photos, but hopefully you'll enjoy these even if you're not into bird photography. If you want to see penguins...see my previous post of just penguins.

jak

Since there is now a discussion about UPS, let me give you just one example of how bad USPS is in St. Louis.

I have all my packages delivered to an independent owned hardware store, hence avoiding Porch Pirates. One package to be delivered Saturday by USPS was never delivered. They claim the store was closed during their attempted delivery at 9:30. Interesting since the store was opened at 8AM, and staffed by four employees.

That is typical of USPS here. Maybe it is better where you live.
Bill

who has done so many nice things for me!!!

His real name is Donald but everyone calls him "Deeder".

Deeder has worked for me many times over the years, and even now that I'm retired (For all intents & purpose) he

still comes around.

Anyway...he rarely excepts money from me. (And others) So one night over a couple of cold ones, I ask him if he

would let me do a Portrait of him. After he listened to what I had to say (And it wasn't easy!) he agreed.

I did the attached Portrait of him earlier this month. He hasn't seen it yet, but he will in a few days.

I assure you...he will "TRY TO PAY ME"...but it will be my turn to "LAUGH & WALK AWAY!

Superb work, Boone.
--Bob
Shoot Specs:

Camera: Nikon D750
Lens: Nikon 24-120, f/4 @ 85 mm.
4 light set up.

Please Note: The white lines on the outer edges of the image, these are "Guidelines For Me" during my mounting procedure. "These Will Not Be Seen" on the final image.

Thanks,
Boone.