Luminar is not trying to replace Photoshop in my opinion, I think it’s specifically going after the users of Adobe’s industry standard Lightroom in both look and price. This is where the review is a little less subjective and I try to be more objective about adding Luminar to your editing workflow. What Differentiates Luminar from Other Editing Platforms One more point is that it doesn’t seem to handle TIFF files very well, though this could be due to my old computer trying to process those files. That is why I use it as a compliment to my editing workflow rather than the starting point. Combining multiple exposures into one exposure in Luminar cannot be done to the best of my knowledge. It’s more work that sending it from an HDR filter but I feel that it is a better way to process photos and achieves the look that I’m pursuing. One of the staples of my workflow is hand-blending images that I bracketed into one single image. While pointing out some of the great features of Luminar, I would be doing a disservice if I didn’t mention some limitations and how they affect my workflow. If you have Adobe Lightroom, you’ll feel at home with Luminar 2018. The user interface was designed to cater to those who use Lightroom because it is very similar to Lightroom, down to the module design and color scheme. A few of the other highlights include features you won’t see in Lightroom, such as dodging and burning and the aforementioned sun rays filter. Overall I do feel that my editing workflow has benefitted from having Luminar 2018 in addition to other software. I wouldn’t use Luminar 2018 for every image that I process because it simply isn’t needed but it does compliment and work well with certain images. None of the effects that I have employed are drastic and aren’t even apparent but all contribute to making my desired end result.Īs with any image editor, it all comes down to how it compliments your image editing workflow. This is what I would consider one of my editing strengths, making subtle adjustments to produce a more pleasing image. The overall effect is one that I’m quite fond of and is something that would resemble what I would do in Photoshop yet I was able to so in a more intuitive user interface that is easier to use. The next image was edited using the standard filter modules but I also added a few more filters like the Orton Effect filter, a polarizing filter, their advanced contrast filters, and the rest of the “professional” module (highlights, shadows, whites, blacks, dehaze, lens distortion, chromatic aberration, and saturation/vibrance). Let’s take a look a set of more advanced filters now. Which is what I ended up doing in the end, but I wanted to show these two photos to give the readers an idea of the limitations with Luminar too. I don’t believe any photo editing software could fix that blown out sky though and only multiple exposures blended together would create a good result. You’ll notice that the edited photo came out decent but of course there were still problems with the photo that Luminar couldn’t fix like the blown out sky. Here’s a very basic edit of a photo that I processed using their standard modules such as highlights, shadows, and dehaze as well as some of their AI assist filters like AI Sky Enhancer and Accent AI Filter. While moving the slider to 100% produces a pretty drastic edit, this filter can be utilized very well. What I’m assuming is that the AI evaluated color parameters of a photo and makes smart adjustments as you turn up the slider. Where Luminar differs from Goolge Color Efex is in the AI filters that are pretty impressive. The features of Luminar 2018 are pretty exhaustive and most of the features resides in their massive filters library, similar to Google Color Efex in that there are a lot of filters to achieve a certain look. I’m not affiliated with Skylum Software and did not receive Luminar 2018 for free or a discount for reviewing, I bought this with my money. How do I use it? What differentiates it from other popular platforms? Is it worth the money? Before spending your money on software, carefully weigh the features and decide if it is something that is truly needed. I’m reviewing Luminar 2018 on this blog and I hope to establish the following in my review. As with any software, it’s all about your perceived value of what it will bring to your editing workflow. There are so many plugins and integrations out there for the photographer’s digital toolkit it can be hard to know if technology is “worth” the money.
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