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Has released many great apps for the Mac in the past and these have won countless awards. Recently they unleashed their all-one photo editing softwareThe software takes the idea of a photo editor one step further by allowing the User Interface to adapt to the photographer’s skill level.
This is a revolutionary idea that further pushes the boundaries of digital photo editing.has a free trial and if you are interested in purchasing it you can lukezeme, click the box below to go to the Luminar site or read my lengthy overview and and look at a few Before/After Photos. Luminar is a supercharged photo editor!!!You can use it as a standalone or as a plugin to your favourite Photo editing software including Lightroom, Photoshop and Aperture.
What it does well is allow you to use a plethora of tools (+40 Filters at the time of this article) on the same layer and then stack even more layers on top of these.For beginners it takes the complex and narrows it down to a single click to gain amazing results. For advanced photographers you can get behind the curtain and tweak till your little hearts content. It comes with a built in powerful noise reduction feature, along with a clone-stamp and heal tool plus gradient and radial masks. It allows you to crop and resize your images all whilst working with RAW format.Currently you need to load an image into it from Lightroom or your MAC Finder, but there is a catalogue feature that is very close to being released as a free update to all Luminar users. With the addition of a Library catalogue this makes this one piece of software a direct competitor to Adobe Lightroom.
To answer this question it would be best to first look at what Machpun states about this feature“An adaptive interface that inspires you to do more.While other photo editors make you adapt to their interface, Luminar adapts to your skill level. There is no need to face dozens of sliders if you simply want to remove an object or apply a preset. But if you do need to perform some serious tasks, you’ll easily access all the advanced features.Enjoy using only the tools you need and the features you actually use for your photography.”So what they’re saying is that the User Interface on other software can be too much for beginners where as with Luminar you can just hide all the advanced sliders and just be faced with pictures of preset windows along the bottom. Then if you want to get into the nitty gritty of the presets and filters you can by opening up the sidebar where you will find the Filter Panel, histogram and Layers. All the Filters are adjustable with sliders and it makes the whole process extremely enjoyable to use.There’s nothing new in a photo filter program that offers up thumbnails for its effects, but where Luminar has made advancements is in your ability to control which Filters you have at your disposal. At the time I wrote this blog there were 40 Filters, each with all their little sliders to customise them. At launch I believe there were just over 30 filters and they have been adding new filters with updates.
The Filters (e.g. Clarity, curves, dehaze) are like blocks that can be dropped in and out of filter panel, as well as being reordered within the Panel itself. You can then save a particular set/group of Filters as a Workspace. So if you have say 10 particular filters you use a lot for Portraits you can save these as a Workspace and open it up at any time. A workspace can even be added on another layer on top of another workspace.
As photo guru Trey ratcliff states“he is still using Lightroom to edit his photos and Luminar fits in as another photo editor in his workflow. He also believes that Luminar has 5-7x as many tools as Lightroom”Lightroom still has a few big features that Luminar doesn’t have like the catalogue, as previously mentioned, and others like a lens profile correction. The Lightroom tools like perspective correction and camera + lens profiles are very high quality and aren’t available in Luminar yet. These features are being worked on by the development team at Macphun and will be available in updates soon to all users free.But not everyone wants such pro-features and that’s what is great about Luminar. It knows what it is and it’s VERY good at being that. Not just that, it also has left room to grow from here and really challenge these other photo editing platforms.
As we see future releases it wouldn’t surprise me to start seeing a lot of people converting to Luminar from LR. Mainly because of the cost of Adobe’s CC monthly plans whereas with Luminar there is just the one upfront payment. Plus if you get it on sale and with the use of a discount code like my own (code lukezeme), you can get another 15% off. Trey Ratcliff, world famous photographer & traveler:Luminar is currently only a way to edit your photos. I’m still using Lightroom to organize my photos. But you’ll find the controls in Luminar are much more powerful than the ones in Lightroom. I’d also wager to say that Luminar has 5-7X as many control options as Lightroom.Matt Granger, world-class photographer and educator:Finally a creative editing software that has an intuitive layout that is simple to use and helps me create unique looking images.
Free Download luminar Photo Editor 3.1.0.2888 for Windows, Mac – Luminar Photo Editor is an effective all-in-one picture modifying collection from developer Macphun. The application is piled with beneficial tools as well as functional filters to measure up to the market’s leading apps from Adobe, specifically Photoshop and also Lightroom. For macOS ® AI Powered tools Learn more. Layers & masking. Adaptive Luminar Looks. Content-aware object erase. Free transform tool for layers. 50+ tools for color correction, creative effects, and retouching. RAW file support. Non-destructive editing extension.
Luminar hits the mark in many ways. Firstly the adaptive UI is ground breaking allowing it to be easy to use for beginners and then as the photographer learns more it opens up to reveal quite a lot of advance features. This kind of UI also makes the whole experience a personal one with the software becoming what you want it to be. It can be used by all types of photographers from Landscapes, weddings, portraits, drones and any kind of images you can think of!The amount of presets and variety of them was a breath of fresh air. Where I’ve found myself going back to the same filters in programs like and, I now have a another option to go to- LUMINAR!Personally I like to use Luminar as a plugin launched from Photoshop and then I use other tools to get the final look I need for my prints and web sized images.With the catalogue feature on its way it will be a complete standalone product that doesn’t require Photoshop and Lightroom. Im told this feature is not far off and is a free update, like all Luminar updates thus far. Luminar is built in a way that the developers can supply new tools in their updates.
This is a very powerful way to keep building on an already great product.
Luminar – The new Photo Editor from Macphun (Mac OS ONLY)Today, Macphun software introduced Luminar their new all in one photo editor. (sorry Mac OS only)The key features are the ability to design the Workspace to how you work, Adding or subtracting Modules (filters) to show only the ones you find necessary and work with often but always having those other modules available. The other key feature, if you want to call it that, is simplyprice. At $69 normal price (there are some savings I will talk about at the end of the piece) That’s pretty darn inexpensive in the world of editing software especially when you consider how much power and versatility is built into Luminar. Now I’m a big Adobe fan and have been a user of Photoshop since Photoshop 2. So that’s quite a long time.
And currently a membership to Photoshop CC/Lightroom is $9.99 a month. Now for a professional like me that’s a small expense relative to the other expenses of running a business.
Not everyone is a professional but what if you could get software that offers Pro level performance at a price that’s greatly affordable to people that don’t do this to earn money. That’s where Luminar comes in and very strongly.
Even a Pro may find the feature set to be everything they need. Features of LuminarCustomizable workspaceYou can change the workspace to include only the filters and controls you want. There are also preset controls for such things as Landscape, and Portrait editors. But don’t like those? Simply design your own and save your workspace as you like it.35 FiltersThere are 35 different different filters in Luminar from simple things like Tone, Saturation and Curves to more advance filters such as Top & Bottom Lighting, Orton Effects, Polarizers and even a simple way to add Texture layers. Every one of these filters is fully editablePresetsDon’t like messing with all those sliders? Luminar has 6 Groups of presets with 60 Presets currently.
You’ll be able to make your own custom presets and also presets should be available from some of the artist that use Luminar so you can have their style available to youRAW EditingLuminar is able to open RAW files from dozens of cameras and work on them non-destructively and re-editable (Note: you must save the file as a proprietary.Lmnr file to have this function)LayersEven if you have Lightroom, you don’t have layers. Luminar allows you to have multiple layers and all are very flexible in masking and blend modes. This gives you a ton of power to work on different areas of your photo independently.Standalone or Plug-inLuminar will operate either as a complete standalone or as a Plug-in for Lightroom, Photoshop and Aperture and an Extension for Apple Photos. NOTE: If you want to use Luminar post Lightroom editing, use “Edit in”, if you want to use it before Lightroom edits, use FilePlug-in ExtrasLuminarThere are really a whole host of exciting features but those are the main ones, so let’s take a look at how it all works. Macphun Luminar Workspace ReviewLaunching Luminar as a Standalone (it also works as a Plug-in to Lightroom, Photoshop and Aperture) Is rather straightforward and at open it asks you to open an image. There is no file browser built-in so if you have a messy file system you may be better off launching from a Library such as Lightroom. But navigating to your photos folder is simple and opens quicklyOnce in the workspace, it’s a space you will instantly become comfortable as it has the pretty much standard Image Center/Left and Adjustment Panels right.
At the bottom are the preset. All panels can be turned on or off as you desire.Along the top are a File open button, a share button, zoom controls with an instant 100% button. Next are a Preview button and a split screen preview, to the right are an undo control and the History panel (took me a while to find that one) and finally 4 buttons to turn on or off panelsIt shouldn’t take anyone that worked with Lightroom or other Macphun products much time to get used to.EditingThe first thing you should do is decided on a workspace for how you want to work. Either choose one of the 4 Preset workspaces: Landscape, Street, Portrait or B & W.
Or when first working with Luminar, create your own. The reason I say to do this step first is for two reasons. Laminar doesn’t sticky the last used workspace and secondly, if you change workspaces after you start editing an image, it resets everything to zero or default. At least the first condition is something I hope they work on in later releasesremember this is a BRAND NEW product.Once you have a workspace selected, it’s always possible to add on filters if you feel you need to do other things to your image. And you can turn filters on or off as a group.Working on an image is the normal top down approach.
Start with your basic Tones and then work down from there. The controls are complete but I feel they could have been a bit more responsive and I don’t mean in speed, which was indeed very fast, but in amount of modification to that parameter. Now that may be a good thing since people new to the art tend to like to push things to 11 (Spinal Tap reference) So it may help for people to use more moderation. But I found sometimes I needed to use two different controls to get the strength I needed where I may only use one in Lightroom say. But all in all I found it pretty hard to get things “Goofy” so I liked how everything performed.One thing I didn’t like, and this is nit picking and something a lot of people may not ever notice, is that the Histogram (which is switch able for Luminance and RGB Channels) does not update in real time as you move a slider and only once the adjustment is rendered. I often use the histogram (in real time) to set White and Black Points, so I found that an annoyance.
Though a lot of people don’t even know what it is to set a white and black point so my quibble may be irrelevant to them.There really are a ton of different filters (adjustments) that are available. From basic exposure modules like Tone, Curves, Top and Bottom Lighting (gradient) and Advanced Contrast. And then color adjustments like; Saturation/Vibrance and Color Temperature. Now Color temperature was full manual adjustments but they do have a Remove Color Cast tool which did a fairly good job of making white white.Next up they have a full range or detail enhancements; Clarity, Structure, Orton effect ( Mix of soft and detail in areas of the image), Glow, Detail Enhancer and a few more. I think they could have done with a few less of these controls as some overlap. But people do love these controls as they feel it brings out the pop in an image. But it’s very easy to get too much of a good thing.Finally they have all the finishing touches; Vignetting, Textures, Grain, Sharpening.
Noticeably absent from the finishing touch in the “Filters” section is Noise reduction. Don’t worry it’s there and it is a pared down version of Macphun’s great NR reduction program Noiseless. VERY effective. You’ll find it however on the farthest right side bar, where the crop and clone tools also reside. When you use the Noise reduction, it automatically adds it as a new layer which I found really nice since a lot of times I like to mask the noise reduction to only certain areas.Oh, I forgot to mention there is also a B & Wboth Workspace and Filter. I found it good but I’m really particular about my B & W conversions. If you are just a casual mono converter you’ll find it works just fine.
If you really are into B & W photography, this is the point I think it would be worth investing in Macphun’s own Tonality. A really powerful B & W program. The cool thing is, if you have any of the other Macphun Plug-in or the Creative Kit, you can export your image directly to those as plug-ins.Overall performanceOverall, this worked just great and as advertised. I easily was able to get a great looking image with very little fuss. I did need to alter how I edit a bit differently than I would in LR/PS. But it was intuitive enough that I found the controls i needed to fix what needed fixing without much work.Who this software is forIt really could be used by any skill level, Novice, Intermediate and Advanced.
It’s kind of build as you grow. It offers far more options than Lightroom does and the learning curves is far less than Photoshop. That doesn’t mean the novice would not have a few things to learn about since things like Layers and masks can be very confusing to someone just starting outwell they are confusing to people with a few years under their belt too. But it’s something people could work up to, you don’t need to use layers at all to get a great looking image.
Layers just take the adjustability to the next levelWhat I liked. Well, first and foremost; the price. At $69 all prices, it’s the best bargain in editing software. Second; the feature set, hard to ask for much more or to NEED much more.
Third; Performance, very fast and lightweight. Never seemed to strain the system and was very fast. Refresh happened almost instantaneous without lag. There were a few minor bugs I encountered. But Macphun puts out bug fixes very fast with new software so I doubt they will linger.
Plus the version I was testing was almost but not quite the release candidate.What I didn’t likeNow remember I’m a professional with 20 years of digital editing experience so my needs really won’t be the same as most photographersWhat I wasn’t excited about was:. The Histogram. No File browser or catalog. Now I know they recommend using Lightroom for that, but it seems a bit silly to spend the money for LR if you intended to save money.
Being a quasi RAW editor. But it doesn’t use Mfg.RAW formats or even allow for DNG as an output but I get it. I know what that takes to accomplish.
Inability to preserve layers on output as PSD or TIFF, It will flatten your image. Again this may not be something you would ever have a need for. Especially if Luminar is your only editing software. Polarizer? Mmmmuse a real one. A few new kid in town bugs I’m sure will be fixedTo conclude, Luminar was VERY well done and performed as good as I could ask.
I was pleasantly surprised it was that good at that price!TryThe best thing you can do for yourself, is to Try it yourself. The great thing is you can download and use Luminar for a month and really run it through the wringer and see what YOU like about it. Which in the end is all that mattersif you would like to TRY Luminar before you buy Just follow this linkAnd speaking of price. The full retail price is $69. However for the launch the price will be $59 for a limited time. That’s not all, if you are an existing Macphun Customer, your price is only $49 for a limited timeJust Click The Banner below to Buy and Learn more about Luminar by Macphun’Full FTC Disclosure: I am an Affilate for Macphun as I am for many of the software or products you see in the column on the right or the body of my blog. However I always review with YOU in mind.
Truthfulness is paramount to me and I want you to have the information to make your best decisions. If I truly think something is junk, I won’t trash it. I merely won’t review it. Thank youPeter.
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January 2023
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