My Initial Thoughts About The New Luminar 4 Program

Presque Isle Lighthouse, Presque Isle State Park, Erie, Pennsylvania (click to enlarge)
My first attempt at the new AI Sky Replacement feature in this new version of Luminar 4.  I found it very easy to accomplish.  However, the question becomes, "do you really
want to change your images in such a manner as they no longer reflect reality?"  Is the technology serving you or are
you serving it?  To me, this is way over the top and I edited the image this way just for illustration.
Olympus E-M1 Mark II; 12-100mm f/4 PRO lens @ 25mm; 1/640th sec. @ f/5.6; ISO 200

The new version of Skylum's Luminar image editing program has been released.  It is called Luminar 4.  I was a user of the previous versions, Luminar 3 and Luminar 2018.  I wasn't a heavy user, but a casual or occasional user.  Now that I've had a few days to play with the new version I thought I would share my initial thoughts.  This is not a review nor will I explain all of its capabilities.  I want to keep this brief and give you a link if you are interested in pursuing more information about this program.

So what are my initial thoughts about Luminar 4?  I like it.  

I didn’t much care for Luminar 3 or Luminar 2018 as I thought they were cluttered with too many “filters”, which is Skylum's terminology for all of the categories of various sliders you need to edit your images (50 or more?).  The two earlier versions also seemed a bit gimmicky for my taste.  Additionally, I seemed to get inconsistent results and found the earlier versions inconvenient to use on a casual basis.  I guess if I relied solely on Luminar for all of my editing, I would have gotten more comfortable with its interface, terminology and capabilities so my criticism is probably due to my unfamiliarity with the intricacies of the program.  But I'm a Lightroom Classic user mainly because of its relational database with keywords, stars for picks, color codes and other data that can be mined by searching text and the metadata attached to each image file.  Luminar didn't yet provide the absolutely essential (to me) capability to keyword and search by keyword as well as the ability to migrate a Lightroom catalog to Luminar without losing all of your edits and tags.  They have been promising us a robust database for two years.  Did they give it to us?

The interface on version 4 has been completely redesigned.  It can be used as a standalone program or as a plug-in for Photoshop, Lightroom and other programs.  No more Luminar Flex evidently?  It seems to contain all of the capabilities that one needs for most routine editing.  I find it very robust in what it offers.  I have yet to find where I can eliminate chromatic aberration or add corrections for camera and lens combinations that eliminate distortion, vignetting, chromatic aberration, etc.  It may be there, but I have not yet found where.  UPDATE:  I located the correction check boxes/sliders for chromatic aberration, distortion, etc.  However, they seem to all be manual in nature.  I don’t see any ability to engage corrections based upon specific lenses and properties of lenses as is available in other editing programs.

That being said, I find the new version much better and, to me, is logical for the most part.  The new version is easy to use and my preliminary look at some of the new AI features has me impressed.  Some of those features are AI Enhance (makes several simultaneous adjustments to the entire image), AI Sky Enhancer, AI Sky Replacement (basically one click), AI Structure, AI Skin Enhancer and AI Portrait Enhancer.  Also there are sliders they call "smart."  If you are interested in diving deeply into all of its features and the nuances of its AI features, you can read all about the program and these advanced features here.  

Same image but with a light editing treatment in Lightroom Classic.  This is much closer to reality.  It was around 9:30 in the morning and the sun was three-quarter backlighting the lighthouse.  Although this is close to what I actually saw, I would
continue with additional editing but not as much as the illustration above so as the final version met what my mind's eye saw. (click to enlarge)

One thing that I want to mention.  My good friend and fellow photographer , Dave Hileman (TwoLaneTouring.com), uses Luminar exclusively for all of his image editing.  He is a big fan and knows his way around the program.  He tells me the "Smart Tone" feature seems to have gone away.  That was one of his most used and favorite features of Luminar 3.  I'm not that much of a user to know but maybe one of you who has Luminar 4 can help?  Is it still there but under another name?  Has it been incorporated into another function?  I don't know but if you do, let me know so I can pass the word on to him.

Still, there is no promised “catalog” or database that they have now promised us for the last two years.  (I thought I remembered the company president at the time saying there would be no cost for upgrades until after the database had been provided as promised.  Maybe the "Library" was substituted but it is no real substitution for a relational database with keywording, etc.)  I plan on continuing to play with Luminar 4 and I will probably use it on select images when the AI will dramatically reduce the editing that has to be done (I'm in the process of devising a shooting technique so my files are pretty much optimized and little editing has to be done later.  But that may be an exercise in futility).  On some image files just using AI Enhance and AI Sky Enhancement alone almost does almost all of the necessary editing for me.  I can see some very streamlined editing being done in this new version.  

I'm sure there are a number of Luminar 4 tutorials out there.  You may want to look at some of the video tutorials on YouTube.  I have found Anthony Morganti's and Jim Nix's free YouTube tutorials quite informative.  If you have found others that are better, please share so we all can benefit.

Is Luminar the be all to end all?  Not hardly.  It does have some really nice capabilities but it also is lacking capabilities that I feel are mandatory, especially a relational database with the ability to keyword all of my images.  I have over 170,000 images in my Lightroom catalog with most of those images having been edited in some way as well as thousands tagged, flagged or starred in some manner.  Also, 95% of my files contain keywords.  I would be absolutely lost in trying to find what I'm looking for without a database system built into Luminar.  Until Skylum finds a way to migrate Lightroom files into Luminar and keep all editing settings, not lose keywords, stars, colors, collections, etc., I can only use it as a plug-in.  Maybe one day.  Until then, Lightroom will remain my go-to editing program.

If you have experience or comments, please leave them as your knowledge may help others.

Join me over at Instagram @dennisamook or my website, www.dennismook.com. 

Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

Dennis A. Mook 

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