Luminar 4: After 4 days
A couple days ago, I got my Mac, and started setting it up for my workflow, which meant installing everything I need for my work and everything else. Since I am into photography, I was on the lookout for a good editing software. I am no professional and took photography as a hobby so what I was looking for was ease of use, something that makes my work fast, and the most important, something that does not break my bank account.
Like anyone else, the first option I came across was Adobe Lightroom. One of the most popular option, and it is good, really good. I had used it earlier a bit, and watched videos on it, with all it’s tools, intuitive UI and simplicity it really is one of the best editing software out there. But it’s not perfect , far from it — it’s pricing model. Adobe Lightroom has a subscription model and that was the biggest turn off for me. I looked up the plans and at ₹797 per month it’s not cheap. [link]
And my search began, again, looking for a software that was perfect for me. I read various reviews, multiple articles and finally landed at Luminar by Skylum.
Enter Luminar 4 and with it’s one time payment model — ₹6330 one time payment — , and so many positive reviews, I was impressed. Fortunately it offers 7 day free trial, and I decided to work on it in 7 days, explore it as much as possible and make a final decision, whether it is Luminar or Lightroom.
So a few keyboard and mouse clicks and a few seconds of installation, and here I was, Luminar 4, trial — looking at a very familiar start screen, and familiar tools.
The basic panels for editing, light, colour, noise reduction, structure and detail enhancement are very similar to Lightroom, which made the transition very easy.
Then there are some features of Lightroom like masks, which in my opinion are much more direct as compared to their implementation in Luminar. Both in Lightroom and Luminar, by default all the changes that you do affect the complete picture. When it comes to changing a specific part of the photo, the two diverge.
From my little experience and some YouTube tutorials, in Lightroom, you apply one of the masks and in addition to the global changes done earlier, this mask has it’s own set of tools. For example in the above picture if I had to do some changes to the bird, I’d select the brush, mask the bird and then for that mask I have all the tools that are requried. Pretty straightforward, and easy, when you want to focus on a specific part of the photo.
In Luminar on the other hand, the way is different. In Luminar you have to use an Adjustment Layer. On top of the original photo, you add the Adjustment Layer, and in the adjustment layer use the mask to just select the bird. Now there are two layers, the first one being the image itself, and then the adjustment layer on top, that affects the bird
While both of these are good methods on their own, the Luminar way offers much more customization that can be done. With the adjustment layer, you essentially get the ability to use all the tools that Luminar offers — basic and AI enhancements — on that one specific part of the photo, which really is great. Not saying that the Lightroom implementation is not as good, but I found the Luminar way to be better.
Conclusion
Having said all this, I have used Luminar for only 4 days now, and till now I have found it to be quite intuitive, easy to use and fun to work with it. With the AI based tools, some of the work is automated, which is an advantage when I have to be quick. With the use of Layers and masking, Luminar also offers complete control over the image when there is a need for that.
In my opinion, Luminar 4 is a great piece of software, that fits all my needs, it’s fast, easy to use, intuitive, gives me the ability to quickly edit a picture in minutes with the AI features and also offers the ability to take complete control as and when I need it. For any hobbyist photographer it definitely is a great piece of software
