1. New Luminar Neptune Ai Photo Editor For Mac

Luminar 2018 Review. In this Luminar 2018 review, our writer and photographer Anes Mulalic writes in detail about the latest features, ease of use, performance and other key aspects of this raw photo editing application. You’ll also see before and after photos, examples using Luminar’s Filters and Presets, as well as side-by-side comparisons of raw engine processing performance between Luminar and Photoshop (Adobe Camera Raw). Luminar 2018 Review of ver. 1.3.1 (August 2018) Luminar, a photo editing application and a raw image processor first introduced in 2016 by a company that is now called (previously known as Macphun). Before Luminar, they were known for, a standalone app dedicated to HDR image production that received much praise. Just like Aurora, Skylum first released Luminar for macOS.

After measurable success on the Apple’s operating system, Luminar was released to Windows users as well. Today, we are reviewing Luminar 2018 for Windows, although it remains obvious the application has originated on OS X, as it is very reminiscent of Apple’s UI simplicity principles.

Luminar: No Monthly Fees Perhaps the most obvious advantage over any Adobe product is the lack of a subscription model. While full-time professional photographers might appreciate paying a monthly fee for continuous access to and, along with regular updates and cloud services, for casual photographers or part-time professionals, that model is usually not so attractive. That’s where Luminar 2018 hopes to attract new and aspiring photographers, and potentially get some existing Adobe users to switch. Its simple – you pay once and the software is yours, for life.

If you’d like to try it out before buying, Skylum offers a. In terms of how it approaches the photo editing workflow, Luminar sits somewhere in-between Photoshop and Lightroom.

It offers considerably more adjustment tools (called “Filters”) than Lightroom, but it’s not as strong when it comes to working with large batches of files. Related Post: A view of the mountain Pljesavica, near Bihac, Bosnia & Herzegovina. Edited in Luminar.

Pros. A lifetime license (buy once, own for life).

Easy to use. Good UI/UX. Reliable raw engine.

Fast performance. Low RAM usage. Suitable for amateurs and professionals. An abundance of Filters and Presets.

Documentation and support videos. Supports virtually all RAW file format types Cons. No photo cataloging. Some tools and features underdeveloped/immature. Occasional stability issues (crashes) Ease of Use can be an extremely simple or extremely complex tool, depending entirely on you. You could open it up and apply one of the presets to an image, export and be done with it.

You could do the same for multiple photos at the same time. But you could also dive into the world of Luminar filters. I did a quick count and got about 50 of them, each with several sliders inside. And then there is layering, various masking tools, and so on.

You get the idea. What’s important is that whichever approach you choose, the application remains consistent and intuitive throughout the workflow. Each filter you add is just as easy to remove as it was to add. Nothing is permanent, or should I say, destructive. It gets complex if you want it, but it never becomes confusing.

New Luminar Neptune Ai Photo Editor For Mac

With that said, there are aspects of editing features that are available in Luminar which seem rushed and simply not mature enough for serious production. Main editing screen in Luminar. Presets bar at the bottom and Workspace to the right. Single & Batch Processing The first screen you’ll see upon starting Luminar will ask you to choose either “Open Image” or “Batch processing”.

If you only need to edit one image (at a time), good for you, as a whole world of awesome Luminar features will open up for you. I won’t say more about it here as almost the whole rest of the article will apply to single image processing.

Batch Processing Workflow As for Batch processing, I have to say I was disappointed (at first), as the batch processing module is very bare-bones. You get to choose multiple images to process, after which you are presented with options for preset, output location, naming rules, file format, quality (of JPEG compression), color profile and the resize function. There’s also a sharpening (low, med, high) option hidden behind the “Advanced” button. From the first look at it, it seemed my batch processing workflow would be quite limited in Luminar.

However, the trick lies in the “Presets”. In the sea of numerous available pre-defined Presets, there’s an option to load custom presets. We’ll talk more about these in the Preset section of this Luminar review. Related Post: Luminar’s first screen offers two options: Open a single image or Batch processing Top Toolbar The toolbar sitting horizontally at the top contains the most crucial tools and utilities. Opening new images/batches.

Zooming, including a drop-down preset list with common zoom levels, as well as separate Zoom-In/Out buttons. Before/After, show/hide, and a split-screen option for comparing changes side-by-side. Redo/revert last change, along with a drop-down list of all changes in History. Tools with Crop, Transform, Clone & Stamp and Eraser.

Buttons to Show/Hide Presets (bottom bar) and Workspace (sidebar). Export button (options to Export to HDD or Publish/Share) As you can see, there are quite a few options here. At the same time, the toolbar is clean and clutter-less. Toggling a tool On will make the icon a radiant orange color, making it easy to see what’s which are currently active. Tip: Press TAB to hide all toolbars Sidebar/Main Toolbar The side-toolbar hosts everything you’ll need for proper raw image processing. The three icons in top-left are for toggling on or off Histogram, Layers and Image Info, respectively. If toggled on, image info will show ISO, focal length and aperture just on top of Histogram.

Layers, if visible, are positioned just below the Histogram. Using the ‘+’ and ‘ -‘ sign you can add or remove layers. Layers in Luminar work very much like the ones in Photoshop.

You can change their blending mode and opacity, merge all layers or just the visible ones. When adding a layer, you need to choose between an Image Layer (added from local drive) or an Adjustment Layer. Finally, there is an option for a Stamped Layer. Furthermore, you can add a Mask to any layer, and choose between Brush, Gradient, Radial or Luminosity Mask. When you look at this raw image editor as a Lightroom alternative, the Layers functionality are a welcome, beautiful bonus. I did notice some shortcomings which show signs Luminar has not quite matured in some areas. I’ll talk more about this a bit later.

Related Post: Workspace Luminar’s Workspaces Workspace is situated below the Layers panel and that’s where you’ll see all image adjustments you apply. By default, you’ll see “Clear Workspace”, but if you select the drop-down menu, several more Workspace options appear:. Professional. Quick & Awesome. Essentials.

Aerial Photography. Black & White.

Landscape. Portrait. Street By selecting any of the workspaces presets, you’ll see several Filters loaded and stacked as separate windows inside the workspace. Of course, you can start with a clear Workspace and add these Filters manually, one by one (more on that below). But, in case you’re in a hurry, isn’t it wonderful to be able to automatically add the needed adjustments specifically designed for the selected type of photography. For example, let’s look at the Filters that are brought in by selecting the Professional Workspace:.

Raw Develop. Denoise. Saturation/Vibrance. Accent AI Filter. Dehaze.

Remove Color Cast. Advanced Contrast. Curves. Polarizing Filter. HSL.

Split Toning. Structure. LUT Mapping. Vignette. Dodge & Burn Everything a professional photographer needs for complete image correction.

And if that seems like too much and would rather work with a few easy adjustments, you can try something like Quick & Awesome:. Accent AI Filter. Saturation/Vibrance.

Clarity Speaking from experience, these three Filters alone can drastically improve your photo. We’ll talk in more detail about Filters in the next section, including the Skylum-trademarked Accent AI. Note that changing to a different Workspace after you’ve already applied some adjustments will not only remove the currently active Filters but also erase any changes that have been made on the image. My favorite part about Workspaces is that you can build and save your own, custom workspace. So if none of the existing workspaces presets work for you, you can manually add your own most-used Filters and save the whole setup for later use.

There’s also an option to ‘Make default’ any Workspace currently in use. Related Post: Luminar 2018 Presets The presets panel is located at the very bottom of the Luminar interface. Its visible by default once you open the application but can be hidden using the ‘Hide Presets’ icon on the main toolbar. Presets are based on Filters. Each Preset is a combinatin of several Filters with different settings, depending on which Preset you choose. If you’ve ever used ON1 Photo Raw, you’ll find this setup very familiar. There are several categories of Presets, as well as a ‘Custom’ category which hosts custom Presets saved by the user.

Personally, I don’t care much for the predefined Presets, but I do love the option to save my own. Just like with Workspaces, you can create and save your own custom Preset using a combination of manually picked Filters. ‘Blood Moon, Mars & Milky Way’ by Here is another photo from the same batch. This time you can see the Daydreams Preset in a split-screen comparison: Filters in Luminar 2018 The filters section is where most of the magic happens. Don’t let the name fool you, these are nothing like Instagram filters. Luminar filters are the equivalent of Lightroom’s adjustments, with the exception that there are more of them and are generally more powerful.

If you’re working on the ‘Clear Workspace’ you can start by pressing the ‘Add Filter’ button. This will open up a vertical list to the left of your workspace area where you’ll see an impressing long list of adjustments available to be added to the workflow. Filters are divided into categories for easier navigation. These include Essential, Issue Fixers, Creative, Professional, and Utility. Both the names of these categories and names of Filters themselves seem very arbitrary. Some Filters you may find are even completely unnecessary, as they do more or less the same effect, just with a bit of a different spin on it.

Other filters are completely unique to Luminar and produce amazing results, such as the Sunrays Filter which we’ll talk more about down below. Essential Filters are a range of basic photo adjustment tools such as Saturation, Tone, Structure, B&W, and Vignette. There’s also a special filter titled Accent AI Filter TM, which does a nice job of making the image ‘pop’ by applying about a dozen different controls automatically. I found it quite effective for quick edits.

Issue Fixers are filters intended to repair issues relating mainly to noise, sharpness, haze, and details. We have Clarity, Sharpening, Denoise, Dehaze, Details & Foliage Enhancer, among others. Creative filters are where you can get a lot more experimental, so to say, and achieve various special effects. These filters include adjustments for color and toning (Warmth / Brilliance, Cross Processing, High Key, Golden Hour, Split Toning, Hue Shift) but also effects such as Soft Focus, Soft Glow, Texture Overlay, Fog, Grain, Radiance, and Sunrays. For example, Sunrays filter is one I found especially interesting and impressive. It allows you to add very realistic sunrays to your image. I was able to adjust the exact number of individual sunrays, their sharpness, length, warmth, and position along the X and Y axis.

More importantly, the algorithms behind this filter will automatically take foliage into consideration, making sure to realistically mask out places. Professional filters contain some tools you’ll find familiar from Photoshop or Lightroom – Color Balance, Curves, HSL (Hue/Saturation in PS), Channel Mixer, Dodge & Burn. Additionally, there are goodies such as LUT Mapping, Microstructure, Split Color Warmth and Advanced Contrast. The Utility is another example where things get a bit repetitive. These are basic adjustments which would make more sense to be located inside Essential Filters.

There is Adjustable Gradient (apply changes selectively on two different parts of the image), Brightness / Contrast, Color Temperature, Exposure, Shadows / Highlights, Whites / Blacks, Top & Bottom Lighting. Related Post: Caesar the cat. Captured by Anes Mulalic.

Edited in Luminar. For this photo, I’ve done custom adjustments using RAW Develop, Saturation/Vibrance, Accent AI Filter, Denoise, Microstructure, HSL, Brilliance/Warmth and Soft Focus filters.2 Before/After view in Luminar Clicking on a filter adds the corresponding filter card to the bottom of your workflow. You can add as many filters as you want, stacking them on top of each other. Let’s take a closer look at a few filters I’ve found most interesting. Related Post: Sunrays Filter You guessed it. This filter allows you to add sunrays to your photo. Recommended for landscape photography but you can use it on virtually any photo where it makes sense to add sunrays.

The Filter works incredibly well, producing very realistic results, as long as you know what you’re doing. This is thanks to the algorithm behind the Filter, which is able to accurately calculate and automatically mask out areas where the sunrays are blocked by foliage or other objects. This means you can actually put the “sun” behind a tree or a mountain, without dealing with layers and masking. You can adjust the sunrays in almost every way imaginable. There’s a slider for Amount (intensity), Look, Number (of individual sunrays), Length, Warmth, Radius, Glow Radius, Glow Amount, Penetration and Randomize. Finally, you can move the source by adjusting positioning sliders along the X and Y axis.

Develop You won’t find anything as innovative inside this Filter, but I’ve decided to review it because it is essential for any serious raw image processing workflow. In fact, this is the only Filter that you can’t Mask. It’s essentially a base Filter for the most crucial adjustments. You’ll find settings inside similar to those found in Adobe Camera Raw. Luminar’s RAW Develop Filter has three tabs inside: Adjust, Lens and Transform.

Buying Software from Skylum Skylum. We have a code northlightimages10 - that will usually get you a 10% discount on current MacPhun/Skylum offers. - article and free presets made by Keith for Architectural B&W Looking for a non-lightroom solution? Have outlined their plans If you buy the software via a link on our site, then we receive a small commission, which helps in the running of the site.

We have no commercial connection with Macphun, and believe strongly that readers should be aware how we run the site.First up, the blurb from Macphun New feature highlights in Luminar Neptune:. Accent – AI-filter – Uses artificial intelligence to create stunning images with a single slider movement, tapping into the power of dozens of filters.

Quick & Awesome workspace – A workspace consisting of the Accent AI, Saturation & Vibrance and Clarity filters. Great for achieving fast results in a fun and easy way. Plug-in integration with Creative Kit and Aurora HDR 2017 – Seamlessly access Macphun’s other photo editing tools you own with Luminar as the host application. Brush, Gradient and Radial Gradient tools – Dramatically faster performance yields smoother selective editing. Vignette filter – Addition of Vignette Styles, Place Centre and Pre- and Post-Crop modes deliver even more flexibility to this popular photo finishing tool. Memory management – Increased overall performance for large files and 5+ simultaneous open images. User Interface changes – Extensive improvements to in-app animation and mode transitions make for a more pleasing editing experience.

Crop tool update – Added the ability to specify custom crop ratios. Local history – Provision for reviewing separate history while in Transform, Denoise, Clone & Stamp modes helps optimise editing. Using the software Note: my is a lot longer and goes into much more detail about just how you might use Luminar. If I fire up the standalone version (not the plugin I normally use from within Photoshop) I get a choice of modes from simple to ‘everything’ I note the terrible shown in No.3 – that person is going to have back/neck/arm problems really soon;-) The software works pretty much as before (see my much longer for stuff about layers and masking) but shows the definite refinements you’d expect from V1.0 to V1.2. Whilst I’m in the stand-alone editor, I can also make use of my MacPhun plugins, such as here (click to enlarge), where I’ve used one of my. I can add any of Luminar’s filters to my stack (and save as a preset) These show up as new in V1.2 Accent and de-haze (from the V1.1 update) both work well at lower settings – of course you can crank them up for the more gaudy look preferred by many ‘sharing’ photos.;-) (2 images – click to enlarge) Do be careful if you work on 8 bit (JPEG) images, since it’s easy to get posterisation. To be fair though – this is a risk however you edit JPEG files if you push it too far.

As before, have lots of tutorials and guides on their site. More Luminar info You can get $10 off when with discount code northlightimages10 For a short time there is a Luminar + video training, eBooks, presets and overlays combo package. See also the Luminar + video training, eBooks, presets and overlays combo package (available for limited time, the code above will work with this package). Never miss a new article or review - Sign up for our (2-4 a month max.) Enjoyed this article? Other areas of our site that may be of interest. All the latest articles/reviews and photo news items appear on We've a whole section of the site devoted to. It covers all of Keith's specialist articles and reviews.

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