Luminar - a new photo editing app

[Rajan Parrikar]

FYI.

https://macphun.com/blog/luminar-photo-editor-for-mac-intro

[luxborealis]

Just heard about this from one of my former workshop students. Sounds intriguing and a bit like fresh air from LR. At $59, a good deal less expensive and without a subscription.

Mind you, it lacks batch processing and an integrated file system, however, both are due to come in later releases.

The best possible thing for LR users is for other companies to start upping the ante by offering realistic replacements for parametric editing. On1 is also bringing out anew raw editor.

And if these products fill a niche left open by Adobe who seem to be most interested in subscription-based users, all the better!

[Mark D Segal]

What about Slideshows, Web Galleries and Printing? From the little they say, it seems quite some paces away from LR's integrated set of capabilities. But yes, consumer choice is good in principle.

[Kevin Raber]

I sat with the developer today and spent some time with this product.  It is not a raw processor as we know it in a typical sense.  It's more like many of the MacPhun other products rolled into one product.  It doesn't door have a library and it works on individual images.  An interesting alternative for those wanting to do more with their images but it is not  LR or C1 replacement.  We'll be reporting  on this more as becomes available.  We are interested in seeing OnOne's offering.  Stay tuned.

[luxborealis]

What about Slideshows, Web Galleries and Printing? From the little they say, it seems quite some paces away from LR's integrated set of capabilities. But yes, consumer choice is good in principle.

I'm no where near dropping LR for another raw processor - not yet anyway. But it's food for thought, which is why I commented on Rajan's initial post.

Mark - I, too, rely on LR's great printing module, but to mention LR's Slideshow and Web Galleries modules in the same "breath" is a bit of a joke, right?!?

[Mark D Segal]

..............

Mark - I, too, rely on LR's great printing module, but to mention LR's Slideshow and Web Galleries modules in the same "breath" is a bit of a joke, right?!?

No, not a joke - it's usable; not as rich and varied as some other specialized applications dedicated to web galleries, but practical, sensible, pleasing designs. Can be used in conjunction with other website builders. Like everything, adequacy depends on what you need.

[rdonson]

Maybe I'm missing something but I don't see how Luminar would replace Lightroom.  It doesn't do content management (catalog) and other things that Lightroom does.

I can see Luminar as a potential for replacing Photoshop though.  A lot will depend on RAM consumption of Luminar but it might work quite well for people without the RAM to support Lightroom *and* Photoshop running simultaneously, say on a notebook. 

[Rajan Parrikar]

Luminar started taking pre-orders today for the Nov 17 release. $49 if you own a MacPhun product, else $59.

[keithcooper]

Interesting software - I've written up some thoughts on it at

http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/reviews/plugins/luminar.html

I should note that I'm looking at it from the POV of a long time Photoshop user where I'm calling it as a plugin.

Personally, I find many aspects of Lightroom irksome to use (OK almost all of it except RAW processing) but I can see how it might fit in as plugin for editing - I know it has its fans ;-)

At the moment, the RAW support is relatively basic, so I'd use a different mechanism for that.

I'd mention that I've had pre-release versions to try for a while, but one thing I'd note is how responsive the developers are to fixing things - I found a whole series of issues during testing and all are promptly sorted in the 1.0 release. In the review above, I've included the 'feature comparison list' from Macphun (from their press release), which shows the direction the next release should be pointing.

I do hope they don't try and force too much LR style of workflow on users ;-)  YMMV!

[rdonson]

Thanks for the write-up, Keith.

I've downloaded and installed Luminar on my iMac and MBP.  My impressions are very preliminary and my goals different from yours. 

Calling Luminar from LR is kind of clunky at this stage.  It's an EXPORT instead of an EDIT IN.  Using EXPORT it doesn't gracefully return you to LR where you can see your resulting photo.  You have to SYNC LR to find it.  Many plugins have performed in a more elegant manner than this.

The Luminar RAW capabilities for Fuji X-Trans didn't stick out at me as exceptional.  Pretty much run of the mill.  Care must be taken when applying contrast tools and sharpening to avoid artifacts.  My impressions may improve though as I put more time into Luminar with Fuji X-Trans files. 

I do think they're on to a better user experience than most editors these days.  Especially given this is version 1.0.  Yes, I know there are lots of people out there who will proclaim their favorite editor is the best and they're welcome to their opinions.