Macphun Luminar

[Mike Dale]

Has anyone else tried Luminar from Macphun yet? I use the regular Macphun Creative Kit in my workflow and have done for a while. I've been using the newly released Luminar for a couple of hours and it seems to me to be pretty good for the features it posesses at a very reasonable price. I'm used to their interface method so I was able to dive right in and try it.

[ario]

I started using it as well. The interface is very good, I am not yet sure about the quality of the conversion.

[StuartOnline]

Has anyone else tried Luminar from Macphun yet? I use the regular Macphun Creative Kit in my workflow and have done for a while. I've been using the newly released Luminar for a couple of hours and it seems to me to be pretty good for the features it posesses at a very reasonable price. I'm used to their interface method so I was able to dive right in and try it.

Mike,

I received my copy of Luminar yesterday and only have tried it with a couple of images. Opened image (via Lightroom CC) with Luminar took nearly 25.15 seconds. After doing some editing via Luminar and clicking on apply to send back to Lightroom took 44.25 seconds. Images where from a Sony A7RM2 (42mb). For me this performance is a little slow.

Computer system:
macOS Sierra Version: 10.12.1
MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015)
Processor: 2.5 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory: 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Graphics: AMD Radeon R9 M370X 2048 MB Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB

On another note I am waiting for the upcoming release of On1 Photo Raw which looks to have very fast performance from what I have seen and read. I think it is being released next week.

Stu

[Mike Dale]

Yeah I know what you mean. I'm trying it from LR too and as you say, it's very slow. Not sure if the problem is within LR or Luminar itself. If you open an A7RII file directly from Luminar it's pretty fast. I'm looking for a reason to ditch LR so maybe I'll try Apple Photos instead.

[StuartOnline]

Yeah I know what you mean. I'm trying it from LR too and as you say, it's very slow. Not sure if the problem is within LR or Luminar itself. If you open an A7RII file directly from Luminar it's pretty fast. I'm looking for a reason to ditch LR so maybe I'll try Apple Photos instead.

Mike,

Been fooling with it some this afternoon again but it is just to slow trying to use it as a plugin via Lightroom. I still have the Google Nik Collections that I use for some images as a plugin within Lightroom and it is fast. Perfectly Clear is also fast as a plugin with Lightroom. I am just going to wait for the release of On1 Photo Raw which looks to be extremely fast that I have preordered.

Cheers!

Stu

[Mike Dale]

I've just been exporting from Capture One to Luminar and it only takes a few seconds. I suspect the problem is within LR.

[luxborealis]

Yeah I know what you mean. I'm trying it from LR too and as you say, it's very slow. Not sure if the problem is within LR or Luminar itself. If you open an A7RII file directly from Luminar it's pretty fast. I'm looking for a reason to ditch LR so maybe I'll try Apple Photos instead.

I like Apple Photos for what it does, but wouldn't consider it a replacement for LR because of all the things it cannot do without resorting to a lot of plugins for things built into LR.

The LR catalogue with Folders, Collections and Publish Services alone makes it worth it. For me, any new alternative would need to have a similar architecture or be able to co-exist with LR; not to mention LR's Print module (not perfect, but better than anything else built into an app).

[larsbroberg]

I don't know if there is something specific to my setup, but for me Luminar is extremely slow. It's impossible to work with.
Selecting a tool like clone/stamp or erase takes like 15 seconds before I can start to brush.
I guess it's because Luminar is not working with previews of the image, but rather the full resolution RAW file.

[Bob Rockefeller]

Beyond possible slowness, how do people find the raw conversion quality (detail, color, and so on) vs. "standards" such as Lightroom and Capture One?

[Shiever]

Beyond possible slowness, how do people find the raw conversion quality (detail, color, and so on) vs. "standards" such as Lightroom and Capture One?

Bob, I have been playing with ON1 RAW, Luminar, and LR.  You can get very similar IQ results with appropriate adjustments in all three of the applications standalone.  ON1 and Luminar can be used as plugins for LR where LR may/may not be the RAW converter.  Both ON1 and Luminar have some growing to do to be completely useful.eg. Luminar is developing a DAM.  Luminar is slow, but just last week they updated and the speed is slightly improved and there are other additions such as batch processing.  By mid 2017 IMHO there will be choice based on your own preferences.  BTW Bob, I know you are an old Aperture user.  Luminar is very similar in feel to the editing portion of Aperture only with better masking capabilities.  If the Luminar DAM is similar to Aperture ....... 

[Bob Rockefeller]

You can get very similar IQ results with appropriate adjustments in all three of the applications standalone.

My somewhat unsophisticated testing shows that ON1 RAW doesn't produce the level of detail that ACR and C1 do in their raw conversions. That's sad, because it has many compelling features - but if you can't start with a great raw conversion, the final result will suffer. So I wonder how Luminar does; since it has a free trial, I suppose I should try to find out myself.

BTW Bob, I know you are an old Aperture user.  Luminar is very similar in feel to the editing portion of Aperture only with better masking capabilities.  If the Luminar DAM is similar to Aperture .......

Now that would be very welcome!

[afterimages]

FWIW, I just took the plunge and exported all my images from LR to Photos! I cancelled my Creative Cloud subscription and uninstalled LR and PS. I have purchased Luminar and have started using it out of Photos. Works fine and fast.

The LR 'catalog' is indeed impressive - theoretically. But I never used 95% of its capabilities. The desire to print images has also waned a lot for me, which was the main reason I kept LR around.

A BIG step (emotionally and practically) but so far so good

Rick

[luxborealis]

FWIW, I just took the plunge and exported all my images from LR to Photos! I cancelled my Creative Cloud subscription and uninstalled LR and PS. I have purchased Luminar and have started using it out of Photos. Works fine and fast.

The LR 'catalog' is indeed impressive - theoretically. But I never used 95% of its capabilities. The desire to print images has also waned a lot for me, which was the main reason I kept LR around.

A BIG step (emotionally and practically) but so far so good

Rick

Rick - you really must try Affinity Photos 1.5. It is a standalone PS replacement that has a "Develop" persona which is similar to ACR (LR's "engine" or vice versa). I haven't used Affinity extensively as I am still quite happy with LR 6.x standalone, but, from the little I've used it, Affinity seems like an excellent replacement for PS and ACR.

[Mike Dale]

Rick - you really must try Affinity Photos 1.5. It is a standalone PS replacement that has a "Develop" persona which is similar to ACR (LR's "engine" or vice versa). I haven't used Affinity extensively as I am still quite happy with LR 6.x standalone, but, from the little I've used it, Affinity seems like an excellent replacement for PS and ACR.

You might want to mention that it's only $49.99.

It really is a superb product.

[Bob Rockefeller]

After the release (pre-release? They are still adding features) of OnOne RAW, how do folks find the raw conversion quality of Luminar vs. OnOne, ACR, Affinity Photo, and Capture One? Is it up to the standards of the incumbents?