Is Luminar worthwhile?

[Bob Rockefeller]

Most software today uses DCRAW for conversion at some point under the hood, or at least most of them do.

That is interesting. My "most" I assume ON1 Photo RAW and Luminar, at least?

ON1's demosaicing doesn't seem to resolve details nearly as well as LR nor C1. Is that because of DCRAW?

[Alan Smallbone]

That is interesting. My "most" I assume ON1 Photo RAW and Luminar, at least?

ON1's demosaicing doesn't seem to resolve details nearly as well as LR nor C1. Is that because of DCRAW?

I think but not absolutely certain that ACR and LR use parts of Dcraw or they integrated some parts of it. The Dcraw program itself has a tons of options and how the data is handled is often up to the other software that uses it. I am not a pixel peeper and what matters to me is getting results I am happy with, and how happy I am with prints and viewing the images. Doing minute comparisons at the pixel level I suppose can be interesting, but not the most important thing for me.

That being said if you want the ultimate in detail then use Iridient, or Capture One and or be very picky how you apply your sharpening, depending on the image some form of deconvolution may be needed.  There are all kinds of factors, lens blur, capture setting, lens distortion and capture and post creative sharpening and editing that all can affect the apparent sharpness of an image and the "details". I find that On1 and Luminar do acceptable conversions, if I really am picky about a particular image than I will convert in Iridient and the process in something else like On1.

The only way to decide it is to try out all the different programs with your own test image and decide what is acceptable to you.

Alan

[digitaldog]

I think but not absolutely certain that ACR and LR use parts of Dcraw or they integrated some parts of it.

Doesn't matter does it? What each converter 'uses' is moot considering they all differ in quality. It's the rendering, how the rubber meets the road (and the person driving) that counts.

[Alan Smallbone]

Doesn't matter does it? What each converter 'uses' is moot considering they all differ in quality. It's the rendering, how the rubber meets the road (and the person driving) that counts.

Yes that was kind of my point but I did not state it, there are lots of factors besides what does the demosaicing. All of the software are just tools, use what works for you and gives the results you are happy with getting.

Alan

[Bob Rockefeller]

Doesn't matter does it? What each converter 'uses' is moot considering they all differ in quality. It's the rendering, how the rubber meets the road (and the person driving) that counts.

Sure. I didn’t realize that DCRAW could be used in different ways as desired by different hosts. I have not been satisfied with ON1’s raw conversions compared to C1 Pro after both have been used to tweak the image. I, at least, can’t get ON1 to where C1 Pro gets easily.

If DCRAW was doing all the work for ON1 and Luminar, I wouldn’t be too optimistic about Luminar. Because there is such flexibility of use, I need to give the demo version of Luminar a test of my own.

[digitaldog]

Sure. I didn’t realize that DCRAW could be used in different ways as desired by different hosts.

These hosts are all filled with sliders/controls and their own proprietary processing. Finding two that can produce identical rendering is harder than finding vast differences.

[nemophoto]

After purchasing Aurora 2018 and being impressed, I decided to purchase Luminar 2018. I have to admit, I'm underwhelmed. It's "ok", and though the price was decent, it hardly replaces Lightroom, Photoshop or my other standbys such as Capture One and DxO. It's perhaps nice for some special effects, but I just don't feel compelled to use it.

I'd be curious if others have better experiences.

[Lundberg02]

Iridient is one click and done for me.

[Alan Smallbone]

After purchasing Aurora 2018 and being impressed, I decided to purchase Luminar 2018. I have to admit, I'm underwhelmed. It's "ok", and though the price was decent, it hardly replaces Lightroom, Photoshop or my other standbys such as Capture One and DxO. It's perhaps nice for some special effects, but I just don't feel compelled to use it.

I'd be curious if others have better experiences.

The big advantage of these other apps is that there is more sophisticated masking tools than what is included in LR. Luminar is not intended at this time to replace LR, there is no DAM yet, they claim they are adding it for this year. Photoshop is a completely different beast, and the app that currently best replaces PS is Affinity Photo.

Yes the filter method is a different workflow.

Alan

[Bob Rockefeller]

I just don't find Luminar's raw detail resolution to be as good as LR or CO. For me, they have a ways to catch up. After they add their DAM features, I may take another look.

[Frodo]

I'm using Windows and could not make the LR plug-in work. LR expirted the file to Luminar fine, but Luminar did not hand the edited file back. I tried both export to Luminar and edit in Luminar. This means that the Luminar edited file needs to be imported into LR , which is a pain. Nik Silver Effex plug-in works seamlessly.

Luminar has a few "filters" that are interesting (e.g. soft glow for portraiture), the erase tool works better than the healing brush in LR, but I have yet to try the layer masks. Raw conversion is okay, waaay better thanAffinity which provides very ability to push shadows and pull highlights.

Its just over $100 in New Zealand so about twice the price of Affinity. But the plug-in has to work before I am interested.

[ihv]

Raw conversion is okay, waaay better thanAffinity which provides very ability to push shadows and pull highlights.

In Affinity, the recovery seems to be greatly improved in the upcoming 1.6.3 version: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/53250-affinity-photo-customer-beta-16398/&do=findComment&comment=269146