My full review of Luminar 4

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Will
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Hi everyone,

I've been testing out the pre-release of Luminar 4 from Skylum. I know that Luminar 3 had mixed results with people, especially Windows users. I think Luminar 4 is a completely different beast now and I think they've learnt a lot from the process.

My full review is here: https://www.naturettl.com/luminar-4-review

Aside from the traditional tools, there are lots of AI tools that are actually stupidly impressive. Check out this sky swap, done in seconds:

71335925_1308560179304600_5679126665842655232_o.jpg

Pretty crazy! I was very impressed with this iteration. What do you think of these AI tools? Do you think this will become the norm in photo editing?
 
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It seemed common place to replace skies a few years ago because of dynamic range but many cameras now have 14 stops dynamic range so it is rarely necessary to change the sky unless you need a different look as above. I understand that for commercial work anything goes but for Club, national and international competitions, many will allow a sky change in some sections BUT it must be your own sky photograph. The question of the use of AI will no doubt arise and whether or not OK. I have a full set of Topaz Plug-ins and I am happily using the AI plug-ins which, as you suggest, save a lot of time. I enjoyed your review but will still be staying with LR/PS for my workflow for now.

Dave
 
It seemed common place to replace skies a few years ago because of dynamic range but many cameras now have 14 stops dynamic range so it is rarely necessary to change the sky unless you need a different look as above. I understand that for commercial work anything goes but for Club, national and international competitions, many will allow a sky change in some sections BUT it must be your own sky photograph. The question of the use of AI will no doubt arise and whether or not OK. I have a full set of Topaz Plug-ins and I am happily using the AI plug-ins which, as you suggest, save a lot of time. I enjoyed your review but will still be staying with LR/PS for my workflow for now.

Dave

Yeah, agree with all of that. The Sky Replacement is just one tool, of course, with plenty more things in L4. It is also able to plug-in to LR and PS.

I don't know about Topaz - will look them up out of interest.
 
Interesting reading thank you. I have already pre-purchased with the discount in my bid to free myself from my Lightroom subscription which is due again soon.

I'm not one for sky replacements, but I can see there are times it might be useful to some people.
 
Hi everyone,

I've been testing out the pre-release of Luminar 4 from Skylum. I know that Luminar 3 had mixed results with people, especially Windows users. I think Luminar 4 is a completely different beast now and I think they've learnt a lot from the process.

My full review is here: https://www.naturettl.com/luminar-4-review

Aside from the traditional tools, there are lots of AI tools that are actually stupidly impressive. Check out this sky swap, done in seconds:

View attachment 257063

Pretty crazy! I was very impressed with this iteration. What do you think of these AI tools? Do you think this will become the norm in photo editing?

Do you have information on the release date?
 
Sky Swap- NO!

Just NO!

Will, in your example above, the overall look of the image is just wrong. That sky and that foreground just don't work together. Surely you can see that?

Tbh it looks fine to me. Light from right, side-lighting elephant etc.

But sure, you have to properly match up the sky position. It can't shift shadows. It's just pretty impressive how the AI masks the sky through branches etc.
 
I've downloaded the 7 day trial of Luminar 3. Not sure 7 days is enough to try it as there's a steep learning curve.
 
Sky Swap- NO!

Just NO!

I presume you do no think Ansell Adams should have sky swapped but he did. Ansell was limited by the dynamic range of film so had little choice if he was to produce a landscape which resembled what we see. I agree that there is less need for this now we have cameras with good dynamic range but even so there may be other reasons to change the sky.

Dave
 
I think the sky looks ok and I wouldn’t hesitate to change it if I thought it was needed. I see no difference in doing that to removing wrinkles or blemishes on skin or removing unwanted objects in photos.

One thing that concerns me as a LR owner, I have heard Luminar will not allow uploads to Flickr.
Is this still the case with L4?
 
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I presume you do no think Ansell Adams should have sky swapped but he did. Ansell was limited by the dynamic range of film so had little choice if he was to produce a landscape which resembled what we see. I agree that there is less need for this now we have cameras with good dynamic range but even so there may be other reasons to change the sky.

Dave


To be quite honest I cannot think of any reason at all to swap a sky. We might all want perfect skies in our photographs but one of the challenges in photography is to be there at that moment when the sky is as close as possible to perfect. I do not recall reading that Ansel Adams made composite images but I'll take your word for it for the moment. I thought his skill was to make the very best of single negatives rather than combining them?

I think the sky looks ok and I wouldn’t hesitate to change it if I thought it was needed. I see no difference in doing that to removing wrinkles or blemishes on skin or removing unwanted objects in photos.

Quite. I don't have an opinion on removing wrinkles and blemishes, but I agree with you on the rest of your post. Fakery!
 
Hi Will, after fully reading your review article on Luminar 4 I feel there's a couple of points to be made.
1. Your "review" reads like a publicity release from the company's PR department. I don't think I found a single critical comment in the whole article.
2. If you are being paid a referral fee then you really ought to state that in the interest of honesty.
 
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Hi Will, after fully reading your review article on Luminar 4 I feel there's a couple of points to be made.
1. Your "review" reads like a publicity release from the company's PR department. I don't think I found a single critical comment in the whole article.
2. If you are being paid a referral fee then you really ought to state that in the interest of honesty.

I'm not an ambassador for Luminar, and I do critique it- mainly the DAM and export window. Otherwise though I was genuinely so impressed. LR3 review is more critical with less stars but this LR4 release genuinely surprised me. Thought I was going to have to slate it!
 
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Hi Will, after fully reading your review article on Luminar 4 I feel there's a couple of points to be made.
1. Your "review" reads like a publicity release from the company's PR department. I don't think I found a single critical comment in the whole article.
2. If you are being paid a referral fee then you really ought to state that in the interest of honesty.

Luminar do seem to have a few people heavily pushing their product. Puts me off even reading the review never mind trying one of their products. All comes across as a bit desperate.
 
Hi Will, after fully reading your review article on Luminar 4 I feel there's a couple of points to be made.
1. Your "review" reads like a publicity release from the company's PR department. I don't think I found a single critical comment in the whole article.
2. If you are being paid a referral fee then you really ought to state that in the interest of honesty.

That's what I thought. But it was the completely uncritical endorsement of the sky replacement feature which really grabbed my attention. If the author denies any "link" with the publisher we'll have to take his word for it, though.

I presume you do no think Ansell Adams should have sky swapped but he did. Ansell was limited by the dynamic range of film so had little choice if he was to produce a landscape which resembled what we see. I agree that there is less need for this now we have cameras with good dynamic range but even so there may be other reasons to change the sky.

Dave

I can't see any reference to Ansel Adams creating composite images but I'm only too happy to be proved wrong. Do you have any references to this?
 
The images in the pair posted above are both God-awful and hardly fit to promote anything. Just as an example of what I mean though, with relevance to what's being touted, the sky replacement in the second image seems to have acted as an unwanted grad filter across tree and elephant's trunk.

If the image author has any pretensions about being a photographer, I think they should think about getting more experience and maybe sign up for a course or two. And hopefully accrue some lessons in vision and taste.
 
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The images in the pair posted above are both God-awful and hardly fit to promote anything. Just as an example of what I mean though, with relevance to what's being touted, the sky replacement in the second image seems to have acted as an unwanted grad filter across tree and elephant's trunk.

If the image author has any pretensions about being a photographer, I think they should think about getting more experience and maybe sign up for a course or two. And hopefully accrue some lessons in vision and taste.

Lol, thanks. The example shot was just a binned one I pulled out to make the edit and illustrate because the sky was appropriate.
 
If both the original image and the edited-sky version are so awful, why bother? Who's it meant to serve?

I can be compassionate to someone who posts incompetent images - we can't all be instantly experienced - I was a novice once and remain so in some areas - but I'm uncomfortable with what seems to be an attempt here at commercial promotion. Since you included a link, it seems that you want to drive viewers to a website that contains commercial interest. But your post is in an area of these forums that I'd assume to be neutral of such interest.

I can't see how such a blatant combination of incompetent imaging and apparent commercial interest helps anyone here.
 
Personally for me, the idea of putting a totally different sky to me is dumb and kinda defeats the purpose of capturing a scene.

Its the landscape equivalent to that dumb portrait professional plugin/app for portrait shooters.
 
I do not recall reading that Ansel Adams made composite images but I'll take your word for it for the moment. I thought his skill was to make the very best of single negatives rather than combining them?
While I had understood that Ansel Adams combined multiple exposures, I have just done a bit of research and found that Gustave Le Gray combined two exposure in 1850. I also know that the father of one of our club members gave a talk on how to replace a sky in 1928 (our club is over 150 years old and its history was recently researched). It appears some still claim that Ansel Adams did this, but others claim he did not. He did chemically alter negatives to darken skies and he made extensive use of dodging and burning. He often used to make multiple exposures of a scene and processed some differently and the spare exposures allowed him to experiment more. Some quotes from Ansel are interesting:

“Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships.” – Ansel Adams

“I am sure the next step will be the electronic image, and I hope I shall live to see it. I trust that the creative eye will continue to function, whatever technological innovations may develop.” – Ansel Adams

This latter quote has often been used to suggest that Ansel would have been an extensive user of Photoshop. With Ansel’s chemical version of HDR, it may be that as much as 11-12 stops could be accommodated but this significantly dropped with colour film, standard processing and the early period of digital thus forcing the need for HDR or even sky replacement. I have found with my recent camera with 14 stops dynamic range, I no longer need HDR for landscapes.

Dave
 
We probably all dodge and burn (or its equivalent) during the proceesing stage and I have no problem with it at all. It's actually a very funny quote when you think about it .... as if God gave two hoots about tonal relationships (or even existed come to that..........) :naughty: .

It is interesting that he foresaw the time when the digital image would exist. Who knows what he would have been able to do had he been born 30 years later. Being the pioneer that he was perhaps someone would have taken his place in the meantime?

I can't help thinking that with the purity of his outlook and his method he would draw the line at combining files to create composite images.
 
While I had understood that Ansel Adams combined multiple exposures, I have just done a bit of research and found that Gustave Le Gray combined two exposure in 1850.

Oscar G. Rejlander (regarded by some as the father of art photography) was making complex composite images in the 1850's using wet plates. This included replacing skies on landscapes, mainly for reasons of poor dynamic range in the wet plates. There is a touring exhibit of his work that was shown last year at the National Gallery of Canada (https://www.gallery.ca/whats-on/exh...oscar-g-rejlander-artist-photographer-on-tour ).

That said, I don't like it when skies from unrelated images are combined. And, I am not a fan of AI based editing. I have also read that Luminar 4 is incompatible with edits made in Luminar 3. I can't confirm that first-hand but, if true, it cold be a concern with compatibility.
 
I've pre-ordered in the hope I can free myself from the Creative Cloud subscription. I literally only used Lightroom to lightly process images so will see how this goes.

Loads and loads of complaints and issues with the speed and stability of Luminar 3 so that's my biggest concern.
 
I've pre-ordered in the hope I can free myself from the Creative Cloud subscription. I literally only used Lightroom to lightly process images so will see how this goes.

Loads and loads of complaints and issues with the speed and stability of Luminar 3 so that's my biggest concern.
I ditched Creative Cloud for Luminar 3 and have no complaints although like you I only lightly process. I tend to use one of the “looks” and tweak from there. Works fine on my mac mini (2012) and have preordered Luminar 4.
 
Just contacted by Adobe to renew my subscription which I have done. About a week ago when running LR Classic a window popped up to ask me if I would recommend to others so I awarded the maximum number of stars. I was then asked what would caused me not to maintain this high rating so I replied "if the price was increased". I am sure others are asked the question but it is important that Adobe know that the price is a factor. The price for my next 12 months did not increase. I do use most of the features of LR as well as using some of the photographic features of PS.

Dave
 
I cancelled my Photography Plan with Adobe with the anticipation of moving to Luminar 4 in a few weeks, during the process they offered me 4 months free to stay with them.

I cancelled, will give Luminar 6 months or so to see how it goes, by then it will have essentially paid for itself vs no longer paying for Adobe anyway.
 
I've pre-ordered in the hope I can free myself from the Creative Cloud subscription. I literally only used Lightroom to lightly process images so will see how this goes.

Loads and loads of complaints and issues with the speed and stability of Luminar 3 so that's my biggest concern.

So I have tested on Windows. A slow netbook will struggle. Desktop computers perform well and I have heard for some it is faster than on Mac. I'd take that last statement with caution, though, but unless you're running it on something ancient and slow, Luminar 4 has had a lot of speed improvements.
 
I have a current Dell XPS laptop which is pretty high spec, so fingers crossed!
 
Hi, Have Luminar 3 and paid for the upgrade to 4, I used to use On1 Photo RAW 2019 but due to there what seems departure from being a company for photographers by photographers to a company more interested in the money making side I thought enough is enough, however as far as Luminar goes I do wish people could see past this AI sky replacement and Portrait side, I see from your site you are a wild life photographer and you may have noticed the lack of information as to what Luminar 4 can do that Luminar 3 could not do for the none landscape/portrait photographers.
 
I don’t understand why the OP is being given such a hard time about the two shots
They were just an example of what can be done
Personally I wouldn’t have gone for the effect in the second shot but if that’s what some people want I don’t see any harm
 
Hi, Have Luminar 3 and paid for the upgrade to 4, I used to use On1 Photo RAW 2019 but due to there what seems departure from being a company for photographers by photographers to a company more interested in the money making side I thought enough is enough, however as far as Luminar goes I do wish people could see past this AI sky replacement and Portrait side, I see from your site you are a wild life photographer and you may have noticed the lack of information as to what Luminar 4 can do that Luminar 3 could not do for the none landscape/portrait photographers.

The AI tools themselves are not targeted for wildlife photographers - that's true. The AI Structure works for wildlife, but really it's the "traditional" editing process that wildlife users are interested in. Personally I like it - the user interface is friendly and feels a lot more modern. If workflow is your thing, Lightroom is stronger in that regard. But the editing tools in Luminar are more diverse - it has layers, for example.
 
Tbh it looks fine to me. Light from right, side-lighting elephant etc.

But sure, you have to properly match up the sky position. It can't shift shadows. It's just pretty impressive how the AI masks the sky through branches etc.
Hi Will, except that it doesn't mask the branches correctly or even the upper part of the trunk, the dark replacement sky has appeared over part of the trunk!
 
But the editing tools in Luminar are more diverse - it has layers, for example.

Will, could you explain as to whether Luminar has layers in Raw editing mode or is this only when the image is in bit map mode. I have thought for some time that, while layers in Raw editing may be difficult, it must be feasible. As LR can now blend images to HDR and Panorama in Raw with the output still raw, it suggests that Adobe could do this. I sometimes wonder if they are holding off providing a full layer option for LR as many photographer may then no longer need PS. It is not that it is a big problem for me and I will continue to use Adobe but I like to keep up with the alternatives.

Dave
 
Asked on there Facebook page today if the option to use 3rd party plug-ins with the Windows version of Luminar 4 and got this reply
"Most likely, this feature will be missing in the initial Luminar 4 release.
However, bringing both versions to parity is one of our key priorities, therefore, we'll do our best to implement this feature in one of the following releases. Please stay tuned! " now this is version 4 so surley this should have been up near the front for this release? I use Topaz Remask but still will not be able to access it from Luminar. Russ.
 
Will, could you explain as to whether Luminar has layers in Raw editing mode or is this only when the image is in bit map mode. I have thought for some time that, while layers in Raw editing may be difficult, it must be feasible. As LR can now blend images to HDR and Panorama in Raw with the output still raw, it suggests that Adobe could do this. I sometimes wonder if they are holding off providing a full layer option for LR as many photographer may then no longer need PS. It is not that it is a big problem for me and I will continue to use Adobe but I like to keep up with the alternatives.

Dave

Hi Dave

Like with Lightroom, raw editing is innate in the software. You don't have to make initial adjustments and then fully open the image, like with Photoshop. So yes, you can use layers etc.
 
Downloaded the full version today. Running an 8th gen i7 with 16GB RAM and it's pretty painful compared to Lightroom Classic. Previews take an age to load and editing is treacle like.

I hope it settles as it's powerful stuff and perfect for my needs otherwise.
 
Downloaded the full version today. Running an 8th gen i7 with 16GB RAM and it's pretty painful compared to Lightroom Classic. Previews take an age to load and editing is treacle like.

I hope it settles as it's powerful stuff and perfect for my needs otherwise.

My 2016 MacBook Pro went into overdrive doing not a lot when I tested my download earlier. I suspect this software is going to be a disappointment.....
 
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