Luminar VS. Photoshop

[scottkinfw]

I keep getting ads from Luminar people, with a $69 sale price. A friend of min loves the product, but he is just a newby, so I take his word with a grain of salt.

Anyone switch to Luminar from the subscription services of Adobe? If so, what are your thoughts on it?

Anyone with any comments or thoughts pls jump in, should be interesting.

Scott

 

[R1-7D]

Personally, I don't believe it can truly replace Lightroom and Photoshop. It's not yet an asset manager, for one, and it's also buggy and too slow to be truly competitive. Furthermore, it's a long long ways away from having close to the functionality that Photoshop offers.

That being said, it's a fantastic product. I use it regularly for different effects, and it's got some fantastic features. I love the presets, and how simple certain tasks are to do. It's a great supplemental piece of software.

 

[PCM-madison]

Personally, I don't believe it can truly replace Lightroom and Photoshop. It's not yet an asset manager, for one, and it's also buggy and too slow to be truly competitive. Furthermore, it's a long long ways away from having close to the functionality that Photoshop offers.

That being said, it's a fantastic product. I use it regularly for different effects, and it's got some fantastic features. I love the presets, and how simple certain tasks are to do. It's a great supplemental piece of software.

I agree with this assessment. Disclaimer, I have been using Photoshop since the mid 1990's and Luminar for less than a year. I develop RAW images in Photoshop and sometimes add effects with Luminar. The interface for developing RAW seems much more powerful in Photoshop, but I may not fully understand the Luminar RAW processing options. Applying filters in Luminar is relatively fast and easy. For many of the filters, I don't like the results, but usually one or more can enhance an image in a way I like. As an example, I will include several final images of a photo I took today using Photoshop and/or Luminar to process the image. I was trying to capture tree swallows hunting insects over a lake near dusk - a challenging task so the image is heavily cropped and shot at high ISO. Camera setup was: Canon 5 DS R + 300mm F2.8 IS ii + 2X extender iii, 1/2000, F6.3, iso 3200.

 

[PCM-madison]

Your question has led me to dig a little deeper today. Yesterday, I posted results for a marginal photo processed with Photoshop and/or Luminar. Today, I worked with a much better starting image. My conclusion is still the same, I prefer to process RAW with Photoshop and apply Luminar filters afterwards. The starting image was shot as follows: RAW, Canon 5DS R + 300mm F2.8 IS ii + 2X extender, 1/2000sec, F5.6, ISO 640, not cropped. I will post images one at a time because even with lots of jpeg compression it is hard to get under the size limit for this web site for 50mp 5DS R photos. I should add that using Luminar filters always dramatically increases file size. A typical uncropped image that is a 5DS R RAW processed in Photoshop and using a max quality JPG compression might be ~30mb. Adding a Luminar filter will increase that to ~75mb. Image 1, loon RAW developed in Photoshop.

 

[PCM-madison]

RAW processed in Photoshop, Luminar Image Enhancer filter.

 

[PCM-madison]

RAW processed in Photoshop, Luminar Detailed filter.

 

[PCM-madison]

RAW processed in Photoshop, Luminar Sharp and Crisp filter.

 

[PCM-madison]

RAW processed in Luminar, Luminar Image Enhancer filter.

 

[clippingsolutions]

I prefer Photoshop. Because it has all cool features. You will love photoshop if you try it. There is no another software to take the place of photoshop

 

[pwp]

I prefer Photoshop. Because it has all cool features. You will love Photoshop if you try it. There is no another software to take the place of Photoshop

Not yet anyway. Though there are some outfits to watch who have plans to snap at Adobe's heels. But in the meantime, I have no issue at all with the bargain priced subscription for Adobe Photographers Package.

-pw

 

[Hector1970]

I've both as well.
I hardly ever use Luminar.
It's certainly a valid piece of software with a fair bit of functionality.
I just find its so hard to learn photoshop I can't put the energy into learning Luminar too.
It's nice for some quick effects.
In the end I prefer using Lightroom and Photoshop.

What would make me move to Luminar or use it more - if selections because exceptionally brilliant.
Luminar does seem to be working on this but so are Photoshop.

 

[cayenne]

I keep getting ads from Luminar people, with a $69 sale price. A friend of min loves the product, but he is just a newby, so I take his word with a grain of salt.

Anyone switch to Luminar from the subscription services of Adobe? If so, what are your thoughts on it?

Anyone with any comments or thoughts pls jump in, should be interesting.

Scott

I've actually almost made the transition from LR to On1 RAW 2018 for my RAW work flow.

It has the import capabilities just about on par with LR (rename, send to B/U drives on NAS, optional cataloging for easier searches, etc).

It also has some GREAT masking, regular and luminance masking for RAW workflow. It also has a layers section, that allows you to do some PS type work, I have not really explored that yet. I have Affinity Photo for the PS replacement, and I find it to be pretty much about 98% there for PS functionality. So far it does 100% of what "I" do in PS.

With On1 RAW, they have put out I think 2 free updates, and a June one is coming...I believe there will be 1-2 more updates this year.

So far, I find it to be an excellent alternative to the *rental* mode Adobe has moved to.

The price is good, and I find with On1 RAW and Affinity Photo.....I have my LR and PS replacements, but with perpetual licenses, and I can decide to upgrade as I wish, and......the PRICE is more than reasonable.


Just my $0.02,

cayenne

PS. Affinity PHoto also has a RAW section for work, but doesn't have the asset management, so, I use On1 for LR, and AP for PS.

 

[lisa]

I just like to reck of Luminar is for beginners, and the Photoshop obviously for the professionals even though beginner also love it.

 

[cayenne]

I just like to reck of Luminar is for beginners, and the Photoshop obviously for the professionals even though beginner also love it.

Well, I think Luminar and similarly On1 RAW and maybe Capture One...are all more analagous to LR rather than PS, in that they are working directly with RAW images, whereas PS is for after you develop your RAW image, and need to do some heavy lifting on it like compositing, heavy retouching, etc.....