Skylum Luminar 2018
Andy Westlake finds this quirky and creative image editor makes an interesting alternative to Lightroom
andy Westlake tries out an interesting alternative to lightroom
Historically, Adobe has owned the lion’s share of the market for image-editing software. However, its decision late last year to switch Lightroom and Photoshop entirely to a subscription-based model has ruffled a few feathers. The moment you stop paying your monthly fee, the software will stop working, making your Lightroom catalogue and Photoshop PSD files useless. This opens up an opportunity for those competitors who are still offering software as a one-off purchase.
Among the contenders jostling for a share of this market is US-based Skylum. Previously known as MacPhun, the firm has been around for a decade now, making photography-focused software for iOS devices and Apple computers. Its all-in- one photo editor Luminar was originally released for Mac in 2016, but earlier this year,
the firm changed its name to Skylum and announced a Windows version, making Luminar available to a much wider audience. The first release was slow and buggy, but the recent Jupiter update (version 1.2) claims to provide a much better experience. This is the version I tested, with Windows 10.
Features
Luminar is an image editor that will work with the most common file types, including JPEG, PNG, TIFF and even Photoshop PSDs. But it’s also a raw converter that supports all the main camera brands, including Canon, Fujifilm, Nikon, Olympus, Pentax, Panasonic and Sony, as well as the DNG format used by the likes of Leica. I tested it using raw files from a wide range of recent cameras, and it only failed to open Canon’s new CR3 format, as used by the EOS M50.
The program is stacked full of image- editing tools, which (confusingly at first) Skylum calls filters. There are some 50 in all, divided into five categories: Essential, Issue Fixers, Creative, Professional and Utility. Pretty much everything Lightroom can do is in here, one way or another, along with some other options borrowed from Photoshop. There’s also a whole slew of filters that you probably won’t find anywhere else, such as Orton Effect, Soft Glow or Sunrays.
As with Lightroom, Luminar is designed around the principle of non- destructive editing, meaning that your original files always remain intact. You build up combinations of filters until you’ve achieved the desired effect, and then output a new image file. This can be anything from an sRGB JPEG for web publication to a 16-bit Adobe RGB TIFF for further editing.
The raw development filter includes all the essential settings, including white balance, exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows and clarity. Unusually, there are no white-balance presets, just a slider running from warm to cool labelled in Kelvin. Mac users get support for DCP camera profiles to mimic JPEG colour rendition, with Windows users due to gain this feature shortly. There’s also a full set of perspective- correction options, alongside lens compensation for chromatic aberration, distortion and vignetting. In principle, the software can read any profiled corrections that are embedded into the raw file and give you the choice of applying them or not. But I found it didn’t always work reliably with newer models such as the Panasonic TZ200, meaning your images can show severe distortion that you’ll have to correct manually.
Other core filters include a dedicated B&W Conversion module, with presets that simulate the effect of using coloured lens filters with monochrome film. There’s also a useful Structure filter that enhances local contrast to help make details stand out. Naturally, you can rotate and crop your image freely, with a huge range of preset aspect ratios available, while a Clone Stamp tool lets you remove unwanted features such as sensor dust spots (although it’s painfully slow).
One of the most interesting filters is Accent-AI, which aims to apply intelligent tonal adjustments to your image, lifting shadow detail without losing highlights. On the whole, it does an excellent job of making really significant changes without looking unnatural, and its effect is highly adjustable using a single slider. I found it particularly useful when processing images that I’d deliberately underexposed to retain highlight detail.
Combinations of filters can be saved as presets, and creative photographers will appreciate the vast array of these that come built in. As with everything in Luminar, the effects are widely adjustable, so you don’t have to end up with the results that look the same as everyone else’s. Multiple presets can be applied as separate layers, and then blended together in all sorts of different ways. The creative possibilities on offer are immense.
One thing distinctly missing from Luminar, however, is any kind of asset-management system. In other words, you can’t rate files or add keywords, or even browse through a folder of images to decide which ones you want to process. So you’ll likely need to use it alongside an image browser such as XnView for
Mac or IrfanView for Windows, both of which are free for non- commercial use.
User interface
Superficially, Luminar shares an on-screen look with other raw processors such as Lightroom and Capture One, with a dark grey background, a toolbar along the top, and a tool palette arranged down the right side of the screen. But it turns out to have a rather different philosophy: instead of always displaying a bewildering array of panels and sliders, it only shows those filters you are currently using. The program includes preset workspaces that call up recommended combinations of filters for specific tasks, for instance, making a black & white image.
Filter panels can be expanded to display all their settings sliders, or collapsed to take up less screen estate. In addition, their visibility can be easily clicked on or off to help you understand their effect. This turns out to be a great way of making the program approachable for new users, while still offering a huge number of advanced functions. Even for experienced users, it’s great for keeping track of all your changes, and makes it especially easy to go back and tweak your adjustments as your thinking on how to process each file evolves.
Presets are selected from a strip of thumbnail previews below your image, providing an easy one- click approach to applying a specific look. If you prefer not to use them, they can simply be hidden away.
Performance
Luminar’s big problem, unfortunately, is speed: unless you have a pretty new computer, it takes ages to open and process each file. Using my three-yearold Lenovo Yoga 2 13 powered by an Intel Core i3 processor and running the latest iteration of Windows 10, a 24MP Sony Alpha 7 II raw file took 30 seconds to load, and almost a minute to save to a processed JPEG. In comparison, Adobe Camera Raw opened the same file nearinstantly, and processed it in 12 seconds. Even a 16MP Olympus OM- D E- M5 Mark II raw file took Luminar 23 seconds to load and 30 seconds to save; Adobe Camera Raw processed it in a third of the time. So I’d recommend Windows users test the program before buying.
This sluggishness is a shame, because I was pleased with the images Luminar produced. As a raw processor it delivers plenty of detail, accurate colours and effective high- ISO noise reduction. The default sharpening is minimal, though, so if you want files to look sharp when examining them at 100% on screen, you’ll have to add some more, either as a filter or from the Export dialogue. Overall I’d put the output quality in much the same class as Adobe’s processing: the look is a bit different, but not obviously better or worse.