I found the combination of these two sliders to be the most useful tools in the entire application. The AI Accent and AI Sky Enhancer tools are located under the AI Enhance editing panel. It is fun to play with, but this is a tool I will only use occasionally. If I count how many times I had to perform sky replacement in the last 12 months, that number would only be two or three. On top of the AI-powered functionality, you also have an array of tools to manually finetune the images.Įven though the Sky Replacement tool is very effective, I do not find that it is critical for my workflow. This is when the sky library that I have been collecting for years comes in handy. The Sky Replacement tool also comes with a library of sky images ready for use, but you can also use your own photos. Unedited Photo of Escalante River in Utah Even when you have a photo where the sky is obstructed by a tree, the tool manages to pinpoint the disjointed areas of the sky.

The most impressive functionality of the AI-powered tool is how well it detects the area of the sky. In Luminar 4, you can replace the sky in your photo and continue editing in the RAW environment. Before you can proceed with the sky replacement, you have to rasterize the image. Normally, sky replacement is performed in photo editing programs like Photoshop. To my surprise, the tool works extremely well and the percentage of photos where additional manual tinkering is unnecessary is extremely high. Since I know firsthand that the process of replacing the sky in a landscape photo can be a tricky and time-consuming process, I was curious about its effectiveness. The Sky Replacement tool generated the most excitement among the photo community. The effectiveness of AI is both exciting and scary because it shows us a glimpse of the near future. But that looks to be changing with the latest release of Luminar 4, which has taken a commanding lead in regard to AI advancements. The effectiveness of these tools is questionable and progressing slowly. The AI tools in Luminar 4 are very useful, useable, and effective.Įvery editing program, including Lightroom and Photoshop, use some of kind of tools powered by AI and machine learning. So, when I first heard the announcement about Luminar 4 and its heavy use of AI, I rolled my eyes and did not pay much attention.īut I was wrong. AI is such an overused word that it seems like even the cereal sold in grocery stores is powered by AI. These days, I roll my eyes when I hear AI abbreviations used in marketing campaigns. The biggest buzz about Luminar 4 is the addition of a slew of artificial intelligence (AI) tools. Since the features for both the Mac and Windows versions of Luminar is identical, I do not expect the Mac version to be any different. Today, I am offering my feedback on running Luminar 4 on my Windows desktop computer for one month. For years, the Windows version was behind the Mac version. If you are a Windows user, I am happy to inform you that, for the first time in Luminar history, both versions of the program (Mac and Windows) are identical in terms of features.

My understanding is that since Skylum completely rebuilt the editing module of the program and introduced a myriad of new tools, the upgrade was not possible due to compatibility issues. You can run both versions of Luminar simultaneously. When you install Luminar 4, it does not replace the Luminar 3 installation. It is not an upgrade to Luminar 3 but is a new application. Luminar 4 is the second generation of the program since the introduction of the digital asset management (DAM). The popularity of Luminar exploded even further when they introduced the Library module to the program, which made it a viable option not only for editing photos but also for managing and organizing large photo libraries.

When Skylum released the Windows version of Luminar in 2018, it immediately became the darling of newcomers in the world of photography because of the simplicity and intuitiveness of the program compared to Lightroom and Capture One. Instead, Sklyum created a completely different experience that relied heavily on filter effects and AI-powered tools. The program caught the attention of many photographers because it did not follow in the steps of industry leaders Lightroom and Capture One. Luminar is a photo editing program that was originally created by Skylum (formally known as MacPhun) as a Mac-only RAW editor.

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