Phase One Capture One Pro
Ichikawa Software Labs Silkypix DS
Olympus' free Viewer
Adobe Lightroom (original beta)
I started with Capture One 3.x way back in 2006. Good raw development application software was difficult to find. Thankfully, Olympus bodies produced fine JPEG files. If I had been using Canon or Nikon, I would have been in more of a hurry.
When Luminar became available on Mac OS X, I had already been using the company's Creative Kit 2016, which had a single application for a major functionality. Luminar put those together in a simplified way.
Thankfully, Apple created CoreImage functionality and that took away some of the complexity, especially when dealing with raw files--if Apple got it right.
The company's software gave me a reason to experiment and it made it quick and interesting. With Luminar, many transformations became so quick simply because I didn't need to switch from application to application. I could have dramatic results within minutes.
If you look at Capture One Pro or Silkypix DS, they both support saving a group of settings to give photos a certain look quickly. Those in Capture One Pro especially tend to be holding to a less dramatic upheaval than Luminar. Given the target type of photographer, that might be appropriate. I appreciate some restraint, but I'm learning that my audience may want a bit more spice.
Now that I'm using the Windows version of Luminar, things are less certain than on the Mac but just as interesting. They have many things planned but I would just like to be able to switch quickly between a number of files within a folder. I photograph sports, so I might end up with hundreds (or more) of photos from a meet or tournament. I can't guess at which one is which, especially when Windows doesn't support the raw files.
At this point, I will have Capture One Pro open and switch to Luminar for special edits, which is difficult to do with the current 8 GB of RAM. (I'm working on that, but don't know whether I will be okay with "only" 16 GB or need 32 GB, especially for video projects.)
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| Left-original, Right-altered |
I'm looking forward to more experimentation with Luminar. Hopefully, they can provide a healthier interface to files, so it's easier to use in a professional workflow.
Update 2018.11.02: The company released the AI Sky Enhancer filter. It's supposed to only work on sky and clouds. I'm not certain how wonderful it is because I have yet to make extensive use of it.
Included is a side-by-side sample of a fairly busy sky at sunset photo to show the differences. This may be a bad example but it does show differences.
Update 2018.12.06: Skylum have announced that the update to Luminar that adds Libraries will be available on December 18th.
Update 2019.01.08: For anyone interested, I've been trying to use Luminar 3, with the updates, and it is miserable. I am certain that everything will be much better in time, but I don't even feel it's worth using at this time.
The first time I started it, it took forever, as if it was an early (alpha/beta?) release of a product. It asked what I wanted to have in libraries. What I selected was completely duplicated, but with a current date, so that it made a mess of searching and use of the Photos application. After the fix update, I tried a few photos and with each style I tried, it created an image.
They have a great many things to handle. Until they get them under control, I will use Luminar 2018.
Update 2019.02.19: Luminar 3.0.2 is out. I updated but will continue to use Luminar 2018 because I don't have to guess at how it will work.
Update 2020.01.22: Luminar 3.2.0 is out, even though the company has moved to version 4 of the software, featuring Artificial Intelligence sky replacement and portrait enhancement.
I appreciate that they went further to fix version 3 a bit, but I'm still not ready to move to version 4. Luminar is a great tool for huge edits BUT is in no way essential to my workflow. Until Luminar 2018 becomes incompatible with a future Windows 10 update, I will continue to use it when I feel the need for more stylish editing. I would say that they're fighting Adobe Photoshop Elements, which is using AI in their latest version, but it seems multiple applications are trying AI at some level.
By the way, Affinity Photo, Publisher, and Designer all work together quite well, if you're looking for a light suite of applications that tackles quite a lot, but is rather inexpensive. They all work with Windows, Mac, and iPad. I haven't been tied to Adobe since 2006 and don't like that they pile on enhancements without fixing bugs first. The people at Skylum seem to be doing that with Luminar, but they're not entrenched as Adobe are.
Update 2020.02.17: I receive e-mails from Skylum practically every week. They apparently need me to purchase Luminar 4. I'm not interested. They'll be sad. I'm sad that I paid for Luminar 3.
The best way for them to make money now is to make all those Mac-only apps into style packs and sell them. They did a set for the black and white application that I used to use and those styles helped me recover part of what I had felt I lost.
I appreciate that they want to move into AI, as did Adobe, but I'm not that interested. I haven't even bought the latest Phase One Capture One Pro update. It has a lot to offer, especially since the year ago version, but I'm not really in the mood and I don't photograph nearly as often.
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