Lots of new stuff coming to Luminar
I realise that I’ve been covering Capture One quite a bit lately, but that’s mainly because of the announcements around Photokina regarding its partnership with Fujifilm. However, there’s lots of other software related news and releases, and I haven’t quite kept up with it all. Skylum, in addition to launching Aurora HDR2019, has also been making some announcements regarding Luminar, all of which are pretty interesting.
Luminar with Libraries
It seems like a long time ago now that they announced the upcoming asset management side of Luminar. I felt at the time that they may have gotten ahead of themselves pre-announcing it so early and promising it as a free upgrade. Despite the time, they are still on track to deliver it, and are still promising that it will be free to current users. In fact they have promised that they will continue to offer free upgrades to current users until late next year (2019) at the earliest. From the official blog…
Starting with Luminar Libraries in December, we've got a series of huge updates coming over the next year. A much anticipated addition to Luminar, Libraries will allow photographers to organize, browse and edit images on the fly. Libraries will be powerful right out of the gate, but it represents the first of many photo organization and management updates launching over the following months.
From Libraries to other killer features, these updates are so powerful, that we want them in the hands of as many photographers as possible. To this end, we're going to do something unprecedented. Through late 2019 (at least), we're making every new feature available to all Luminar 2018 users - at no cost! Every customer who’s using the current version of Luminar will have these great new features.
While software companies typically roll out paid updates every year, there will be no paid updates for Luminar until late 2019 at the earliest.
In addition to this they’ve been posting some teaser videos to the company’s YouTube channel. All of these look pretty promising.
Sky Enhancement
Another new feature that they’ve teased, which will be coming in the next update is Sky Enhancer. This is another AI based filter, and works, as the name suggests, to enhance skies. Here’s the official explanation…
This filter was created for photographers who would rather focus on creating photos, and have neither the time or inclination to spend hours correcting their images.
By moving a single slider you can add depth, definition, and detail to the sky without exposing unwanted artifacts or affecting any other aspect of the image.
No one wants boring skies in their photos, and restoring and improving the sky is one of the most important things while creating a masterpiece. We’ve done our best to make this process as simple as it can be - the new AI Sky Enhancer creates no halos, automatically detects the edges of the sky and recognizes the sky even inside other objects such as bridges.
They also posted a video demonstrating this too…
Getting Luminar
I’m a member of the Skylum affiliate program so if you do want to get Luminar, then you can use my code ( TFP10 )to get a $10 discount, and you’ll be helping keep this blog going, as the affiliate fees help pay for hosting etc.
The new and advanced AI Sky Enhancer Filter is going to be added to Luminar on November 1, 2018 in advance of Luminar Libraries.
New users can purchase Luminar 2018 for $59 USD ($49 with my discount code: TFP10 )
Current users of Luminar 2018 may update for free
Current users of Luminar 2017 may upgrade for $49 USD ($39 with my discount code: TFP10)
