Luminar 4 First Impressions
Those of you that follow us here at PhotographyTalk know that we’ve been impressed with past versions of Luminar in addition to other Skylum products, like the venerable AuroraHDR.
But Skylum, never wanting to miss an opportunity to wow us with advanced editing tools, is about to drop Luminar 4, and it’s certainly something we should all be excited about.
To say that Skylum has brought it in Luminar 4 is an understatement - this first look at this new update gives you a sneak peek at some of its most impressive features.
New Features in Luminar 4
One of the best new features in Luminar 4 is the updated Edit Module.
It’s not like Luminar 3 wasn’t super easy to use with an intuitive layout, but Luminar 4 takes it up a notch with a redesigned experience that improves your ability to find and use the tools you need to get the job done.
Also new in Luminar 4 is the Color Style Library that allows you to change the color and mood of your images with cinematic color styles. This feature works beautifully with a vast library of Luminar Looks - creative presets that give you the power to customize the look of your images with just a few clicks.
What’s great about Looks, though, is that they aren’t just a “click-and-apply” preset. Instead, you can fine-tune the Looks to your specifications and make them truly adaptive to your needs. See what I mean in the video above by The Art of Photography.
Add to that improved stability and performance, an upgraded Golden Hour Filter, and improved Denoise Filter, and an upgraded Adjustable Gradient Filter, and you have the makings of a high-powered photo editor!
But that’s not all that’s new in Luminar 4…
There are plenty of AI-powered features that make it a next-level image editor.
Luminar 4 Features AI Sky Replacement
Yep, you read that right…
In Luminar 4, you can actually replace the sky - not just edit it, but totally replace it!
And it’s an intelligent replacement, too. That is, you don’t have to make selections or create masks. Instead, it’s an automated process by which intelligent selection algorithms selects only the sky, leaving tiny details like leaves, grass, birds, or hair alone.
The Sky Replacement Tool also removes artifacts like halos and hard edges. It even relights the entire photo, that way the original image matches the new sky. It will even choose the best orientation of the replacement sky, that way it looks and feels realistic when paired with the original image.
See AI Sky Replacement in action in the video above by Dustin Abbott.
Luminar 4 Includes AI Portrait Tools Too
All you portrait enthusiasts out there can take advantage of Luminar 4’s new Portrait Enhancer and Skin Enhancer tools to create breathtaking portraits.
The Portrait Enhancer has a dozen different tools that give you total control over precise edits.
From removing red eye to whitening eyes, relighting the model’s face to adjusting the details of the model’s lips, and more, you can manipulate sliders to get the perfect look in your portraits. You can even brighten the model’s face, as shown above.
As if that’s not enough, Luminar 4 also includes an AI Skin Enhancer, which uses human-aware technology to find all the skin in a photo - face, arms, legs, and so forth - all on its own, regardless of skin type or the age of the model..
Then, it removes blemishes and smooths out skin, all without losing details like pores, texture, and hair.
Again, these portrait tools make use of AI, so there is no masking or selections needed. Instead, these changes can be made with one click with easy adjustments to their strength via sliders.
Use AI Structure to Reveal Details in Images
Traditionally, photographers have used tools like Structure and Clarity to enhance details in their images, but to the detriment of other parts of the photo because these tools were applied to the entire photo.
Not anymore…
Luminar 4 has an AI Structure feature that automatically identifies objects and improves their details in a content-aware way.
Whether it’s a person’s face, clouds, buildings, water, or some other object, the AI Structure tool brings a greater level of detail and richness without any part of the image looking overworked.
On top of that, AI Structure improves texture, clarity, and dynamic range. It does this without introducing any artifacts, noise, or halos.
Luminar 4 Turns Hours of Editing Into Minutes
Truthfully, with all these high-powered tools, Luminar 4 makes your photo editing workflow so much more timely.
Combined with the best features from Luminar 3 - like the Accent AI Filter (which makes a dozens of selective adjustments using human-aware technology), Smart Contrast, which carefully preserves colors and details while boosting contrast, a library feature to help you organize, sort, and find images, and more than 70 Looks to unleash your creativity - there is nothing stopping you from creating epic photos.
You can check out our complete Luminar 3 Review to see what features it has to offer, and be sure to stay tuned for our full Luminar 4 Review coming up soon!
In the meantime, watch the quick overview of Luminar 4 in the video above, then go ahead and pre-order Luminar 4 (with additional goodies)!
