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DPChallenge Forums >> Hardware and Software >> Luminar vs Lightroom
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04/26/2020 09:04:34 PM · #1
Today a group of photographers setup a zoom call and ask me to go over the Luminar and Lightroom differences and best options with Luminar. While review and discussion the two, I created a video, not a great video but would show you good part of tools.

Check it out :)

Message edited by author 2020-04-26 21:04:57.
07/03/2020 02:03:58 PM · #2
I'm considering it. I used the manufacturer's RAW apps for a long time, but now that I have cameras from 3 makers plus 2 drones, that became awkward.

I have been using Corel aftershot for a few months, but there are some things that don't always work well and I had to do a hack to get it to read the DNG files from my Autel Evo. Emailed Corel from the link in the app that said to contact them to add a camera and never got a response.

They have what looks like a decent sale on Luminar for the July 4th holiday, including a bunch of plugins. Might give the trial a whirl over the weekend.


A question for you: Does it support browsing images with your existing folder structure, or do you have to import them into a library?
07/03/2020 03:54:41 PM · #3
DarkTable is the correct answer.
07/03/2020 05:08:16 PM · #4
I have been using Luminar for a couple weeks now and I am loving it. Plus their Aurora HDR has evolved into the most intuitive, unaggressive HDR engine I have yet found.
07/03/2020 06:56:27 PM · #5
Originally posted by Yo_Spiff:

A question for you: Does it support browsing images with your existing folder structure, or do you have to import them into a library?

Luminar 3 will import your pictures and create its own library. But not as smart as Lightroom does. Is one of the features of Luminar I don’t like. Therefore for me Luminar is not a replacement of Lightroom, it’s more an editing addition.
07/03/2020 07:03:54 PM · #6
Originally posted by Kroburg:

Originally posted by Yo_Spiff:

A question for you: Does it support browsing images with your existing folder structure, or do you have to import them into a library?

Luminar 3 will import your pictures and create its own library. But not as smart as Lightroom does. Is one of the features of Luminar I don’t like. Therefore for me Luminar is not a replacement of Lightroom, it’s more an editing addition.

Ditto. I still catalog through LR, but from that catalog I can right-click to Edit in Aurora or Luminar, and when it is done it saves a TIFF to the LR catalog...
07/03/2020 07:04:55 PM · #7
Originally posted by Yo_Spiff:

A question for you: Does it support browsing images with your existing folder structure, or do you have to import them into a library?

To answer this specific question, you can browse an image from anywhere on your drive and open it in Luminar.
07/03/2020 09:06:08 PM · #8
Originally posted by Bear_Music:

Originally posted by Yo_Spiff:

A question for you: Does it support browsing images with your existing folder structure, or do you have to import them into a library?

To answer this specific question, you can browse an image from anywhere on your drive and open it in Luminar.


Thanks. It looks like I can also add sections of my existing folder structure into the library easily, so I added my entire photo SSD for easy navigation. I am looking for how to review and separate the keepers from the throwaways. I'll finish the turorial that Girish made and then review some "getting started" type tutorials. Sofar it seems mostly intuitive, but I couldn't figure out how to clone out a person and some shadows from this image. Had to take it into PSP to clone those out. I'm sure it will seem intuitive once I find it.


Message edited by author 2020-07-03 21:08:42.
07/04/2020 02:44:49 AM · #9
Probably going to buy this. I edited a shot I took in Palo Duro Canyon in January. I was really disappointed after a long hike and climb, the formation I wanted to photograph was severely backlit with a boring flat blue sky.

Original image


Best I could do on a similar shot from the same set, but without the glare on the right.


Used Luminar to adjust and paste in a new sky.


The application comes with several dozen skies to use, but not using my own image for that feels like cheating to me, so I used one of my own. Color wasn't quite right, but one of the treatments helped.

Biggest issue for me seems to be the way it looks at folders it will show you everything in the subfolders as well, which I don't want to see. No way to change this as far as I can tell. My subfolders are "converted" "In Work" and "Edited" , which I don't want mixed in with my original RAW files. Solution is to have another subfolder for RAW, so I only see the files I want to see.

Message edited by author 2020-07-04 02:49:04.
07/04/2020 04:13:06 AM · #10
I might have a look at Luminar out of curiosity but for now I thought how I would edit your image. I couldn't download it so I worked off the screen capture, I hope you don't mind. The resulting quality is very poor but I thought it would do as an example of a possible PP. I would leverage the sun and include the people for interest, put more light on them and the light between the rocks:


PS I should be really doing something else, just an excuse to delay it ;)
07/04/2020 11:58:45 AM · #11
Originally posted by marnet:

I might have a look at Luminar out of curiosity but for now I thought how I would edit your image.


Thanks for the effort! I'm going to start saving good sky images for future use. Using the built in ones are good for learning, but not for regular use on my own photos.

I tried this sky replacemant with one of the built-ins and ran into some minor limitations. It has some trouble with a lot of the background detail, You can see some smudging around the turbines in the distance where it had a hard time. Wouldn't be too had to clean up, though.


07/04/2020 12:02:46 PM · #12
I believe I mentioned some where that this one is all done in Luminar and it took me 10 mins to have this with the three shots.



I believe I have $10 discount coupon, let me find it out that you can use.

Message edited by author 2020-07-04 12:03:19.
07/04/2020 12:08:56 PM · #13
I had a quick look, it seems very powerful, lots of options. And it even has layers although I don't know yet how useful they are. I added one and then the export back to Lightroom took a very long time. I will play with it a bit more to see if I would use it at least as much as I use Nik (occasionally). I cannot see it replacing LR Develop module though, maybe it is because I used Lightroom from version 1 and I am so used to it.
07/04/2020 12:13:59 PM · #14
When I look at the prices I see them in euros. How much is Luminar 4 on its own in the US?
07/04/2020 12:18:42 PM · #15
Originally posted by marnet:

I had a quick look, it seems very powerful, lots of options. And it even has layers although I don't know yet how useful they are. I added one and then the export back to Lightroom took a very long time. I will play with it a bit more to see if I would use it at least as much as I use Nik (occasionally). I cannot see it replacing LR Develop module though, maybe it is because I used Lightroom from version 1 and I am so used to it.

I think I would find myself doing less bitmap editing in PSP, maybe just bringing an image into PSP to polish it off and do some things I can't do it Luminar. That would probably become less as I learn how to use Luminar.

I'm also a little bothered that it doesn't show me the filenames clearly and that it mixes the contents of a folder and it's subfolders. I will have to make minor changes to my folder system, otherwise Luminar will show me RAW, converted JPG's, in work files and final edits (of different sizes) all mixed in together without the filenames to differentiate them.

Girish, do you use Luminar to review and sort your images after a session, and if so, how do you do it?
In my current workflow, I put the shots on a temporary drive, then review and grade them. I then move the keepers to a permanent home and eventually delete the others when the temporary drive gets full.
07/04/2020 01:00:08 PM · #16
Usually what I do is:

1. after every event, I copy all photographs on my local drive
2. Select all photographs those are good and marked them as Favorite
3. In the Gallery image mode, in the showing drop down, I select Favorite
4. this shows all that I marked Favorite and now select them all , right click and click on "Create Album". This way all my selected photographs are in album. This is more like virtual book of the images
5 at any point in time if I want to remove any image from the album , either I right click and remove from album or hit delete button. This doesn't delete from the drive but just removes from the album.

Originally posted by Yo_Spiff:

Originally posted by marnet:

I had a quick look, it seems very powerful, lots of options. And it even has layers although I don't know yet how useful they are. I added one and then the export back to Lightroom took a very long time. I will play with it a bit more to see if I would use it at least as much as I use Nik (occasionally). I cannot see it replacing LR Develop module though, maybe it is because I used Lightroom from version 1 and I am so used to it.

I think I would find myself doing less bitmap editing in PSP, maybe just bringing an image into PSP to polish it off and do some things I can't do it Luminar. That would probably become less as I learn how to use Luminar.

I'm also a little bothered that it doesn't show me the filenames clearly and that it mixes the contents of a folder and it's subfolders. I will have to make minor changes to my folder system, otherwise Luminar will show me RAW, converted JPG's, in work files and final edits (of different sizes) all mixed in together without the filenames to differentiate them.

Girish, do you use Luminar to review and sort your images after a session, and if so, how do you do it?
In my current workflow, I put the shots on a temporary drive, then review and grade them. I then move the keepers to a permanent home and eventually delete the others when the temporary drive gets full.
07/04/2020 01:04:28 PM · #17
Originally posted by marnet:

When I look at the prices I see them in euros. How much is Luminar 4 on its own in the US?

Luminar 4 alone, 4th of July sale, $69.00... Luminar 4 + Aurora HDR, same sale, $118.00...
07/04/2020 01:21:31 PM · #18
Originally posted by Bear_Music:

Originally posted by marnet:

When I look at the prices I see them in euros. How much is Luminar 4 on its own in the US?

Luminar 4 alone, 4th of July sale, $69.00... Luminar 4 + Aurora HDR, same sale, $118.00...

Here no sale, 89 euros = $US 100, quite a ripoff
07/04/2020 01:30:08 PM · #19
do this, click on this link and before you make a payment you will see option to enter promotion and there enter "LUMINAR-FRIEND" and that should give you $10 discount.

Originally posted by marnet:

Originally posted by Bear_Music:

Originally posted by marnet:

When I look at the prices I see them in euros. How much is Luminar 4 on its own in the US?

Luminar 4 alone, 4th of July sale, $69.00... Luminar 4 + Aurora HDR, same sale, $118.00...

Here no sale, 89 euros = $US 100, quite a ripoff
07/04/2020 02:44:29 PM · #20
Originally posted by pgirish007:

do this, click on this link and before you make a payment you will see option to enter promotion and there enter "LUMINAR-FRIEND" and that should give you $10 discount.

Originally posted by marnet:

Originally posted by Bear_Music:

Originally posted by marnet:

When I look at the prices I see them in euros. How much is Luminar 4 on its own in the US?

Luminar 4 alone, 4th of July sale, $69.00... Luminar 4 + Aurora HDR, same sale, $118.00...

Here no sale, 89 euros = $US 100, quite a ripoff

Thanks, Girish, I got 10 euros off :)
07/04/2020 03:59:38 PM · #21
Purchased. It only allowed one discount and since the holiday sale was $25 off, I went with that. Thanks for the code anyway.

Seems to handle the DNG files from my Evo just fine. I think I will still use other software in order to review my shots. Aftershot is much stronger in that area. It renders full screen previews very quickly and integrates with the file manager to move the keepers. But the editing features of this are great! Going to hit some more tutorials.
07/04/2020 04:19:45 PM · #22
Yes it can handle DNG. All my drone shots are there except videos which i am anyway not using these for video editing.

Originally posted by Yo_Spiff:

Purchased. It only allowed one discount and since the holiday sale was $25 off, I went with that. Thanks for the code anyway.

Seems to handle the DNG files from my Evo just fine. I think I will still use other software in order to review my shots. Aftershot is much stronger in that area. It renders full screen previews very quickly and integrates with the file manager to move the keepers. But the editing features of this are great! Going to hit some more tutorials.
07/05/2020 02:19:49 PM · #23
Well, I figured out how to do my reviewing method with Luminar. Have to adjust my workflow slightly.

Since it doesn't give me the ability to actually move files from within the application, I set up Luminar on one monitor and two windows of a the file manager on the other. Since I am shooting RAW+JPG, I only review the JPG's for the sake of speedy rendering and when I find a keeper, I move the pair from my temporary folder to it's permanent home.



So reviewing works, but no ability to copy or move from within the program.
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