After teasing its new AI-based featured, Skylum’s Luminar 4 is now finally out. You can get it as a standalone app or as a plugin, and it’s all about making your editing process faster and more efficient. And also, to make it more fun.
Key Features
The new Luminar 4 comes with a refreshed interface and workflow. Skylum notes that the software has shifted from being tool-based to being purpose-based. The aim of Luminar 4 is not only to speed up your editing but also to shorten the learning process for those who may be new to editing.
As you may have seen before the launch, Luminar 4 is packed with AI-powered tools, and these include AI Sky Replacement, AI Structure, AI Skin Enhancer, and Portrait Enhancer. All of them are complex automated processes for enhancing your photos, but they’re still customizable. Here’s more on each of them: AI Sky Replacement – it automatically detects both the sky and the objects in a photo. It replaces the sky (as the name suggests) but makes sure that the photo ends up being as realistic as possible. This tool also removes halos, artifacts, and edges of transitions when the sky is replaced. It enables you to adjust the sky to fit the rest of an image — things like depth of field, tone, exposure, and color. So, this tool could be also used for portraits. AI Structure in Luminar 4 automatically identifies objects like people and their faces, skin, sky, buildings and more. It then adds detail and clarity to targeted areas and boosts the structure without affecting the subject. In other words, instead of adding structure to an entire photograph, it does it selectively, so you don’t have to brush out the effect after you apply it. Skin Enhancer and Portrait Enhancer these two tools are targeted at editing people’s faces. Skin Enhancer automatically removes various skin imperfections and makes the skin smoother. Still, it leaves pores, hair, and eyelashes intact for more realistic results. As for Portrait Enhancer, it offers several customization tools. According to Skylum, this tool allows you to “highlight and improve” primary features of a person’s face and achieve a professional-looking portrait and make facial features “more expressive.” But, I’d suggest that you be careful with it, as you may easily overdo it.
Adapting Luminar 4 to your workflow
As I mentioned, Luminar 4 is available as a standalone application, but you can also use it as a plugin for Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom Classic, and Photoshop Elements, as well as Apple Photos for macOS and Aperture.
Pricing and availability
Mixed-computer households can share the same product key for Mac and PC which can be activated on 2 devices. The price is $89/€89/£81 for a new purchase and $74/€74/£68 for an upgrade at Skylum’s website. Here are a few quick guides and inspiration videos, and you can see more of these on Skylum’s YouTube channel.
