[mee]

Luminar hurts my head. It has modular approach which means it can be very adaptable and configurable, but it also means it has a ton more complexity than it really needs for most situations. Ironically I think the adaptability of Luminar is a detriment to the usability.. the application sort of gets in its way..

And some sliders such as the contrast, highlights, and shadow sliders behave much differently from Lightroom.. which just works in my view.

True enough I can somewhat closely match my LR settings in Luminar.. contrast at 12% in Luminar is showing as contrast at around 66% in Lightroom in shots with sun in view. And Luminar seems to darken the scene much quicker than Lightroom.. as well as not handling highlights as well as as Lightroom either... showing less detail through Luminar's slider range. But it a lot more work in Lum to get what is a few slider checks in LR.

I will say it is a nice idea to have layers and layouts of modules that can be saved into presets if you appreciate the rendering the software provides. But I'm not convinced of it. It seems, to me, to be more work than Lightroom and reduced quality of results.

Affinity Photo (which I bought) works nicely as a PS replacement.. esp for stacking and the sort. But the shadow, contrast, and exposure sliders really behave funkily .. exposure more so where it sort of lifts and cooks the image strangely. LR provides a much more natural effect.. shadow adjustments are the same situation.

I mostly process in LR and then stack or make changes that require layers in Affinity Photo..

I am looking at DxO Photolab next.. but the problem with most of these is no cataloging. They simply process images but not importing, tagging, an storing of them.

Affinity claims they are working on a DAM and that would be nice. Macphun/Slumslamwhatevertheirnewname is making one too. But right now they are without. Sticking with Lightroom 6 indefinitely until one of these packages renders 'properly' AND includes a competent DAM.

That is the beauty of LR.. its all in one and it just works.. quite well I might add. And Adobe knows this.

[AggieDad]

Luminar hurts my head. It has modular approach which means it can be very adaptable and configurable, but it also means it has a ton more complexity than it really needs for most situations. Ironically I think the adaptability of Luminar is a detriment to the usability.. the application sort of gets in its way..

And some sliders such as the contrast, highlights, and shadow sliders behave much differently from Lightroom.. which just works in my view.

True enough I can somewhat closely match my LR settings in Luminar.. contrast at 12% in Luminar is showing as contrast at around 66% in Lightroom in shots with sun in view. And Luminar seems to darken the scene much quicker than Lightroom.. as well as not handling highlights as well as as Lightroom either... showing less detail through Luminar's slider range. But it a lot more work in Lum to get what is a few slider checks in LR.

I will say it is a nice idea to have layers and layouts of modules that can be saved into presets if you appreciate the rendering the software provides. But I'm not convinced of it. It seems, to me, to be more work than Lightroom and reduced quality of results.

Affinity Photo (which I bought) works nicely as a PS replacement.. esp for stacking and the sort. But the shadow, contrast, and exposure sliders really behave funkily .. exposure more so where it sort of lifts and cooks the image strangely. LR provides a much more natural effect.. shadow adjustments are the same situation.

I mostly process in LR and then stack or make changes that require layers in Affinity Photo..

I am looking at DxO Photolab next.. but the problem with most of these is no cataloging. They simply process images but not importing, tagging, an storing of them.

Affinity claims they are working on a DAM and that would be nice. Macphun/Slumslamwhatevertheirnewname is making one too. But right now they are without. Sticking with Lightroom 6 indefinitely until one of these packages renders 'properly' AND includes a competent DAM.

That is the beauty of LR.. its all in one and it just works.. quite well I might add. And Adobe knows this.

Interesting. I guess that is why there is both vanilla and chocolate. Our two takes on Luminar demonstrate why it is important to try things for yourself rather than just going with the other guy’s advice. Luminar is very intuitive to me, and I find I can achieve results that are every bit as nice (identical if I wish) to anything I can do in Lightroom.

Don

[jatrax]

If asset management is critical, you might look at Darktable which has a pretty nice asset management system.

I hear good things about Darktable but I believe it is Linux only. I have no issues with Linux, but I have far too much time invested in Windows to learn a new operating system. If it were available for Windows I would test it.

That is the beauty of LR.. its all in one and it just works.. quite well I might add. And Adobe knows this.

Hard to beat "it just works" when you have work to do and limited time to get it done.

[AggieDad]

I hear good things about Darktable but I believe it is Linux only. I have no issues with Linux, but I have far too much time invested in Windows to learn a new operating system. If it were available for Windows I would test it.

They recently introduced a Windows version of Darktable which is currently available as a beta. I suspect it is probably 6 months or more away from a fully stable copy.

[mee]

Interesting. I guess that is why there is both vanilla and chocolate. Our two takes on Luminar demonstrate why it is important to try things for yourself rather than just going with the other guy’s advice. Luminar is very intuitive to me, and I find I can achieve results that are every bit as nice (identical if I wish) to anything I can do in Lightroom.

Absolutely. I too would recommend for everyone to trial them for themselves.. if I had listened to the people saying Luminar is great just dive in, I'd have been really disappointed in spending money on it. That said, they supposedly have a decent refund policy, but back and forth with money is something I'd rather avoid.

Not sure what I'm going to do after LR6 no longer supports my cameras, but hopefully by then some of these competitors will have matured their software. That is one thing Adobe has running for it.. stable, tried and tested algorithms handling things like exposure, shadows and highlights. But no way am I renting software!

[jatrax]

They recently introduced a Windows version of Darktable which is currently available as a beta. I suspect it is probably 6 months or more away from a fully stable copy.

Thanks for the update, I will look into it.

[wolfiegirl]

Luminar is stand-alone, but can import/export directly to LR or PS or Photos or Aperture; neither Noiseless nor Snapheal are part of Luminar - they are part of the Creative Kit and can be purchased as a kit together with Tonality (which is awesome for monochrome), FX, and Intensify....

Thanks for clarifying. I've had lots of ads for snapheal in my facebook feed and it looks super easy, so am tempted to try. Noise reduction has always been a bug bear of mine, so I'm tempted to try noiseless to see if it is better than lightroom or not.

I'll go and see what the pricing is for the full creative kit and compare.

nterestingly, if you are using a Mac, you can access all three of these programs - and more, including both Creative Kit and the Nik plugins - as plugins directly through the Photos edit module.

I am using a mac. I've been using lightroom and am fine with it. I've invested enough in adobe that I don't feel like I can change editing platforms at the moment. I tried darktable - but never could figure out how to make it work. Not intuitive enough for me and no time to watch tutorials. lol

I actually have a whole bunch of nik plug in stuff - but have never used them.

[beachgardener]

no issues with Linux, but I have far too much time invested in Windows to learn a new operating system.

maybe try it as a live disc or live usb stick, change boot options, boot into the live disc and check it out, it will run a tad slower as the live version runs from the live disc and ram, an easy non destructive way to check out Linux, Linux Mint 'Cinnamon' would be a start I reckon, install darktable and give it a go, it all happens temporarily, nothing gets changed on your hard drive, and if you like it a dual boot is an option from there on, the best of both worlds

[jatrax]

maybe try it as a live disc or live usb stick, change boot options, boot into the live disc and check it out, it will run a tad slower as the live version runs from the live disc and ram, an easy non destructive way to check out Linux, Linux Mint 'Cinnamon' would be a start I reckon, install darktable and give it a go,

Thanks for the suggestion, I have built several Linux PC's over the years and while I have no issues with it it is not going to be my daily driver. So I am familiar with Linux. I'm just not going to convert to it unless I convert 100%. And since I use Windows at work that is not going to happen. If Darktable is available in a stable form for Windows I'll give it a shot. But I'm in no hurry. I am a huge Lightroom fan and really have no desire to change. Except that Adobe seems to be going in a different direction and leaving its user base in the dust.

[Weevil]

Question like that, does Luminar 2018 support all Pentax gear and lenses profiles ? To what extend is this important ? Thanks

[Oakland Rob]

Question like that, does Luminar 2018 support all Pentax gear and lenses profiles ? To what extend is this important ? Thanks

I don't think Luminar 2017 (which I have) has anything. 2018 has lens correction, but I believe it's basically a manual process with "distortion" sliders and so on (not sure if that's barrel correction or what). Looks rudimentary compared to the Perspective tools in Lr, and it doesn't appear to have any profiles at all. So you'd have to do it all manually. I don't think their Aurora 2018 even had auto-crop or automatic horizon and such. Whether that matters depends on your lens and your needs. I really like the automatic features in Lr to apply those to my various lenses, or even better the camera and lens profiles in DxO if you want an Adobe alternative.

[SSGGeezer]

They have "coming soon" for a number of functions in Windows that are already implemented in the Mac version. I see atrial and I like the one time only price! I despise Software as a service for retail users and Adobe is not on my list of good program creators. And 10 bucks a month annoys me.

I have tried the basic DxO and it is quick but appears to give little real control other than standard correction profiles. The lens profiles are nice though. This opinion is from my very limited use.
Digikam is pretty cool but certain functions crash after freezing. Usually during inpainting (Cloning??) to cover dust on a sensor or something. If Windows support is not a maybe I will probably go for Luminar, especially if some of the folks here on the forums create LUTs for Pentax lenses that work.

[Oakland Rob]

They have "coming soon" for a number of functions in Windows that are already implemented in the Mac version. I see atrial and I like the one time only price! I despise Software as a service for retail users and Adobe is not on my list of good program creators. And 10 bucks a month annoys me.

I have tried the basic DxO and it is quick but appears to give little real control other than standard correction profiles. The lens profiles are nice though. This opinion is from my very limited use.
Digikam is pretty cool but certain functions crash after freezing. Usually during inpainting (Cloning??) to cover dust on a sensor or something. If Windows support is not a maybe I will probably go for Luminar, especially if some of the folks here on the forums create LUTs for Pentax lenses that work.

Don't kid yourself about the "one time only price." Especially given that Luminar is new, and especially on Windows. And especially given Macphun's history. You'll probably need to upgrade next year if only to squash the existent bugs and to get (hopefully) speed increases. They have done paying upgrades about every year since I've owned their product.

And I guess you missed DxO's Viewpoint. It's where the extensive manual controls for perspective and such exist. I think it can be had as part of a suite purchase.

[SSGGeezer]

Don't kid yourself about the "one time only price." Especially given that Luminar is new, and especially on Windows. And especially given Macphun's history. You'll probably need to upgrade next year if only to squash the existent bugs and to get (hopefully) speed increases. They have done paying upgrades about every year since I've owned their product.

And I guess you missed DxO's Viewpoint. It's where the extensive manual controls for perspective and such exist. I think it can be had as part of a suite purchase.

Thanks for the info Rob,
I see that their upgrade price is not bad if it adds functionality, but their name makes me suspect that they cater to the Mac crowd which means they can get away with offering less as long as it looks good. (jk Mac owners!)
I have no real issues with incremental upgrades for a price but features should be standard and bug fixes should never cost me extra. I would love to hear from Windows users to see if the support appears to be there. I say appears since buying software these days seems to be as much of a crapshoot as back in the 90's an 00's.
And Dxo's suite prices are brutal, I may look a little closer but I may just spend a winter day or three playing with Raw Therapee and see if it works for me. Time constraints make the basic DxO a no brainer when I want to post an image that could use a little adjusting since I don't ever want to spend 10 minutes or more on one image. I have when playing with Digicam but my work flow has gotten a lot better when I don't need to do Inpainting.

[Oakland Rob]

Thanks for the info Rob,
I see that their upgrade price is not bad if it adds functionality, but their name makes me suspect that they cater to the Mac crowd which means they can get away with offering less as long as it looks good. (jk Mac owners!)
I have no real issues with incremental upgrades for a price but features should be standard and bug fixes should never cost me extra. I would love to hear from Windows users to see if the support appears to be there. I say appears since buying software these days seems to be as much of a crapshoot as back in the 90's an 00's.
And Dxo's suite prices are brutal, I may look a little closer but I may just spend a winter day or three playing with Raw Therapee and see if it works for me. Time constraints make the basic DxO a no brainer when I want to post an image that could use a little adjusting since I don't ever want to spend 10 minutes or more on one image. I have when playing with Digicam but my work flow has gotten a lot better when I don't need to do Inpainting.

Macphun did change their name to something else to reflect their new entry into Windows. But they are getting hammered by Win users over on dpreview for poor support and bugs in the just released version. Early days, of course. But they have always seemed to me to be getting ahead of themselves with features and platform expansion being the priority. I bought into their CK Pro line only to have it be abandoned when they bundled most of the same tools into Aurora and Luminar. So turned out to not be the best investment software-wise. YMMV.

DxO is on sale right now BTW. The whole suite is $100USD off.