Lightroom Alternative: Luminar (Mac and PC)

[theksmith 5,878]

i tested out a different photo editing software this weekend - an alternative to Adobe Lightroom or Phase One's Capture One. it's called Luminar and made by Skylum (aka Macphun until just recently): https://skylum.com/luminar

 

i'm finding it very easy to use, though i've only touched the surface and not dug into any of the more powerful features yet.

 

there's one glaring feature omission though - a photo browser/organizer (i.e. thumbnail view). Skylum says that feature should be ready early this year, but i'm holding off purchasing till i see how that pans out.

 

i haven't used Adobe Lightroom for at least 2 major versions, so i can't say how Luminar really compares. i'm still using Google's Picasa (gasp!) for organizing and quick lighting/color changes along with Photoshop CS6 for any major edits. i've been looking for something simpler than Photoshop but more powerful than Picasa. i don't really want to start paying for the Adobe Creative Cloud subscription, so Luminar's traditional licensing and cost of only $69 is very appealing.

 

 

here's the results of playing around in Luminar for a little over an hour (the dark heavily stylized look is intentional). i didn't bother to do any careful brush masks, instead just moving quickly with some radial masks sized around the Jeep and global adjustments.

 

 

 

and the original photo, as shot:

 

 

this was just a JPG taken with my phone (LG G6). if i was working with a RAW file from a decent camera the final image could have come out much cleaner.

[DanJL 46]

Macphun is a Russian (actually Ukrainian) company. Since the Kaspersky fiasco I personally am reluctant installing anything linked to that side of the world.

 

Another alternative to Lightroom is Affinity Photo (it's an English company, btw). They also have a very nice vector graphics alternative (to Adobe Illustrator), Affinity Designer, albeit Sketch is still much nicer (IMHO) for pure app UX design.

 

The biggest minus for all those apps is that the photo organizer feature is "in the works"

 

If that's a "must" then CaptureOne or DxO Photolab are better alternatives. Unfortunately for me neither of the two support Fuji RAW.

[CAVU2 267]

I am using On1 , which has worked out for me.