Skylum Updates Luminar 4 With New Features and Improved Performance

Today, Skylum released the latest update for Luminar, version 4.3, focusing on enhancing the overall experience for creatives through several welcome refinements and performance improvements.

“With its vast AI-centric features, Luminar 4 has become a state-of-the-art program for photographers and other creatives,” said Dima Sytnik, cofounder and CTO of Skylum. “With Luminar 4.3, we continue to optimize the user experience and focus on performance. We know that with this update, post-processing workflows will become faster and will help photographers be able to get started quicker and easier than ever before.”

What's in This update?

Luminar 4.3 can operate as a stand-alone app, or as a plugin for Photoshop or Lightroom. It's available in versions for Windows and macOS. Available as a free update for all current Luminar 4 users, the latest update adds the ability to search photos, a user experience improvement to Looks, 500px integration, a new crop interface, and several performance improvements. It also brings a new space shuttle object, along with several improvements, for the AI Augmented Sky tool. 

Luminar 3 users will also see the search function added in the program’s next update. Other details include faster opening of raw files and less memory usage. There's a nice addition to Luminar Looks, presets that can, with a click, enhance the appearance of an image. Now, just by hovering your mouse over a particular Look, you get an instant preview of your image with the selected Look added.

The Augmented Skies feature has added a new object, a Space Shuttle, and there are improvements in placing objects in your sky. 

In the AI Sky Replacement and AI Augmented Sky tools, photographers can now comfortably access a custom folder of locally stored skies and sky objects. It’s also now easy to copy and paste multiple skies in the sky folder in just a few clicks, for convenient editing.

Luminar 4.3 brings new camera support to recently released cameras. Now, Luminar supports the Canon EOS-1D X Mark III (uncompressed only), FUJIFILM X100V, FUJIFILM X-T200, FUJIFILM X-T4, Leica SL2, Nikon CoolpixP950, Nikon D780, Nikon Z50, Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark III, Olympus E-PL10, Panasonic DC-S1H, and the Sony A9 Mark II.

Finally, the masking tool is now extremely easy to use, as masked areas are visible mid-process thanks to a transparent red mask. Skylum believes this enhancement will speed editing.

Luminar 4.3 is a free update for Luminar 4 users. There are upgrade deals, and often discounts on Luminar for new users, which is normally $89.00.

Using Luminar 4.3

I took the new version for a spin and did find it more responsive than previous versions running on my iMac. Opening raw files were noticeably better. I sensed some slight improvements in other operations as well, but nothing that was breathtaking. 

I find Luminar best for editing raw files, and their sky replacement technology is best in class when you need it. The AI tools work, but I use them sparingly. Throwing in a Space Shuttle into the augmented sky features seems not worth mentioning. (But I just did.)

I like the ability to hover over a "Look" and quickly see the result, but I'm not a heavy user of the feature, preferring to use my own adjustments on the fly. Novices, however, will really appreciate this new addition.

Experienced users will really appreciate the speed improvements, and perhaps the extended search function in the library, but the Luminar Library functionality is a work in progress and is not yet gong to substitute for the power of the Lightroom Library. 

Novice users will certainly like the overall ease of use Luminar offers, and a lot of the one-click editing features. The AI functions are continuing to be enhanced, and all users benefit from that. Luminar is already part of my workflow, and I expect many other professionals have added it as well.