Things that need to be fixed in sky replacement
So the single reason I bought Skylum Luminar was for the sky replacement tool to help speed up my real estate photography when the skys aren't great.
But I find there are too many issues with Luminar's sky replacement currently.
The relighting function, as has been mention here a few times, needs a zero setting so that it doesn't alter the rest of the image, this is really important as we will have already colour corrected the image and don't necessarily want it to be changed, sometimes, yes, but if I don't then I don't.
I'm usually using sky replacement because the original sky was grey, but if there are other grey parts of the image, guttering for instance, or window frames, or garage doors or rooftops sometimes, then the sky often bleeds into those parts of the image, meaning I have to start messing about with masking and the masking options in Luminar are poor and badly implemented.
The masking is poor partly because of the relighting issue which pretty much renders it useless most of the time since you can't have zero relighting and if you mask out the sky where Luminar has incorrectly put it, you mask out the relighting as well and have an odd patch of the original image surrounded by the 'relit image. The masking is poor also because it is too basic, there are no tools like you get with On One software that really helps with masking, there really needs to be advanced options that help you select only the colours or luminance that you want to mask out.
Sky positioning, why are we limited to only vertical adjustment? We need to have total control over sky positioning, for instance, I may have a weak sky with the sun in it that I want to keep and have a replacement sky with a sun that is off to the left, but can't use it!
More control over what parts of the old sky to keep or remove. I had a sky the other day with some dark clouds in it which always persisted with every sky I chose to put in, there doesn't seem to be a way of painting out the parts of the original sky if Luminar has decided they should stay, so I'd have to remember to prepare the image before bringing it into Luminar. So we need more controls over what happens to the parts of the sky that is being replaced.
Similarly, there's no way to force Luminar to replace the sky when it isn't a significant part of the image. For instance, I shot a house the other day where the house filled most of the image, with relatively little sky along the top, Luminar wouldn't replace the Sky so I had to take the image into On One instead and so completed the rest of the images there - this is something that I'm resorting to more and more, try an image in Luminar in the hope it will quickly replace the sky, but finding too many issues and giving up because it will be quicker and easier in On One, or Photoshop. Luminar is great and fast when it works and I am still hopeful of its potential, but Skylum needs to really put some work into addressing quite a lot of issues.
These are just the issues that come to mind right now, if I remember any more I'll add to the post.
It would be nice once you've addressed all these issues to build in a replace reflection too as well, I understand we can do this using layers etc, but it would be cool to implement that in the sky replacement tool.
Admin, please don't close down this thread as 'answered' this is very annoying. let others comment and add to the post as they see fit, other people will have issues they want to raise and some people may even have solutions. I find this closing down nearly every post and classifying them as 'answered' bizarre and annoying, makes this forum seem an unwelcoming place to be. Leave us free to discuss and communicate.
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Official comment
Hi Mart,
Thanks for your interesting feedback and great suggestions. We are always glad to hear from our users, and we value your input.
I will forward it to our technical team, and they’ll be looking at how to best develop and apply this innovative solution in the near future. Thank you!
Comment actions -
Not as far as I'm aware. It's frustrating, I mean, just how difficult would it have been for there to be an "off" option for relighting? All they'd have to do is just not allow the relighting routine to run.
No, what they have done is change the masking behaviour so that as soon as you try and erase part of the sky replacement effects, the whole image get's covered in a red mask so that you can no longer see where the offending colour casts you wanted to paint out are. It's another thoughtless implementation. Sure, some might like it that way and at times, I might too. But why take away the user control? Why do the Skylum software engineers think they know better how I want to edit my images than I do?
I wish they would actually listen. -
Hmm, that's unfortunate. I've been waiting since v4 came out for these changes. I guess I'll keep waiting until they are implemented because without these options L4 is too much of a drag on productivity. Sure I could mask things again in PS to remove the relighting, but that would just take more time that I was supposed to be saving by using Luminar.
However, the sky positioning request is a show stopper since it takes away all flexibility in sky placement. I take 360 degree sky panos and being able to position them is absolutely required without a ton of trial and error cropping it before using in Luminar for a sky replacement. This feature is in the Augmented Sky tool, so I'm not sure why it's not in AI sky replacement. At this point it's probably waiting for version 5 which is just around the corner now.
What have I learned? To never purchase software on the hope an improvement will be added. Wait until it's already in the program and without any bugs before paying for the product.
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