Luminar 3 Update from Support - UPDATED 1/8/19
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Hi Everyone,
Over the past few weeks, we've been collecting your feedback about issues you encountered in Luminar 3 on social media, email, and here on the forum.
First of all, on behalf of everyone on the team I'd like to say thank you for finding time to voice your concerns. We've been having many productive conversations with users during these past few weeks that helped us set the direction for the upcoming updates.
We have a favor to ask:
- please scroll through recent posts and use search before creating a new thread on the forum
- if you have already submitted a query via one form of communication with us, please do not duplicate the same query via other channels
We will eventually get to your query and reply to it but, given the amount of incoming mail we received, it will take us a while.
Below is a list of known issues, fixes, and workarounds. If your issue isn't listed please contact us at Skylum.com/Support.
.lmnr files don’t appear in added folders and don’t open in Quick Edit mode.
Happens to projects that were saved without history and resources. We’ll add messages to communicate issues with projects in future updates for Luminar. For now we recommend loading projects with history and resources. If your project has history and resources and still doesn't open, please send it to us via the form at the bottom of this page: http://skylum.com/support
You can send the file(s) via http://wetransfer.com/
When L3 is invoked from Lightroom via right-click > Edit In, an additional copy of the file is being created and the edited file isn't automatically imported back into Lightroom.
Will be fixed in 3.1.0
Loading third-party plugins in L3 on Windows.
Is a planned feature, will not be available in 3.1.0 yet.
Norton antivirus on windows may flag L3 installer as malware.
We have requested Symantec to whitelist the installer file, Norton with the latest update should not report this false positive anymore.
The menu that appears after you right-click a folder in the library on Windows has less items than the same menu on Mac.
The preliminary date for including them is with the release of 3.1.0 in the end of January - beginning of February. This may be subject to change, we'll keep you updated.
Unable to share via default Mail client on Windows.
Sharing via default Windows mail client is not supported at the moment. We recommend using a third-party email client, such as, for example, Mozilla Thunderbird.
When the catalog is empty, opening an image for Quick Edit opens with the Edit panel disabled.
Will be fixed in 3.1.0. Restart Luminar to enable the Edit panel.
Lens data for some cameras is not displayed in the Info tab.
Cameras we know about so far: Nikon D5100, Nikon D5300, Nikon D300S, Nikon D3. If you encounter such issue with your camera, please send one RAW to support team (http://skylum.com/support). Paste the link to this thread in your email.
Issues when scrolling with apple magic mouse.
Will be fixed in a future update, ETA will be available later.
File>Catalog>Show in Explorer doesn’t open an Explorer window on Windows.
Will be fixed in 3.1.0.
Unable to right-click a subfolder and remove it from the catalog.
Will be added in 3.1.0.
Values of Temperature and Tint sliders in RAW Develop do not always get copied exactly when syncing adjustments.
The preliminary fix date for this issue is version 3.1.0 that is scheduled for the end of January - beginning of February. If the fix doesn't make it into 3.1.0, we'll patch this issue the first thing in the next update.
AI Sky Enhancer doesn’t allow to continue adding filters after it’s been applied to a RAW.
Will be fixed in 3.1.0.
WINDOWS: the state of Lens Distortion checkbox in the Lens tab in RAW Develop isn't saved when you navigate out of the editing mode and back in.
Will be fixed in 3.1.0.
After applying the Erase tool, the image shifts in the preview.
Will be fixed in 3.1.0. Workaround: enter Transform tool and click Reset.
WINDOWS: can't open more than one Luminar window.
Will be fixed in 3.1.0.
MAC: sending an .lmnr file to print unexpectedly closes Luminar.
Will be fixed in 3.1.0.
Luminar freezes when using hotkeys.
Will be fixed in 3.1.0.
Edit In menu on Mac sends an image to a third-party editor in 8 bit instead of 16 bit.
Will be fixed in 3.1.0.
Toggling between standard and extended view in the File > Export window (triangle next to the folder name) on Mac doesn't work.
Preliminary fix date: 3.1.0, is subject to change.
You run L3 for the very first time and it's not asking for a license key.
This is normal behavior. Simply restart Luminar and it will display the activation prompt.
A triangle doesn't display next to All Photographs, hence it's not possible to unfold the list of folders.
Will be fixed in 3.1.0
Photos appear squeezed in gallery view.
Send the files with which this issue appears to support team (http://skylum.com/support). Please link to this thread in your letter.
Here's how you can send us the file(s):
Visit https://wetransfer.com/
- If it's your first time visiting this website, it might ask you to purchase a subscription. Simply select to proceed with the free version.
- Click Add your files.
- Select the file(s) on your computer.
- After you see all the files you need to send appear in the list, click the icon to the left of the Transfer button (the icon looks like a circle with three dots in it).
- In Send As select Link.
- Click Transfer.
- After the files have finished uploading, click Copy Link and paste it into your email to support.
Cursor turns into a square when using the brush.
Seems to be occurring with RAWs from Sony cameras only. Preliminary fix date (to be confirmed later): version 3.1.0 that's scheduled for release in the end of January - beginning of February.
If you encounter this issue with RAWs from any other camera manufacturer, please send the support team an email via the form here (https://skylum.com/support). Paste a link to this thread in your email and add the problematic RAW (use https://wetransfer.com/ for that).
Missing keyboard shortcuts on Windows.
We'll address it in update 3.1.0 in the end of January - beginning of February.
Database Initialization Failed.
This issue occurs due to bad EXIF data in the photos that are being imported into Luminar. FIXED in 3.0.1.
If you've updated to Luminar 3.0.1 and are still getting this error please send us your Luminar Catalog folder. The default location is C:\Users\%username%\Pictures\. If you specified a custom location for your catalog, search your custom location.
Edit > Plugins > Other > Open Plugin doesn’t work from the gallery view.
Workaround: invoke third-party plugins from the single image preview. Will be fixed in 3.1.0.
What happens to L18 when I install L3?
L3 doesn't replace L18 - it's installed into a separate directory.
You can use both apps alongside each other.
You can safely uninstall L18 without affecting L3.
Progress bar seemingly stops responding and the app freezes on Mac and Windows while adding folders to the library.
If you added a large folder, give Luminar a while to index it. If you force quit Luminar while it's indexing the files, it can corrupt the library and you will need to manually remove the library folder.
It's not possible to send multiple brackets to Aurora HDR for creating a merge.
Will be added in 3.1.0
Stability and performance issues
will be addressed in 3.1.0. It is scheduled for the end of January - beginning of February.
How to import your Apple Photos library into Luminar:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ovunqplv3u3kjpl/PhotosRawWorkaround.mov?dl=0
Luminar freezes/crashes on activation.
FIXED in 3.0.1
We'll address long load time that causes the activation window to seemingly freeze in 3.1.0.
Installation on Mac freezes at 100%.
Use admin account to install.
Installation on Mac and Win breaks with an error.
(An Error Has Occurred While Installing The App. Please Try Again Later or Unexpected Error Has Occurred) Use this installer for Mac instead. Use this installer for Win instead.
No 'Next' button on Win when you launch Luminar for the first time.
Change your display scaling to 100%.
We'll add the ability to save .lmnr projects later.
Photo previews are not displaying when there is no Internet connection on Win.
FIXED in 3.0.1
UPDATE
We've updated the roadmap (https://skylum.com/luminar/roadmap) for Luminar 3. Issues that were listed as 'will be fixed in 3.1.0' are now going to be fixed in 3.0.2 - we'll release it at the end of January - beginning of February, as planned. 3.1.0 will become the first major update for Luminar 3.
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Hi Anders,
At the moment the main issue with .lmnr files that aren't opening is that those .lmnr files (with a few rare exceptions) were saved without history and resources. When L3 tries to open these files it doesn't show alerts, such as 'resources missing' or something like that, instead it does not nothing. At the moment this is considered normal behavior. We'll be adding more informative alerts in future updates but there's no info yet on the kinds of those alerts or any other related behavior.
We are hoping to get .lmnr project files into the next update (3.1.0) but can't make any promises quite yet.
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Right now my only debilitating issue with L3 is performance. I'm Mac. I did some individual image tests between L3.1 and L2018 and, while 2018 isn't speedy in any sense of the word, L3.1 is unacceptably slow.
Will Mac general performance be improved significantly in the February release of L3?
I appreciate where you folks appear to be going with this software. Keep it up!
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What I don't understand is the following:
If you know the date of the next release, why don't you release more frequent updates in between, to take away some of the frustration that many users are experiencing ?
Secopndly, you should really consider opening a public-beta -channel, enabling a much wider test platform. The last update (3.1.) has proven to be full of bugs and I really don't know what your beta testers have been doing. It is much easier to call an update "beta" and then go from there, instead of trying to sell something which is not ready.
regards/Manfred
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L3 takes forever to start up on my PC. By contrast, Luminar2018 loads up after 7 seconds (just timed it) and works perfectly. So far I've been waiting over 17 minutes and L3 is still showing the splash screen and the mouse shows as busy if I hover over it. According to Windows 10 task manager it's using 3-5% of my CPU and around 384Mb of my memory as well as writing to the hard disk at around 25 to 30Mb/s, so it's doing something. I tried it the other day and gave up after an hour, tried it later and left PC running for around 3 hours and when I came back it had loaded up. So it looks as if it takes somewhere between 1 hour and 3 hours to load up. I've given up on it. Please give an option to remove the DAM function of the software, I don't want to wait 3 hours to edit a photo, I couldn't care less about libraries etc., I don't want/need that feature, I just want the ability to edit. Thanks.
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Hi Bruce.
We will release an update meant to target some performance issues at the end of January-beginning of February.
Meanwhile, you can remove your Luminar 3 Catalog and use it for Quick Edits.
To remove Luminar Catalog:
- Make sure Luminar is closed.
- Locate your Luminar Catalog folder. The default location is C:\Users\%username%\Pictures\. If you specified a custom location for your catalog, search your custom location.
- Remove the Luminar Catalog folder.
We do really hope for you patience on this matter. Have a marvelous day!
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Nondestructive edit workflow by using Photoshop Smart Object no longer works on Luminar 3. It still works perfectly with Luminar 2018 where I can double click on the Smart Filter in Photoshop and go back to exactly where I left off in Luminar 2018. Whereas with L3, with the exact same workflow, you simply go back to the beginning and all your edits are lost. Sorry but the catalog feature is not the primary reason to love Luminar for the still many LR users.
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Hello,
I am having issues. I am using an Imac.
Many Crashes in the middle of editing photos.
Hangups, it just sits there and does nothing and have to force it to quite.
It also looked like Adobe was conflicting with LM3, as Adobe needed to so some updates.
But at this point I am not using LM3.
Can you please confirm when the updates will be available?
Plus when it is working it take a very long time to export a photo.
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I used to work for a Software hosting company ,currently Luminar 3 is unusable for me, on my iMac ,the issues with mousing ( magic mouse), performance ( slow slow slow) and the weird menu options for only quick edit to open images , the other issues seem endless, i still cant understand how a photo software company can release software with so many bugs, why do you not have testing , have at least one photographer who shows you the issues before you release software, I read that you have many more staff now, please improve, im not buying anymore versions of this and still using 2018 as long as i can as "3" is unusable , its incredibly frustrating grrr
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Hi John,
I'm sorry that Luminar 3 isn't working well for you. Please contact us at www.skylum.com/support and we'll be happy to help.
Please also note that the next update will address many issues and it will be released very soon.
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Just an FYI, 3.0.2 update was released in Canada and for me it's made no difference at all. Luminar takes anywhere between 4 and 15 minutes to load and when it does, it's slow as anything on a pretty high spec iMac. Unusable. Other software such as ON1, DxO, Topaz etc work just fine. Don't get your hopes up folks!
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I tried to improve things by placing the cat file on an external drive , it did make it faster to load but the overall useage is terrible, we are still on 3.0.1 here in Europe, the support ive had is useless, making no difference,and is ill advised, opening an image direct from the hard drive just doesnt work for me in this version it still loads the whole catalog and many more issues, currenly im using the old version and Affinity photo, its a shame the whole things gone phut.
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I joined the support forums just to ask this question.
I decided to test Luminar via a free trial. I'm really glad I did. I'm on windows 10. The application is basically unusable. Freezing, non responsive, missing things that should be there but arent ... etc. The application is unusable.
Is there any way to ... not waste my trial until the "performance" issues are solved in presumably 3.1.0 ?
Let me be clear here - the application isn't usable. -
I was an early adopter of Luminar when it as first released in late 2016. It was touted back then as a Lightroom alternative and about 2 1/2 years later we have this - something that's not even close (or usable for some). Skylum clearly have major problems with this release and it strikes me they don't have an answer and keep promising fixes they can't deliver.
I feel really sorry for their Support Team and even their affiliates who are profusely apologizing for what basically boils down to an inability to provide a product fit for purpose. They have a marketing department that churns out nonsensical videos that state how great 2018 was and how 2019 will be a breakthrough year, when they know full well they've botched this product. I'll settle for a product that works - that will be enough of a breakthrough for me, thanks.
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Folks. Thought I'd make you aware of a video that might help - thanks to Leon on another thread in this community. It's a work around to overcome the Libraries module issue and I have to admit Luminar 3.0.2 is now working pretty well. Still has the age old Luminar problem of slow RAW rendering speed, but it's usable at least for now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxXokR-ayoY&feature=youtu.be
UPDATE: after a few minutes of decent performance, I've had numerous crashes and issues. So it appears to me that 3.0.2 hasn't resolved the Libraries issue or the stability issues either.
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I agree with Andy, I would settle for a program that works.
I just installed plug-ins for Photoshop, but they aren't there in the filter section of the program as stated.
You could overlook one such issue as an oops but this program is littered with littered with mistakes.
Then if you try to use their guides to find workarounds they seem outdated as the tabs in the program don't have the same buttons as they describe.
I just timed my load time, it took 12 min. and 28 sec. to load.
I am very disappointed with this whole mess that they sold me, terrible terrible terrible.
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@Lawrence - that work around video will at least get you over the long load times. When you do that you can at least get editing in Luminar. After about 10 mins I was pretty happy how it was performing, but since then it's crashed on numerous occasions as I've worked it harder.
I've long given up on Luminar being my Lightroom alternative for DAM - even if the Libraries module was working correctly - as it's embarrassingly short of functionality. I now use ON1 Photo RAW 2019 and for me it out performs Luminar in just about every department. I was still hoping to use Luminar as an occasional editor for more creative edits as I still like some of the tools, but this has pretty much died as Skylum continually fail to deliver. I've gone back to Topaz Studio (with my older Topaz plug-ins installed) for my creative stuff and have figured out a great workflow between ON1 (as my DAM and primary editor) and Topaz that has pretty much consigned Luminar to the trash.
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Here's my list of issues & grievances that I have discovered so far:
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Opens with “All Photos”, instead of last folder
Possibly a reason why it takes so long to open the library as it tries to load/index potentially tens of thousands of images. Then it tries to scroll all the way down to the image I was last at, instead of skipping the load of "All Photos" and just load the ones from the folder I was last in. Hence, open the folder structure and select that one. It's much faster to load a view/folder with 300 images than it is with 30k images. It's frankly mind boggling to me that the lack of such a basic concept is not caught by Product and QA. This seems to indicate that the responsible staff does not understand how reasonable software is supposed to work. This is scary to me.
CaptureOne has the same issue when trying to load a folder with tens of thousands of images, the app becomes dog slow. At least they were smart enough to open the last selected folder to avoid the "All Photos" issue.
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Slow loading of full size images (with and without adjustments)
As has been mentioned, loading of image previews is slow but excruciatingly so when multiple adjustments are applied. We live in a time where developers now have easy access to close to the "metal" performance as possible with Metal & DirectX. Yet, this application crawls on a MacPro with 64GB RAM and TWO workstation-grade graphics cards with 4GB VRAM. Can anyone explain how a new graphics-focused application that's built from the ground up does not use the best graphics technology available?
Look at the "RAW Power" application to understand what speed looks like when done right. Developed by one guy.
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Looks previews too small, should not be at the bottom and only rendered when requested
Something that always baffles me in most image editors is that stupid film strip at the bottom. The dimension where there is the least screen real estate is the vertical, so how about NOT putting items into the vertical dimension so that the main thing, the image to be edited, can be as large as possible. CaptureOne and Aperture at least allow for placing the filmstrip to either of the horizontal sides. Because options are always good.
Luminar does have the image thumbnails to the left but the Looks are at the bottom. Aside from the bad position of the Looks and no shortcut to hide them, the previews of the Looks are too small, and they get calculated each time an image is put into Edit mode, even if the Looks panel is hidden. I'm certain that is one of the reasons why full-size image preview is so slow. This needs to stop. Just because I'm looking at an image does not mean I want to apply a Look to it. Maybe I just want to cycle through the images and I don't need Looks for that. Looks need to be made optional and ONLY rendered when requested. So instead of having a vertical blocking filmstrip, Looks should be launched in an overlay view over the main image to take full advantage of the whole screen real estate, so the Looks previews can be bigger. The "Priime" application is a good example of what this should look like in terms of Looks gallery.
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Thumbnails too small in Edit view
The thumbnails on the left hand side are too small to really serve as a preview. If the images are very similar, it's hard to make out where I am and what the difference is between the images. The size needs to be bigger, preferably user-controllable. Both Aperture and CaptureOne do this well. When there are such solid examples, how does Luminar mess this up?
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Scrollbars too narrow
Not sure whose smart idea it was to make the scrollbar so narrow, one can barely grab it with the mouse. Like why? I get that scrollbars are not a particularly nice design element but it is not supposed to be. It's meant to be purely functional and right now it does a terrible job at that. There are proven User Interface Design Guidelines for a reason. Follow them, don't try to be fancy.
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No view for comparing multiple images for culling
Missing such a view, the Library mode does not have large enough preview sizes to determine differences, like focus, etc. between similar looking images. The Edit mode is also terrible for this because as mentioned above, it takes ages to display a preview. So effective culling is pretty much non-existent at the moment. I would say that should have been a core feature of a library based editor. Why did it not make it in and why is it not even on the roadmap? Internationalization, LR migration & AI features are not that important. The basics should be done first, then add convenience features.
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Open in Aurora exports a converted image, not the RAW. Subsequently crashes Aurora.
If I "Open In" an image without edits in Aurora, the image is still converted and then opened in Aurora. To take full advantage of Aurora, the image should be a RAW file. This seems to be a bug as it works fine in Apple Photos when an image is opened in Aurora as RAW and the result is saved back into Photos.
Also, when I do "Open In" Aurora from Luminar, Aurora does open and then tries to load the image but it subsequently crashes. Not sure if that is because my Aurora2019 is the AppStore version and Luminar3 is currently the trial because the AppStore version is still not available.
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Roadmap item: Automatic Database Backups
"A new backup is now created every time Luminar launches"
Please abandon this attempt because it's useless. For one, I have an hourly TimeMachine backup but even that is useless when the DB is only updated once the application launches or closes. After working hours on edits and the application suddenly crashes, all work is lost from that session. Automatic backups need to happen in user-controlled intervals during the session. Of course, it would be nice not have the application crash at all but that seems to be quite a ways off. In the meantime, make sure that at least the work I'm putting into it is protected until the next crash.
So overall, I see a lot of instances of "let's be different (for the sake of being different)". Frankly, nobody is asking for this. I don't know what kind of "studies" were done to "make it right". There are a number of applications out there today that do things particularly well in some areas, but they lack in others. All we needed was an application that combines the best parts/concepts from the other ones and not force us into a subscription model. That's really it. Yet, here we are with another application that just does a few things well but is a complete mess in the most basic areas. Especially for a new application, the lack of fundamental UI design principles and workflow requirements is puzzling. At the end of the day, this is not anything different, it's as much me-too as all the other ones. Maybe something that Skylum should think about.
As for the few good parts I've seen so far (there aren't many but credit where credit is due):
- Obviously, no subscription model
- Low cost. I would frankly pay a lot more for something that truly works.
I had been a CaptureOne user for the past few years and they charge a premium. They've now gone too far by raising the prices again for no apparent gain. CaptureOne is great but it also contains serious flaws that continuously get ignored yet they still want more money. At some point it's enough. - Image quality. I really do like the quality I get out of the images and so far, only CaptureOne had the upper hand when it came to quality. However, quality is not everything and it will not make up for an inefficient/broken workflow.
Aperture never had the best image quality but it was good enough. The workflow tools on the other hand, even after 5 years of discontinuation of development, still beat the pants off any RAW editor in existence today. It's really embarrassing for the industry.
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Opens with “All Photos”, instead of last folder
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