At Skylum, we use a software engineering process that many refer to as a soft launch. This simply means that we start to roll the software out to different countries on a staggered release schedule. This means that depending upon where you live, you might see the software earlier or later than another photographer who lives elsewhere in the world.

Clocks by Elisa Michelet

Why we do this.

The concept of a soft launch is actually quite common. In fact Apple does it when they release new version of iOS and macOS. It’s all about performance.

Think of a fire hose connected to a hydrant. When there’s enough water pressure the water comes blasting out rapidly. But open up too many hydrants and suddenly your stuck with a trickle. Turns out that computer networks work the same way.

Leaking fire hydrant By Grace

If every Skylum customer tried to pull down the latest copy of Luminar in the same hour, it’d be pretty frustrating. Even more so are activation servers for serial numbers. You may recall trouble with many iPhones all trying to activate on release day and taking hours or even days.

What it means.

The bottom line is this… we release software in a rolling wave. Our engineering team unlocks access to a few countries early to balance the load. No, we don’t play favorites… rather we just try to spread access to the latest versions over a 48 hour period. This is why you might get early access or wonder why someone else got the latest software before you.

Doorways by Quino Al

What it doesn’t mean.

A soft launch is not a beta test. We’re not looking for last minute bugs to solve or feedback on the software. Several external and internal testers have been working with this next version of software for months. As soon as we ship a new version, our engineering and testing teams start working on the next. We appreciate your patience as we work hard to deliver a better Luminar with each release.

How to Update

Updating your Luminar software is easy. Be sure to also rerun the plugin installer if using Luminar as a plugin for Photoshop or Lightroom Classic.

Mac – Please, launch Luminar 3, then in the Top Menu Bar choose Luminar 3 > Check for updates.
Windows – Please, launch Luminar 3, then in the Top Menu Bar choose Help > Check for updates.

We hope you enjoy these improvements. We’re hard at work on more performance updates and features. Be sure to view our roadmap - click here.

Tomasz Gomolka

February 18, 2019 16:56

thank you for all the efforts!

if the performance is fixed I'm all in love in Luminar!

Richard Huggins

February 18, 2019 20:34

Your external and internal testers missed four critical issues? Have they been fired?

Andy H

February 19, 2019 02:54
Edited

Now we have another condescending analogy from Skylum that tries to compare the soft launching of software to a water main network and hydrants. A better analogy would have been a sewer network, given the contents are similar to what we've had from Skylum over the past few months.

February 19, 2019 03:27

Somewhat interestingly in replying to my review of my dealings with Skylum they said

"You're referring to the soft launch of the Luminar update, which helped us to discover and fix some critical issues."

February 19, 2019 03:44

@Richard. Skylum’s messaging is all over the place and contradictory. It is clear they were not ready to release 3.0.2 and used the soft launch as an opportunity to get more feedback, One critical issue is bad enough for a launch, but four? They cannot pretend that they didn’t know there were issues and this was just a regular soft launch.

February 19, 2019 12:07

was anybody able to update? any feedback?

no update available in Switzerland yet....

Angela Andrieux

February 19, 2019 16:31

Hi Tomasz,

The update is live now. If you re-launch Luminar you should be prompted to update.

Alternatively on Mac go to Luminar 3 > Check for Updates for on Windows File > Check for Updates.

February 19, 2019 18:24

Thanks Angela! I did the update, all went smooth. Performance seems to be perfect now. I did series of RAWs browsing and editing and my Mac is not boiling anymore :D

Great job!

Lve Luminar now :)

February 20, 2019 03:10

Hi Tomasz - That is great to hear!! :)

What is a soft launch?

Why we do this.

What it means.

What it doesn’t mean.

How to Update

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