Luminar 3.1.0: Accent AI 2.0 + More Usability & Stability
We’ve been hard at work on Luminar and we’ve got a significant update to share with you. With Luminar 3.1.0 you’ll find several new improvements for both Mac and Windows. The next generation of Accent AI makes enhancing your images easier than ever before. Plus some performance and usability enhancements will make your editing workflow even faster.
Accent AI 2.0. Reimagined.
The improved Accent AI filter lets you get natural-looking results in less time. New “human-aware” technology recognizes people in your photos and applies adjustments selectively for more realistic images.
With Accent AI 2.0, you can make dozens of adjustments (done quickly) with just one slider. Fix tone, detail, exposure, depth, color, and more thanks to behind-the-scenes AI. In less than a second, your photos can look their absolute best. Make Accent AI 2.0 your go-to filter. (Tip: It can even replace the Develop step for most photographers!) For beautiful photos, rely on Accent AI 2.0 as your starting point.
Follow your style.
Whether you’re working with the Library to organize your images or using the QuickEdit command, it’s now even easier to get the results you want. Take advantage of image-aware filters and professionally designed Luminar Looks to unlock the best image possible. Once you’ve created the perfect style, apply it to all shots in your series with the improved Adjustment Sync. You can now select multiple photos and apply the same adjustments in just one click. Filters and Looks are transferred in just one click, while image-specific changes like cloning and cropping are ignored.
RAW shooters can stay organized.
If you capture RAW and JPEG at the same time, it’s even easier to stay organized in Luminar 3. When you import RAW and JPEG pairs, you can decide which files to see. View just RAW or just JPEG for a less cluttered library, or see both and use the JPEG file as a reference while you edit. Edits to JPEG and RAW files are independent but can be easily synced. Use the View menu to control which images are shown for a clutter-free library.
Better Sorting.
Using the Gallery view to get organized or search for that perfect image? Now when you sort using a method like File Type or Color Label, a second organization is also applied. When you sort your images they are sorted by the new category first and then automatically sorted by date.
Trust your editing to Luminar.
Thanks to our users for reporting different issues. This version of Luminar offers general stability improvements. We’ve made hundreds of under-the-hood performance improvements based on user feedback. Windows users, in particular, will see tons of new features that bring Luminar for Mac and Windows into close alignment. Improved stability and performance along with robust catalog backups help keep your images and edits safe.
Luminar Updates for Windows Users
The Windows version of Luminar receives several updates with version 3.1.0 We hope you enjoy this new release of Luminar and appreciate your feedback and reports.
New features
IMPORT IMAGES. You can now import images from a memory card or hard drive and copy them to a folder. You can also choose to include subfolders when importing
SMUGMUG SHARING. The ability to post images to SmugMug has now been added to Luminar for Windows.
SHORTCUTS. Folders and user albums can be added to the Shortcuts list. Just right-click for a context menu or drag & drop them into the list.
IMPROVED SELECTIONS. Want to choose a range of photos in the Gallery view? Try the Shift or Ctrl key to select a range or group of images. You can also deselect images from a multiselection by Ctrl+clicking on an image.
ROTATE IN GALLERY. Images selected in the gallery can be quickly rotated left or right by 90 ̊increments with no need to switch to edit view. Just use the Image > Rotate menu or just right-click.
PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS SUPPORT. We’ve added Photoshop Elements support to the Windows platform. Just choose the Install Plugins command if you want to load Luminar as a plugin. For future versions of Luminar, plugin users should switch to Luminar Flex.
Performance Improvements
Get additional speed and performance from the Luminar update.
IMPROVED HISTORY. Undo a Sync/Copy/Paste adjustments with one step in the History list.
HIDDEN FILES. Luminar does a better job of filtering hidden folders and photo. Additionally, unwanted items like Backups, History, Previews, and Caches won’t be shown when opening Luminar Catalogs.
Luminar Updates for Mac Users
Several performance improvements, as well as new features, await Mac users. We hope you enjoy this new release of Luminar and appreciate your feedback and reports.
PROGRESS BAR. Keep better track of what’s happening when working with Luminar. You’ll see a progress bar when using tools like Erase or when running Luminar as a third-party filter.
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.
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Actually, I'm pretty sure Luminar is different in that respect Colin. I have seen tutorials saying that Lightroom, which I do not know or use), takes a actually imports a copy of the original image into its DAM tool. Luminar seems to use the photo from its original folder location. The changes made are no longer stored along with the photo in an .lmnr file. but in the catalog as metadata.
My confusion is what happens if I were to move the photo via a file manager to a folder which is not in the same or perhaps any Luminar catalog, what happens? Or what happens if I merely rename the photo via a file manager while it is in the same folder. The scenarios can go on and on and I am hoping to gain an understanding of how Luminar keeps track of photos and associated metadata without having to test all the scenarios one by one.
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Lr is not different Bob. I have used it since version 1 and it builds a catalogue based upon the existing file structure. If you move an image across folders via the system file manager Lr cannot find it and tells you so. Yes you can import images, but they are imported to folders in the file system and added to the catalogue.
Google "move images in Lr" if you doubt me.
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Colin, I do not disbelieve you about Lightroom not seeing the photos in it's catalog if you move a photo via a file manager. The difference is you can move the files to another folder in a Luminar catalog. You can even add files to the Luminar catalog by copying them to a folder that you told Luminar to put in your Luminar catalog. See starting at minute 2:27 in this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NQuobSnpkM
Luminar also supports multiple catalogs and you can switch between them. I am merely looking for something to explain how everything is handled........before I muck everything up. ;-) Sure, I can muddle through and eventually figure things out, but it would be great if it were explained somewhere.
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Just move the images via Luminar. Why would you want to do it any other way? That said, I think the idea was that L3 would scan the images in the folders that were catalogued and therefore pick up any additions/transfers. There was a bug in that with the last release I believe but that may have been fixed. I just copied an image from one catalogued folder to another via the file manager and Luminar picked it up upon launch. That suggests Luminar is scanning the folders - if true that could equal a huge performance hit on a large catalogue. I am not using L3 now as the Library is pretty useless to me without keywords, exif etc. I have stuck with Lr and Flex.
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Colin, yes, I too have used a file manager (Finder) to move photos from one folder to another in same catalog. I've also moved photos not yet in a catalog to a folder in the catalog and L3.1 found them too. I installed L3.0 when first released. I added all photos in my pictures folder and took quite a while whenever I started L3.0 such that I was using my L 2018 instead. It was faster and easier. I upgraded to 3.02 and now 3.1. Along the way I deleted the catalog containing all folders of all my photos. 95% of which (likely more) I have no interest in post processing with Luminar. I am adding folders to the catalog selectively now as I shoot new photos.
For years, I've been managing with no DAM. I am forever renaming photos and mucking with folders.... long before L3..0. Moving photos is but one task I will want to do, as is rename, etc. Am still working on how best to organize.
As I have said before I am hoping to find someone who will point me to something that explains in detail how the L 3.1 DAM works behind the scenes
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Colin, I really believe in the old maxim, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." For a number of years, LR has worked very well for me. I, too, will continue to use LR and Flex (until Flex gets Accent AI 2.0, I will use Luminar 3.1 as a plug-in). Plus, at 83 yrs of age, my goal is simplify, simplify, simplify.
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Lightroom builds a catalogue based on the file-system, you tell it to 'Import', though the only things it actually imports is the file data (metadata etc.) and where it resides on your hard drive(s). it also creates a thumbnail of the image. It doesn't physically import the image into the Lightroom Library, how could it? My Lightroom Library is only 421.3MB in soze for 887GB worth of images. Lightroom also uses its own proprietry database, as far as I can make out.
If you move or rename an image in Finder, Lightroom will not be able to find it from that point on but it will tell you so (because it still has the file data.thumbnail etc.) and give you the option to re-reference the image file manually. If you add a brand new image to your Lightroom referenced file-system, it will not automativally pick it up and you have to go through the Import routine.
This is wgere Luminar differs. When you import files into Luminar, it references them in an SQL database. What is interesting is that the database doesn't appear to hold very much data at all. My Luminar Libary file is only 50MB for the same 887GB worth of images and if you look into the database (using the right tools), there isn't much there, certainly no image thumbnails.
If you add a file to a Luminar referencesd file-system/folder, it will pick it up. I have Exported images from Aurora to a Luminar referenced image folder on my MAC and Luminar finds it without me having to import it. This is counter-intuitive to importing the images but that's what happens. I'm guessing some sort of auto-referencing.
I have not tried re-namimg a file outside of Luminar to see if that works, not sure why I would need to. I may give it a go at some point.
Because of the way that Luminar seems to 'scan' its referenced file-system, this causes huge start-up problems because I think it builds/reads all of the thumbnails from scratch. Have you noticed that many/most thumbnails are out of focus for a small period and then suddenly correct themselves?I have around 33,000 RAW files and it now takes over two and a half minutes to startup, which is totally unuseable for me.
If I use an empty Luminar Library file, startup is pretty well instanteneous.
So sorry about the ramble but the borrom line is that the idea behind the Luminar library is potentially good but poorly implemented.
ATB. Phil
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That's how I see it Phil. Spent an hour playing with the latest Luminar and the Library is far more stable and moving images around (via Luminar or Finder) now works well. It is also reasonably quick on my machine but my database is only 1400 images. I just wonder whether this "folder watching" will slow things up on large catalogues? I see you believe it does so probably would be better to work the way Lr does?
Still I guess progress has been made but they need exif, keywords and custom sorting to really crack it. If they also add some decent masking tools to the mix they will be there or there enough that it makes no difference to a lot of users. But...wonder how the next ON1 update will look (due in may)!
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Just started a 30 day trial of ON1 and although I still prefer Lumnar and especially Aurora, I think Skylum are out of the game as far as a DAM is concerned. Yes they could implement exif, keywords and custom sorting but I believe the underlying database model is flawed. If, like Lightroom and ON1, they kept more info in the actual library database, there would be no need to re-load all the file info during startup. And its not just about the database engine because it looks as if ON1 are using an SQL database like Skylum, unfortunateley its encrypted, so I can't have a nose inside.
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Hi Tomasz. Please contact us via https://skylum.com/support and we will be happy to help you
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ON1 has some great masking tools, Phil, and I like the option to either have files catalogued or not (or a mix). I agree the Luminar database is flawed but for some it will be ok and I believe it is possible to have more than one catalogue? Not sure at what point (number of images) the software slows though.
I have recently switched from Nikon to Fuji and that throws me another option, the Fuji centric version of C1. Have played with it and the results are great. They were when I tried the software a year or so ago so I should not be surprised really. -
I'm not totally impressed with ON1 but in fairness I haven't played with it enough yet. The catalogue is good thogh, if only the font was a bit largerI particularly don't like the ON1 HDR modulke, I think Aurora is far superior but I suppose I can still use Aurora with ON1 as an external editor.
I couldn't guess at what point Luminar starts to slow but as I said in a previous post, I have 33,000 RAW images and the Luminar 3 startup time is in excess of two and a half minutes. I did think about just starting Luminar and leaving it running all the time but it seems to gobble memory, one time I did that my free memory went from23GB free to 4GB free overnight, so that's clearly not an option.
My best buddy has had Nikon's for around 50 years. He bought a Fuji mirrorless last year and loves it. Trouble was that his old version of Lightroom wouldn't read the Fuji files, so he has had to take out a subscription to Lightroom to upgrade it. This is why I want to get off Lightroom because if I buy a new camera my version of Lightroom may not work and I am not going to go down the subscription road.
All the best. Phil
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There is the free Fuji C1 of course. Limited functionality but still turns out pretty good results and one can always round trip to Flex or Nik if necessary. The full Fuji C1 is currently on offer for a little over £100 so that makes it a great buy.......but it is Fuji-centric. I actually think ON1 is a great piece of software but for me it is a little like DxO, it is not a comfortable fit and I have to work hard to get results. Here I have to say that Luminar is very easy to work with but I am not convinced it will ever really get "there". I might just stick with ON1 for the old stuff and go Fuji C1
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I've been asking where I can find a detailed explanation of how Luminar 3.1 stores photo updates now that .lmnr files no longer exist. I knew that each photo's Luminar updates is stored as metadata in files inside your Luminar catalog but had not seen much in the form of an explanation. Just ran across this which, provides a little insight. https://skylum.com/luminar/user-guides/chapter-19-saving-adjustments-exporting-files
This page of the user-guide is also helpful. https://skylum.com/luminar/user-guides/chapter-11-organizing-images
It ends with; "A few notes
- For best results move, rename, and organize referenced folders while Luminar is running
- Avoid renaming master folders except within Luminar
- Remember that relocating and renaming folders in Luminar has a direct effect on your hard drive."
Also saw a page that lists new features, in process and planned. Searching by EXIF data and keywords is planned.
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Lots of things are supposedly planned at Skylum but they are slow to materialise. Why on earth would one release a dam without exif/iptc support, with no custom sort or search and with no keywording! Heavens this thing does not qualify as a basic database in my books. Perhaps Skylum could give us a date when these crucial functions will be added. As for storing edits, I suspect they are stored in the database. That is not an unusual approach but others also provide the option of sidecar files. Never really took to the .lmnr approach anyway but it was probably the only option when Luminar did not have the so called Library.
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Far from stable. I bought and installed it yesterday I have a fairly new CPU with six cores at 3,5 ghz, I've been trying to work with it since yesterday evening, had about 12 crashes already, it's suuuper slow and everytime I move a slider my CPU spikes up to over 90%. I
Honestly I love the program and it has definitely improved over last years version but honestly, it's not stable at all, at least not for me... it shuts down constantly.
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Dear All, I am reading many messages that complaining about sw and latest upgrade. I lived very similar problems on previous upgrade. Many many mails between me and Skylum support. Creating catalogue, installing Skylum after and after. Crash , import and export problems didn't stop. At the end I've send very angry mail to this forum. Stop doing anything, stop using Skylum and decided to wait for the new version. About a month ago as you know we upgraded to v. 3.1.0 (3588). You know what ? All my problems gone away. Very happy with the new version. All upgrade happened less than 5 minutes and no any problem left. (By the way I am a Mac user)
So here is my point. If you all living those problems (like I lived on previous one) while at the same time I am problem free. There must be some hw problems not with your pc's or mac's but with sw compatibility to different hw configurations. Sure Skylum is following those mails, in my opinion versions must be checked with different motherboards, graphic cards, rams and so on. Otherwise we are all using the same version for Windows and Mac but living very different problems which I believe not related with only software itself. Hope we all use Skylum (that I do like it really) without problems.
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I'm sorry for the inconveniences.
Please, contact us at support@skylum.com. We'll investigate the issue.
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Thank you for your feedback.
Great to hear everything is fine now!
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What kind of response is that? 'I was whiny too but now MY problems have been fixed everybody should just stop complaining'? It's commercial software, it's supposed to be quite universal. I have a brand new PC since november my hardware is all new and up to date and should be working fine, as it does with all my other software. It's just not stable and it's very demanding on my system. That's an observation not a cringe.. I said I love this software and I see progress but I as many other users think it's in the company's and users best interest to stabilize and refine the product first before they expand it and start adding bell and whistles.
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While I am still getting familiar with the new DAM, I have had no problems with the installation of the latest upgrade to 3.1. I've an older (2010) Macbook Pro; 15" - 2.6 Ghz i7 cpu, 8 GB RAM and 512 GB SSD. When I originally installed version 3.0, I added my complete "Pictures" folder (thousands of photos) as the catalog. Big mistake! Loading was slow as they were mostly photos I was never going to process with Luminar, nor was I going to go through them all to categorize and rate them. I now add photos from my camera to folders by date outside of the Luminar catalog. I then decide the ones I want to work on and add them to folders inside my Luminar catalog. Seems to be working much better for me.
Bottom line: 3.1 has been very stabile on even an elderly Macbook Pro. The things you can do (and quickly) with Luminar 3.0 are amazing. Sorry to hear it's not working as well for everyone.
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I should have mentioned that I deleted the initial catalog containing all my photos in the Pictures folder and created a new one that I selectively add photos to. So far so good!
Purchased Luminar for a friend's birthday ( a Lightroom subscriber) who is really enjoying Luminar 3.1.
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@Lester Vandewalle
Dear Lester, I think you didn't read my mail till end or I misexplained my point. I didn't say everyone should stop complaining, even I have no problems I tried to bring another point of view to Skylum that may help all of us to solve our present or future problems. I lived problems , not now but that doesn't mean that won't in future. This is sw running on thousands of different hw so Skylum (sure they are) must be more flexible for those different hw configurations. Hope everyone bug free sw's.
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I'm sorry Aydin, I may have been a bit on edge, but I keep getting alot of crashes. I will try what Bob said, but if it's a known issue I still think they should give a warning dialog. After installing the first thing Luminar asks is.. designate the folder in which you keep your photo's :) I mean that's a strong indicator that you have to select the parent folder, not manually put them in one by one.
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Your Wellcome Lester, happy that we are at the same point. I strongly insisted that I have no problems and all upgrade happened in less than 5 minutes so what I tried to say that to Skylum and to everybody I didn't do anything special, just downloaded the 3.1 as you do then everything is working but at the same time with the same version you are having terrible problems. So I wonder that on the next version some of us will be in similar problems while the others won't. We all like Skylum, that's why we are writing here so there must be as you said universal flexibility. My Mac is from 2017, your PC is new but it is not working. I don't think that yo will find stable solution by trying folders and catalogs because several times I tried those tings on previous version, and I could't solve the problems. I still think that ( I am not a sw technician) it doesn't matter that our hw is old or new but this is the result of incompatibility of sw with hw. In every new version sw is changing and it starts not to work on the same hw that it used to work. Hope they will find a way to fix that unstable situation.
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