If you're thinking of pre-ordering Luminar 4, I'd strongly urge you to wait for actual reviews or try the demo yourself.<p>I purchased Luminar 3 and it was a sluggish, unstable mess, especially on Windows. They promised many features like a DAM, which was still missing features like the ability to edit metadata. But hey, it checked off the marketing checkbox, right?<p>They're prioritizing adding new features to generate publicity and hype while ignoring actual speed, stability, and usability.<p>Only the comment sections of photography websites actually comment on speed, example: <a href="https://www.dpreview.com/news/3286739394/luminar-4-available-for-pre-order-comes-with-new-ai-features-and-revamped-ui" rel="nofollow">https://www.dpreview.com/news/3286739394/luminar-4-available...</a>
Does this qualify as 'computational photography'? My interpretation of that term is that it is more about using non-standard optics processed with a computer, than it is about applying deep learning and other AI based techniques which seems to be what this is. Otherwise, this looks cool ;) I am glad to see AI image processing becoming more accessible.
Luminar is really neat. I've been using Luminar 3 for awhile, and it does some really cool stuff -- but 3 didn't really live up to it's hype.<p>Don't get me wrong, I use it sometimes to clean up and enhance my images, but really it's not so dramatically different from other tools.<p>Some of the AI features are really slick, but not quite as magical as the demos suggest. Or maybe you just have to actually spend 100s of hours to learn to use it effectively, and I'm just a n00b.
I've used Google's Snapseed, which has very similar controls and aims to streamline a lot of "photoshopping". It's free (though mobile only) and works great, I've had _a lot_ of fun just playing around, changing the distance between my eyes, giving myself an ogrish forehead, turning a smile into a frown, and in general changing anything and everything about the photos I played with.
Am I alone thinking the originals are way better than the processed versions, even in the demo on that link? Somehow all this excessive tone filtering, "smart" unsharp masking, artificial noising and noise-filtering - all that computational stuff - takes the life out everything? The dynamic range is narrow. Stuff is compressed into flat mess of colors, similarly to how they compress audio these days. Huge "ringing" artifacts on contrasting edges. Gross. How is that elevated photography?
My experience with Luminar 3 was weird. It was one of those pieces of software which looks great in screenshots and promo materials and then disappoints you profoundly when you try it out. It just didn't produce the same quality of results as Lightroom, nor was it as easy to work with as Lightroom. I really wanted to like it too, I'm not a fan of subscription software, and the best alternative to Lightroom (Capture One Pro) is either $300 for a license, or $20/mo, both of which sound pretty pricey for hobbyist use. After a couple of weeks of trying I was back to Lightroom.<p>So before you rush to plop down your credit card for Luminar "preorder", I encourage you to wait for a trial version and try it out. There, I saved you $99. You're welcome.
I know this is just automating how people have been touching up photos for decades, but IMO it is still a bit sad, especially when it comes to touching up people's faces. God forbid we should see each other as we are, slightly yellowed teeth, pores and all.<p>Again, I know this has been going on for decades, but I still worry that by automating more of it, it will lead to a bigger degree of "sameness" in photos.
It’s interesting that most of the demonstrated applications are examples of how to lie with photos. Images alone can’t be trusted, but it makes me a little sad the more readily these tools are made available. Oh look, a program based around making photos that lie that’s cheap. I suppose I’ll have to start defaulting to trusting nothing even more. It’s not really a direction I’d like public discourse to have to go in, if we could collectively agree to behave a little.