- What is up people Dunna here
and today we're gonna be taking a look
at a new piece of software
that I've been trying out for the last couple of weeks
that I am very excited about.
It's Skylum Luminar Four.
And I've been using it as a replacement
for my normal photo editing software.
Now, originally when Skylum reached out to me
and said they wanted me to try their new software,
and they wanted me to do a sponsored video
for them about it, I thought, "You know what,
"I'll do a big overview,"
on like everything you can do
as far as editing a photo.
But it is just
way, way too much stuff.
Like it would probably take me several hours
to get through all of the different options
that you have with this.
It really is an extensive piece of software.
So instead of doing a whole overview
and making a whole big thing out of it,
I'm actually gonna do a quick overview
and show you some of the different parts and pieces.
But then I'm also gonna show you
six of my favorite parts of the software.
All right, so one of the cool things about Luminar
is that if you're used to other software,
it's not gonna be that hard of a jump to get into it.
So we're looking at our library tab right now.
If I choose a photo and I go over to edit,
it's gonna take a second,
it's analyzing and then we can hop
into our main panel here.
And we're gonna see some things
that are very, very familiar.
This is all stuff that we've seen
in our other software before.
We've got color.
We can go through this entire thing
and we can see what we can do
from a base level standpoint.
But there's also some really cool stuff in there
like AI enhance, which we're gonna talk about later,
AI structure.
And then on the right hand side
here is where it really gets cool.
So the first tab is the Essentials tab.
And if we go down from that,
we've got the Creative tab,
we've got things like sky replacement,
sun rays, what they call dramatics.
So we can make our photo more dramatic.
We've got the matte look ,mystical.
Again, making it look more mystical.
We've got LUTs.
A texture overlay built right into it.
A glow, film grain
and we can add fog.
So this is all stuff that you would have
to take from like a basic editing software
into something more like a Photoshop
and start adding layers
and that kind of stuff.
Which you can actually do up here
or you can add more layers.
But it's got it built right in
so you don't actually have to leave the software.
Then if we go down from the Creative tab,
we've also got a Portrait tab,
so some tools specifically made for portraits.
And then below that we've got the Professional tab.
So just some more tools that you can use.
Stuff that, again,
you might have to go into different pieces of software
to do if you're using other photo editors.
So like I said, there's a lot to dig in there.
So that's just like a really, really quick overview
of some of the things that are offered.
But now I wanna get into
my six favorite things that I've found so far
and I'm sure there'll be more that I find later.
But these are my six favorite things
that I found so far in playing with Luminar Four.
Okay, the first thing that I wanna talk about is
just the layout and this seems like such a simple thing,
but I just like the way that the software looks.
So first and foremost when I'm in my library,
I can see on the right hand side all the folders
that I've added.
The albums are like,
what you would call collections
if you're used to Lightroom.
So you can make specific collections of photos
that you want to do.
The folders are actually folders on your hard drive.
So I can go in here
and I can add any kind of a folder that I want.
So I've got my two different days at Victoria.
I've already added those.
So you click add and it just imports them
just like that.
And you can see them like this.
And I really love the way that this is laid out.
It's just nice and big on your screen.
You can see it either as a single photo
with the bar on the left hand side
where you can view all of your different photos
in that folder.
Or you can view it in this kind of grid mode.
And they're nice and big and they're easy to see.
It's just, I don't know,
I just really like the way that it's laid out.
It makes everything seem really simple
to get to a really nice to see.
You can do your rating
and your favorites in the corner there.
So number one on my list is just the layout,
just the look of the software itself.
Super simple.
I know, but it's just something
that I've really enjoyed so far.
Now let's get into something
a little bit more crazy for number two.
So number two on my list
of my favorite things in Luminar Four
is the sky replacer.
Now this isn't something that might be useful
on every photo,
but it can be something that can enhance your photos
and give them kind of a crazy out of this world look,
if that's what you're going for.
So we're gonna choose this photo.
We're gonna go up to edit
and we're gonna go into the Creative tab.
And we're gonna go to the AI sky replacement.
And all you have to do at this point
is choose sky selection after it's done,
it's run it's AI on it,
and it's figured out where the sky is.
Choose sky selection
and then pick from one of
their automatically included skies.
So let's say we go with a dramatic sunset,
give it a second to process.
And bam, we've got a dramatic sunset.
And it's done such a nice job.
You can just really dial in the way that it works.
So if we relight the scene,
it's going to affect
more of the bottom part of the scene
with that kind of the golden hour look.
Position the horizon.
So if we want the horizon to move up or down,
we can blend the horizon a little bit more
if we find that it needs kind of fine tuning.
And if we go into the advanced settings,
we can de-focus the sky.
So, for example,
if we had kind of a shallow depth the field
and the sky which should be a little bit out of focus,
we can actually de-focus it,
we can flip it so that it's the other way.
The craziest part to me
isn't necessarily all of the things
that you can do to dial it in.
It's just the fact that
it doesn't take a whole lot of time
for it to assess where the sky is going to be.
And it does such a good job
of cutting out and putting the sky where it needs to go.
So you can do some crazy things with it.
If we just reset this,
we choose another sky,
something maybe a little bit more realistic
and nice blue sky, like what was in the original one.
Or you can go crazy
and go with something like a galaxy sky like this.
And if you relight your scene a little bit,
you can make it look like
they were out there night time skating.
And you've just got the crazy, crazy
milky way in the background there.
So again, this is like something that is like,
a little out of this world,
but if that's what you're going for,
it does a really great job at it.
But moving on to number three,
this is something that I probably will use
on a lot of the photos that I edit in Luminar.
I'm gonna go to my Essentials tab first
and I'm just gonna choose a profile.
This is something that I do
in almost any editing software that I use.
They give you, not only the Luminar default,
the Adobe standard,
and then they give you your camera profiles.
And typically I'll choose like camera standard
or camera portrait.
In this case, I think camera standard
is gonna give me a similar look to
what I was seeing when I took the photo
on the back of my camera.
Obviously this is a very dark photo.
But before I even do anything to our exposure,
contrast highlights, shadows, or even the curves.
I'm gonna close that and I'm gonna go to AI enhance.
And this is my third favorite thing in this software
is this AI Accent.
I'm just going to start to drag this up.
(upbeat music)
Now I'm gonna be completely honest.
I don't know
specifically what this is trying to accomplish,
but I do know that
AI meaning artificial intelligence.
It's taking a look at the photo
and it's accenting the colors
and the contrast and I don't even know what else.
There might be more going on in the background there,
but what I do know is that obviously you can overdo it.
But if you dial it in the right amount,
this works on so many photos,
it seems to bring out a lot of the shadows,
a lot of the main colors in the photo,
it gives it a nice contrast curve.
Accent is the perfect word for it.
It just enhances it so nicely.
So just by using that AI Accent,
no other adjustments whatsoever.
We go from what's obviously underexposed photo
that is kind of lacking in contrast
and lacking in the nice vivid colors and stuff.
And by using AI Accent,
we've just dialed it in to be
what's already a pretty nice looking photo.
And the only other thing that I might do
looking at this photo is pull down the highlights,
just where that leaf
has a lot of reflections on it and stuff.
I might just pull down those just a little bit
and then maybe just,
pump it up just a little bit more on the exposure.
There we go.
Going from that to that.
It's looking pretty good.
So AI enhance being number three.
Number four, we're actually gonna apply to this same photo.
And that's moving over into the Creative tab
and going to the matte look.
I am a sucker for that vintage kind of filmic look
and it's really popular right now
and it's easy enough to achieve.
Sometimes if you go into your
curves and you start to kind of pull up
that bottom of the curve
and create a bit of a contrast curve
and then maybe pull down the highs,
that kind of thing.
You can get it going,
but it's never quite perfect.
I'm going to reset that
and we're just gonna go over to this Creative tab,
go down to the matte look,
and we're just gonna start dragging up the amount.
And you can crank this pretty high.
And just like that,
all of a sudden you've got what looks
like a nice vintage kind of filmic look.
Look at what it's doing to the shadows,
a the nice roll off from black to gray
in the back there.
And then if you really want to slap it
with a faded kind of film look,
you can crank up the fade too.
Personally, I think you can keep that down pretty low
and have just the amount
up pretty high.
And then even in these nice white
bright parts there too, it's kind of fading out
the whites into a gray,
which is something that you would typically see
on like a vintage film.
So we're getting that look
with literally just two seconds of pulling this up
and you're good to go.
So going from my dark gray, muted contrast lists.
AI enhance just a couple of little adjustments
and then our matte look.
And all of a sudden we've got this very cool
hip looking vintage photo
of this leaf on this mossy rock.
Moving on to number five
is going to be the portrait tools.
So we're gonna choose a photo
that actually is a portrait.
We're gonna make a couple of minor adjustments here
to start with.
I'm gonna go into my light,
I'm gonna to pull down the highlights
because I obviously overexpose
this a little bit on the skin.
I just pull down the overall exposure.
I'm gonna choose my profile as camera portrait.
It's looking nicer.
And then I'm also going to use my AI enhance here.
Let me just go up there.
So let's leave it like that for now
and we're gonna go over into our Portrait tab
or we're gonna focus on are these top two.
So the AI skin enhancer,
what it does is it looks for
the face in the scene, the skin in the scene,
and it's actually going to do your skin softening for you
while trying to keep the texture in the skin.
So we're just gonna drag this up to a ridiculous amount.
This is gonna be way too much,
but just to show you the effect,
drag it up all the way.
You see that it picked only
specifically the skin and softened it in the face
but it still kept the texture.
So we're gonna dial that back to
a more reasonable amount.
And it just saves you having to make
like a pile of masks.
And stuff like this is a nice quick way to get this done
quick and easy.
And you can still edit the mask.
Everything that in this whole software
seems to have this edit mask button
so you can still dial it in further if you want.
And then the next thing that we're gonna see
is the portrait enhancer.
And this is really cool to face light options.
So it detects where the face is
and you can just add a little bit of light to the face.
So instead of again having to make your own mask and stuff,
it detects it for you
and you can just bring up the light on the face,
which is super handy.
I can't count the amount of times that I've had to do that.
Just to try and kind of bring
a little bit more focus to the face in my photo.
In this case I overexposed a little bit
so the face is already pretty bright as is.
We don't really need that.
We've got red eye removal.
We can whiten the eyes a little bit,
so bring a little bit more white into the eyes
so that they kind of pop a little bit more.
I really like this eye enhancer.
I'm gonna take it way too far again
to show you the effect,
but it's going to kind of sharpen the eyes
and brighten them up a little bit.
So that obviously like you can see this is a little bit
too far, just a little bit.
But if you dial it into the right amount,
it can be really handy.
You can try and remove dark circles from the eyes
and you've got options like slimming the face,
enlarging the eyes.
So we can get a little ridiculous with it here.
Go into kind of animate territory.
Eyebrow improve, which kind of darkens your eyebrows,
lip saturation, lips redness, lips darkening
and teeth whitening.
So number five is the portrait tools.
I think it's something that's going to be very handy
for people who are shooting a lot of portraits
and wanna just speed up their workflow,
things that they're already probably doing
but they're doing like manually.
I think that that's going to be really helpful
for a lot of people.
And my sixth and final feature
that I really like about Luminar Four is the Pro tab,
and this isn't necessarily a single feature,
but it is a set of features
that I think really take it above and beyond
and make it just so much easier
to get where you're trying to go.
So in this tab,
moving back to this other photo here,
if we go down to the Pro tab,
The first feature that we see
is something called Advanced Contrast.
Now in the Essentials tab
we've also got something called Smart Contrast,
which acts more like a typical contrast slider would.
But in Advanced Contrast,
we've also got contrast for highlights,
contrast for midtones and contrast for shadows.
So all of those can be dialed in separately,
which is just super handy
to have that much extra control
but still in kind of a convenient way.
Next we've got the adjustable gradient,
which would be super handy
if you're doing something like,
let's say a landscape photo
and you want to brighten up the bottom half
or darken the top half.
Let's say you've got
your skyline needs to be darkened a little bit
or your bottom half
where the ground is needs to be brightened up.
In this case, it could almost be the opposite.
This is just a super handy and easy way to do it
and not only can you change the exposure of that,
but you can also change the warmth, the vibrance.
You can change Contrast shadows and highlights as well.
So you've got a lot of control again,
in just a super convenient way.
And that's really what I like about this.
It's not so much that these things
aren't necessarily available in some other software,
but they just make it so convenient for you
where they have them.
We've got dodge and burn.
So again, making things brighter and darker
specifically by painting them in,
you choose start painting
and you've got these parts at the top here
where you can click lighten
and you can draw in a light part
and then you can click darken
and draw in a dark part.
Obviously this is nonsense what I'm doing here,
but it's just that easy.
This is something that is pretty common
for a lot of photographers who want
to dodge and burn their photos.
So it's just super convenient again.
We've got a Color enhancer,
we've got brilliance and warmth.
So it's kind of like a color balance
after the fact, not necessarily the first thing
that you're gonna do, but at the end of
the editing process.
So let's say we've got our nice fade on this photo here
and we wanna add a little bit of warmth afterwards,
or maybe we wanna cool it down,
make that rock look a little bit colder,
or just crank up the brilliance
and really bring up the kind of color contrast
in this photo.
We've got photo filter,
which is basically putting
a kind of a hue on top of your entire photo.
You can do a little bit of safe here tone if we want.
And then finally we've got good old fashioned split toning.
And the nice thing about the split toning
is that you can actually dial in the amount overall.
So you can turn up your saturation
and find where you want the split tones to be.
So let's say we want that kind of orange in the highlights,
still in the shadows,
and then we can dial it back
with the amount
or dial it way up.
So if you like doing split toning,
you've got just a little bit more control here.
Than you might have in some other editing software.
Now like I said,
those are my six kind of favorite features
that I've found so far,
but there is so much going on in this software.
I've been really impressed
with everything that's available
and how they make it just so easy to understand.
If you're already familiar with other editing software,
I think this'll be a really good thing
that you can hop into nice and easy
and start to take advantage of some of these cool features.
Like I said, those are six of my favorite,
but there's so much more
that you can go into in this software.
Huge thank you to Skylum for
sending me the software to try out
and giving me the opportunity
to dive into a new piece of software.
I'm really impressed and thank you
for sponsoring this video.
If you guys have any questions,
make sure to leave a comment down below.
I'll leave a link in the description
so you can go check this out for yourself.
On your way down there,
make sure to hit the like and subscribe button
and hit that bell notification so you don't miss anything.
Thank you so much for watching this video
and I'll see you next time.
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