Choose your effect (they’re given unhelpfully non-descriptive names such as “Clean light” and“Forest Stream”), and then tailor how strongly its applied with a slider beneath. Using the suggested templates, we ended up with results which, much to this photographer’s chagrin, were pretty close to the professional results arrived at via protracted Photoshop sessions. We tried Luminar with a set of unedited raw images and were pleased with the results. Landscape edits are quickly and effectively applied. In Templates, Luminar suggests what kind of image you have, and then gives you a series of recipes that spice it up, ranging from simple saturation-and-sharpening boosts to Instagram-friendly low-contrast filters. The way Luminar edits is broken down into Templates – which are one-click wonders that instantly spice up your photography – and Edits, where effects are automatically applied with your hand on the tiller, feathering in the changes Luminar thinks are best. Hopefully that's a bug that will be ironed out with a firmware fix.

You don’t open images one at a time instead you add them to a catalog a slightly flawed process because our version of Luminar (1.0.1) had a propensity for forgetting where images were, flagging them with a not-found warning icon and forcing us to re-import the original shot, losing any edits we’ve made. The main UI owes a passing nod to Lightroom, at least structurally. Skylum Luminar AI at Amazon for $49 (opens in new tab).Luminar AI let you add entire skies as well.

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