Throughout, the fixed size of the right-hand bar bugs me.I’d rather see it either in the image file itself, or in sidecar files. I have a real problem with the design decision to hold edit data in the catalog.

The hidden main menu is annoying, not clever.Here are some specific thoughts on the various parts of the program (as experienced on Windows): General This is kinda funny, though, because I have to admit that given my level of skill, this probably makes L-AI useful to me in more cases than LR. In the big picture I expect I’ll continue to use Luminar AI, primarily in cases where I’ve got a pretty good picture that doesn’t quite make the grade: the tool is really good for fiddling around to make a photo that somewhat misses the mark artistically into something that’s still aesthetically striking.īy contrast, I think that Lightroom is still superior in the cases where I had a clear vision from the start of what I wanted the image to be, and I just need to polish that. A power user with a significant library want to keep Lightroom as the catalog manager, and use Luminar AI as a plugin just for the stuff it’s good at. And the catalog management, frankly, is a trainwreck, virtually unusable.

On the other hand, eliminating Layers demands finding new approaches for sophisticated edits. Its palette of tools for manipulating sharpness, contrast, and color tones make these kinds of things far easier and enjoyable than with Lightroom. Its strength is in building mood and environment in an image. For the kind of thing that Luminar 4 worked well for, Luminar AI is in most cases a step forward for this approach. I’m enjoying using Luminar AI, but I don’t feel that it’s the revolution that it’s being marketed as.

Luminar ai review 2021