Luminar AI Sale – 50% Off
I rarely mention sales. It sounds like it is – a chance for an affiliate to make a quick buck.
But this one is worth knowing about. Skylum Software is offering Luminar AI for just £29.00 for the next 3 days. That is ridiculously cheap.
I’ve reviewed Luminar many times on this blog and on my YouTube channel. I own and use Luminar AI. I don’t think it’s the best RAW converter in terms of absolute image quality – DXO wins that award. But it is definitely the best artistic RAW converter and, if you don’t use DXO, it is at least as good as whatever you do currently use.
If you use DXO, then there are things Luminar does DXO cannot do, and combining DXO + Luminar offers incredible possibilities.
If you are thinking of moving away from Adobe’s subscription model, then this is the time to do it.
Luminar AI Sale – Let’s do some maths
If you use Adobe Lightroom + Photoshop, you might be reluctant to try another product. One thing I am absolutely certain of is that the alternative tools are better. They produce better results. Sometimes far better results.
Currently (June 2021) the Adobe Photography package costs £9.98 a month. Every month. Forever. £9.98 is not much. But it adds up. It’s about £120 a year. Every year. That’s the downside of subscriptions. You keep paying and paying. Stop paying and the software stops working.
To switch away from Adobe, you’ll need at the very least:
- An image editor.
- A RAW converter.
Unless you really plan to use Windows File Explorer, you’ll need a photo organiser or, even better, a digital asset manager as well. How much would that cost?
The Adobe Alternative #1
- Editor – Affinity Photo: £23.99 (also currently on a 50% sale)
- RAW Converter – Luminar AI: £29.00
- Digital Asset Manager – Digital Photo Guardian Standard Edition: £49.00
Total Cost £101.99. Just once. These are all perpetual licenses. You’d only need to upgrade them if you change cameras and need to get RAW support for them. But you can dodge that upgrade by using Adobe’s free DNG converter as these tools can all process any DNG it produces.
Over the years, the saving gets significant!
The Adobe Alternative #2
- Editor – Affinity Photo: £23.99 (also currently on a 50% sale)
- RAW Converter – DXO Photo Lab Elite: £179.00
- Digital Asset Manager – Digital Photo Guardian Standard Edition: £49.00
Total Cost £251.99. Just once. DXO is more expensive and it won’t process DNGs from unsupported cameras, so you may need a future upgrade. But DXO offer reasonable discounts for upgrades and its RAW converter is utterly state-of-the art. Over a few years, this bundle will cost less than the Adobe subscription.
The Adobe Alternative #3
- Editor – Affinity Photo: £23.99 (also currently on a 50% sale)
- RAW Converter – DXO Pure RAW: £115
- RAW Converter – Luminar AI: £29.00
- Digital Asset Manager – Digital Photo Guardian Standard Edition: £49.00
Total Cost £216.99 Just once. DXO Pure RAW offers the subset of DXO technology that no other tool offers (the best noise reduction, sharpening, distortion removal and chromatic aberration removal). It produces a DNG file Luminar can then process. It’s a dream team.
Digital Photo Guardian is my (I wrote it during the 2020/2021 UK Lockdowns) Digital Asset Manager. It’s Windows only, so it may not be useful to you.
The Luminar AI sale offers a genuine opportunity to try the alternatives to Adobe. I did and I wouldn’t look back!
The maths make sense, but are the tools really that good?
You don’t need to take my word for it! Trial versions are available for all these products and there are many reviews of them on this site or my YouTube channel:
Luminar Features
Let’s look at what Luminar offers:
A pretty image browser
It isn’t the most functional image browser, but it previewing your images never looked better.
So many presets…
Luminar analyses your picture and suggests appropriate presets. Maybe gimmicky, but great if you find one that works with the image.
Landscape Editing
The Accent AI, Sky Enhancer AI, Color Enhancement and Golden Hour adjustments are class leading and so simple to use.
Black and White
A complete set of Black and White adjustment filters.
Sky Replacement and Enhancement
There’s no easier way to replace the sky than to use Luminar. It has plenty of skies to choose from and you can add your own.
Luminar AI Sale – Other Adjustments
Luminar has tools that are missing from the others:
- Face, skin and body adjustment/enhancement. The face and skin adjustments are excellent – you’d have to spend £100s to get these in a dedicated package.
- Sunrays – Add realistic sunray effects. As a test, I posted a few images using this to my Instagram account without saying the I used Luminar to add the sunrays. Nobody spotted that they were not real…
- Distortion correction
- Chromatic aberration removal
- Fine tune contrast
- and more…
Luminar AI – so user friendly
Luminar has always been easy to use. I don’t think I’ve ever had to reach for the manual or ask for help. It is one of those rare tools that you just install and use.
Luminar AI Sale – Conclusion
Luminar AI does things that no other RAW converter/image editor does. At the sale price it is a steal and such a small investment that it’s worth getting, even if you only intend to use it occasionally. It, of course, works on JPEGs and TIFs, so you can use it for post processing as well. The sky replacement, Accent AI, Sky Enhancer AI, and Golden Hour filters alone are worth the full price.
If you are thinking of moving away from Adobe’s subscription model, then this is the time to do it. Luminar AI and Affinity Photo at 50% off, plus Digital Photo Guardian is a winning combination. If you can afford to add DXO Pure Raw then you’d have a stunning toolkit and only pay for it once.
I strongly recommend you give these a try while the offers last.
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