Today, Skylum announced the latest update (Version 4.2) for its flagship product Luminar. This free update for all Luminar 4 users contains important enhancements across the application, plus a brand-new feature we’ve been hearing rumors about for a while now to help photographers create incredible digital art – AI Augmented Sky.
While Luminar remains dedicated to being an award-winning photo editor, it also expands into being a creative powerhouse, allowing artists to express themselves through new, fun and unconventional ways of editing images.
The new AI Augmented Sky tool lets photographers transform their photographs to the new heights, by helping create unique digital art creations. The tool lets photographers place different objects directly on the sky, enabling creatives to make either a realistic landscape or transform it into something straight out of a fairy tale. We’ve already covered how to replace your skies using Luminar, a tool that is insanely useful for most photographers out there. Well this new Augmented Sky tool looks to crank that awesome all the way up to eleven!
[Related Reading: How to Replace Skies in Seconds: Complete Lightroom to Luminar 4 Editing Tutorial]
New Feature – AI Augmented Sky
In the Creative tab inside Luminar 4.2, there’s a new AI Augmented Sky tool present. Artists can choose objects from the Luminar database or use their own. Even with photos that have complex backgrounds like trees or buildings, there’s no need to involve masking or layers. Instead, the object seamlessly fits into the photograph, resulting in realistic self-expression.
AI Augmented Sky detects a photo’s sky automatically and adds the chosen element to the sky area. Thanks to content-aware technologies, foreground objects are taken into account automatically, making the object blend naturally with the sky. And if you want more control over the placement, you can easily drag the new element around the sky area. I tested this out for a while on a beta version and, honestly, it’s incredibly fun and fast!
“We’re really excited to see how photographers use the AI Augmented Sky to create digital works of art,” said Dima Sytnyk, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer of Skylum. “AI Augmented Sky can be used to make everything from subtle tweaks, like moving the moon in the sky, or to totally transform the world around us. The possibilities are endless!”
You can create multiple layers to add multiple “augments” with this, and I’ll be doing a write up on this with more details for another post soon.
New Feature – Enhancements to Portrait Tools
Utilizing its groundbreaking automatic face detection technology, Luminar 4.2 can now help you restore skin in overly shiny areas as well as more effectively slim faces.
The new architecture of the Face Features Detection Neural Network lets Luminar 4.2 provide even better automation when it comes to enhancing portraits. The technology is trained to detect different faces in all sorts of positions, accounting for things like head tilts, unusual angles, badly lit or partially hidden faces, and even those with heavy makeup. It can detect people of any hue of skin or age, as well as spotting all the faces in a group photo. I’ve been using this tool recently in my own client work and can confirm this update has made some impressive improvements to the portrait tools and it’s A.I. identification.
In the AI Skin Enhancement tool, you’ll find a new option for Shine Removal Technology. This new option helps you reduce excessive shine on the forehead or cheeks to make for a more pleasing photograph. It works by restoring the skin on the patches of the face where it was hit by excessive light. It automatically generates realistic-looking skin, which blends in with the rest of the face.
Also in AI Portrait Enhancer is the improved Slim Face 2.0 Technology. Prior to Luminar 4.2, face slimming only worked with the lower portion of a person’s face, sometimes making for unrealistic results. With Slim Face 2.0, the tool can make the whole face proportionally smaller and naturally slim, letting photographers obtain more realistic and pleasing results.
[Related Reading: Portrait Photo Editing With Luminar 4]
Other Improvements to Luminar 4.2
In addition to Augmented Sky and the new enhancements to Luminar’s portrait tools, Luminar 4.2 has various upgrades for several of its tools, as well as some performance updates.
Located “under the hood” of the AI Sky Replacement tool is an improved Relight Scene technology. Prior to Luminar 4.2, AI Sky Replacement in rare cases gave a yellow and unrealistic glow — particularly on crisp, white objects. This improvement solves this problem, letting you retain the colors as you originally captured them in-camera.
Improvements have also been made to ML Cache, which will increase the efficiency and speed of interaction with the machine’s processor.
- Windows users also have various other updates specific to the platform, including:
Preview Preset Multithreading – For multi-core systems, generating previews has received a boost, making for faster and more comfortable viewing and usage. - Third-party Plugin Implementation - Popular plugins can now be used. At this time, plugins for the Aurora HDR, DxO Nik Collection family, as well as the Topaz plugins collection, are supported.
Leading The Way In Machine Learning
With the Luminar 4.2 update, Skylum continues to lead the charge into advanced machine learning capabilities. With the AI Augmented Sky capabilities, photographers can create unique, one-of-a-kind digital art pieces, while the enhancements to the portrait tools can help photographers create more realistic adjustments to their photographs.
Luminar 4.2 is a free update to current Luminar 4 users. On a Mac, click in the Top Menu Bar and choose Luminar 4 > Check for updates. If you purchased via the Mac App Store, simply open the App Store and go to the Updates tab. On Windows, in the Top Menu Bar choose Help > Check for updates.
If you are running Luminar as a plugin with Photoshop, Lightroom Classic or Photoshop Elements, it’s also recommended you rerun the plugin installer.
An expanded user manual has also been added, making it easier than ever for users to search and find answers to questions they might have about the software.
Get Your Copy of Luminar 4 Today!
For a limited time, you can buy Luminar 4 for $89 and get the Inspiration Looks pack — a $49 value — for free! Or upgrade to our Plus Edition, which includes Luminar 4, the Inspiration Looks pack and the California Sunset skies pack, for $99. Finally, get Luminar 4, the Inspiration Looks and California Sunset packs plus Aurora HDR 2019, for just $169.
Learn more about Luminar 4 and get your copy at skylum.com.
Personally, I’m excited for these updates, as i’ve already been using the portrait tools a LOT….and I do mean a LOT in my recent commercial work. I’ve done hundreds of headshots retouching almost entirely in Luminar (stay tuned for a post on that), and have been using it as a consistent part of my workflow since the 4.1 release! These new features seem pretty impressive, and i’m more excited to see just how good the performance enhancements turn out to be in the wild with the official release! Have you tried the app out yet? Have you tested the sky replacement? Let me know what you think in the comments below.
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