The Photographer's Guide to Luminar 4. Jeff Carlson
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2-6).
FIGURE 2-6: The file name under the controls group name indicates you’re working on the original raw file.
All of Luminar’s editing controls are available. When you’re done making adjustments, click the Apply button to send the edited version back to Lightroom as a TIFF file, where it appears in the library next to the original (Figure 2-7). You can also click Cancel to exit Luminar and discard any edits you made.
FIGURE 2-7: In Lightroom Classic, the version edited using the Luminar plug-in (right) appears next to the original (left).
Edit in Luminar 4
The other approach gives you more options, but also more variables to pay attention to. If you’ve already done some editing in Lightroom, this is the route that keeps the results of those edits:
1 1. Choose Photo > Edit In > Luminar 4. You can also choose the same item from the contextual menu when you right-click the image.(On macOS as I write this, choosing Photo > Edit In > Edit In Luminar 4 opens the file in Luminar as a single-image edit, without an Apply button. That prevents the edits from being returned to Lightroom. The same option in Luminar for Windows works as expected. So, if you’re using the Mac version, be sure to select the “Luminar 4” option, not the “Edit in Luminar 4” option that Lightroom adds near the top of the menu.)
2 2. Choose the type of file that gets sent to Luminar (Figure 2-8). If you’ve already applied edits in Lightroom, choose the first option, Edit a Copy with Lightroom Adjustments. This is also the only choice if you’re working with a raw or DNG image.If it’s a JPEG image, you can also opt for Edit a Copy, which passes along an unedited copy of the original file. This option is good when you want to perform similar edits in Lightroom Classic and Luminar and see which you prefer. I don’t recommend the third option, Edit Original, because it adjusts the image file itself without making a copy.For now, ignore the Copy File Options at the bottom of the screen. They require a bit more explanation, which we’ll get to on the next page.
FIGURE 2-8: Choose from the Edit In options.
1 3. Click the Edit button to continue. Lightroom creates a separate file and opens it in Luminar in its plug-in mode, and Apply and Cancel buttons appear in the toolbar.
2 4. Make your edits, and then click Apply. The new version is saved and added to Lightroom’s library, grouped with the original as a stack.
Copy File Options
When you choose Edit a Copy with Lightroom Adjustments, you can choose which file format is used for the copy that gets edited. For the most part, the default settings will work fine, but it’s good to know what’s happening in transit between the two applications. Click the Copy File Options exposure triangle to reveal the following settings:
•File Format: The default format is TIFF, which retains the same image quality as the version you’re sending. TIFF is a lossless format, which means no data is thrown away to reduce the size of the file (though you can impose compression further down). Although you can choose JPEG as an option, I don’t recommend it because you’re discarding valuable image data before you’ve even started editing. PSD (Photoshop native format) is also available.
•Color Space: In digital imaging, color space refers to the total number of colors that can be stored and displayed. Color spaces have changed over the years as cameras and monitors have improved. This sounds like an ever-advancing leap into the future, but it can also trip up older systems that can’t show all the colors in the file. As with shooting in raw or capturing more megapixels with a newer camera, it’s good to work with more data than less. Lightroom’s native color space is ProPhoto RGB, so that’s what I recommend using. The dialog often defaults to Adobe RGB (1998), so it’s worth checking the Copy File Options and switching to ProPhoto RGB before clicking the Edit button.It’s worth noting that photo editing is best done using color-calibrated equipment. Both macOS (in the Displays preference panel) and Windows (in the Display Color Calibration control panel) include tools for calibrating your screen to show accurate color. Other companies sell more advanced calibration gear.
•Bit Depth: Leave this option set to 16 bits/component to ensure the most color information is included in the file for editing.
•Resolution: I suggest leaving this field set to the default; increasing or reducing the resolution is better done when exporting the image for use elsewhere. Our main concern is maintaining fidelity with the original when editing in Luminar.
•Compression: Keep this option set to None. Choosing ZIP requires your computer to work harder to decompress the file. If you’re tight on disk space, I recommend buying a larger hard drive.
One important thing to keep in mind is that editing a Lightroom Classic image using Luminar’s plug-in mode is a one-way trip. After you’ve clicked Apply and sent the adjusted image back to Lightroom, the edits are burned into that version; you can’t go back to Luminar and change any of the settings you made. Even if you specify the original file to be edited when sending the edited TIFF back to Luminar, all the editing controls are reset back to their defaults. You can build on top of what you’ve already done, but you can’t, say, change the Shadows amount from +50 to +25.
Edit from Photoshop or Photoshop Elements
The mechanism by which Photoshop and Photoshop Elements work with Luminar is similar, which is why I’m grouping them together here. However, Photoshop, the elder statesman of the two, also includes a clever way to re-edit images that have already gone through a Luminar adjustment pass.
In Photoshop or the Photoshop Elements Editor application, open a photo and choose Filter > Skylum Software > Luminar 4. You’ll see the same tools and editing controls as usual in Luminar, with the addition of the Apply and Cancel buttons on the toolbar.
When you’re finished editing, click Apply. The image in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements is updated to reflect the changes.
In fact, the Luminar edits replace the image on the current layer, which is the sole Background layer if you’ve just opened the file in Photoshop or Elements. To get back to the original version of the image, use the History panel to select an earlier edit. Or, consider duplicating the image layer before sending the photo to Luminar, which gives you more editing latitude (Figure 2-9).
FIGURE 2-9: Duplicate the Background layer in Photoshop before you use Luminar’s plug-in.
Photoshop (not Elements) features a way to return to your Luminar edits in case you need to adjust any of them. Here’s how:
1 1. Open an image file and select the Background layer in the Layers panel.
2 2. Choose Layer > Smart Objects > Convert to Smart Object, or right-click the layer and choose Convert to Smart Object (Figure