Last Updated on 04/04/2019 by Chris Gampat
Skylum has just unveiled a brand new Luminar plugin that extends Luminar’s AI-powered features to your existing editing tool of choice.
If you’re interested in trying out Luminar but are still stuck in the eternal sadness that is Adobe Lightroom Classic, Skylum has just announced a solution. Called Luminar Flex, it’s promising an extension of Luminar’s AI-powered technologies to your current workflow. But if you’re not using Lightroom, it can pair with Apple Photos and other options too (including Photoshop and Photoshop Elements). With it, you get to utilize powerful filters, editing options, and AI-powered technologies to step-up creative options and save time in post-processing work.
Luminar Flex showcases over 50 filters for corrections and enhancements, and also a bunch of expanded creative options unique to the software:
Accent AI: Automatically analyzes and corrects photographs using more than a dozen controls at once. Accent AI can be a great substitute for several traditional controls such as shadows, highlights, contrast, and more.
AI Sky Enhancer: Turns gray and uninspired skies into something magical with AI Sky Enhancer. By automatically detecting the sky in a photograph, AI Sky Enhancer makes the necessary adjustments to increase color, clarity, and detail, allowing to boost your outdoor images with a single slider.
Details Enhancer: Creates dramatic photos with crystal-clear sharpness. This filter unlocks details for sharp looking images without halos or artifacts.
Golden Hour: Brings a warm-toned sunlight effect to your photo. This filter emulates the shooting conditions when the sun is low on the horizon (such as shortly after sunrise or before sunset). This indirect light helps make even dull photos warmer and more dimensional.
Orton Effect: Allows enhancements to an image that include glow and focus. This produces a unique look that’s both sharp and blurry at the same time. It’s perfect to create an emotional feeling in a picture.
Image Radiance: Gives an overall “dreamy” look by adding a glow to the lighter areas of the image. This is a great filter to use for portraits and even landscapes to create soft, saturated results.
Foliage Enhancer: Elevate colors often found in spring grass and fall leaves to make landscape photographs that pop off the screen.
LUT Mapping: Apply Lookup Table (LUT) files for creative color grading and film stock emulation.
Luminar Looks: More than 100 one-click Looks give photographers a speedy jump-off point for creative explorations.
Aside from the AI-powered features, Luminar Flex also comes with Workspaces, a collection of filters designed for specific types of photography. With this feature, photographers can organize their favorite filters into a custom Workspace to employ a better, time-saving workflow organization. Skylum has also partnered with top photographers and image editors to craft new looks under the quick and customizable edits provided by Luminar Looks. New Looks will be uploaded every month in the Luminar Marketplace, and many of them will be free.
Lightroom users will also benefit from using Luminar Flex’s Layers and Blending modes. The Adjustment Layers makes it easy to apply any filter to flexible layers, which can also be mixed with blending modes. You can get as creative as you want and need by using textures, images, masks, and more with this feature.
Luminar Flex is easily compatible with Adobe Photoshop CC and Photoshop Elements. It can also be natively tied into Adobe Lightroom Classic CC’s external editing system, as well as in Apple Photo for Mac’s extensions. Photoshop users can also use Luminar Flex as a Smart Object, so they can revise their edits even after the plugin is closed. Custom Photoshop actions can also be recorded to make workflow faster and more efficient.
Luminar Flex is compatible with:
- Photoshop (Windows & macOS)
- Lightroom Classic (Windows & macOS)
- Photoshop Elements (Windows & macOS)
- Photos for macOS
- Apple Aperture
If you already have Luminar 2018 and Luminar 3, you will receive a free copy of the Luminar Flex plugin. The new software will follow its own development roadmap. The next major development of Luminar will no longer have the plugins workflow in the Libraries and will only be available in the Luminar Flex Plugin.
The Luminar Flex is priced at $59 and is set to ship beginning March 28. Visit the Skylum website to learn more about the Luminar Plugin.