I don’t see any button to simply rotate an image from portrait to landscape or to flip it horizontally or vertically. (I couldn’t find it in the manual either.) This is the most obvious first thing to do with any image, so how can this be missing?

When I select B&W filter, the image is already immediately put in monochrome, which is weird! I would like to put this operation in my “Filters Preset”, but I don’t want it to be applied immediately before I do the first raw development.

I see many “hieroglyphs” on my screen. In any program, it should be obligatory to show some explanation about it when you hover above it with your mouse. I absolutely hate it when I see some obscure pictogram and I have no idea what it stands for. The only way to find out is to click on it and then to see that this was not what I wanted to do, hence a waste of time…

There seems to be no database of lenses allowing a quick and correct distortion and vignette correction. Doing this manually is quity clumsy, time consuming and inaccurate.

I don’t see presets for the color temperature, like “cloudy”, “sunny”, “flash”, etc. An experienced user may know the correct temperature settings for the slider, but a beginner will not. And most of all missing is the “pipette” to adjust the white balance by clicking on a neutral grey part of the picture! This is very crucial to get accurate colors, for example for reproductions of paintings!

When I select the “RAW develop”, “B&W conversion” and “Clarity” filters, I get 3 “clarity” sliders that seem to be independent from each other although they seem to do the same thing. This is VERY confusing! The same thing happens when I select the “Color temperature” filter: e.g. I can set this to 7000 while the same slider on the “RAW develop” panel is set to 4000, huh???

When I hover my mouse over a photo, I obviously want to see the RGB value for every pixel, for example to see if the skin tones are not too dark or too bright! This is one of the most elementary features in any image processing software (even Microsoft Paint has it), and I can’t understand why it is missing!

When I click “export” to JPG, it wants to save the picture in the last opened directory. There seems to be no way to set the directory to the same as the raw file, or a specific subdirectory of that. It also wants to save the processed image with the same name as the original, which is dangerous. There should be an option to rename it automatically, e.g. adding -1, -2,… etc. like in Lightroom. When I click “Browse” to change the directory, it wants to give the exported file the same name as the raw file (CR2), while the selector below the name says “Save as: JPG”… Very confusing! If I want to save the changes made on the raw file, I have to enter a name for the “.lmnr” file manually each time! Very clumsy!

Above the histogram, I see the ISO, the focal distance and the aperture. But how can I get all the other exif data??? How can I enter keywords or a rating?

I also see no way to quickly walk through my images on full screen (like using the F key in Lightroom) and then decide which one I want to process.

So… although Luminar 2018 seems to have some nice features, it doesn’t look like a “ripened” software program to me, and there is still a lot of work to do before it can compete with Lightroom…

Yes correct – please keep the conversation pleasant and respectful, as it is so far.

Aha yes, that is harder to find these days!!

A drymount with acid & lignin free pages & interleave sheets. Ideally, black pages with white interleave sheets – 50 sheets (100 pages) per album – and a page size with a “usable area” of 28 (at least) cm wide x 32 cm high (total page size would be wider than that, because the pages in albums normally have a “hinge” or crease on one side, with part of the page reserved for the binding side).

Initially I’m looking to buy at least 6 and over the next year or so another dozen of them – more later, as I proceed with printing the rest of the photos.

(Sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner – I tried again searching on the net, but got not further. I have some more detailed notes, if you can let me have an email addy to send them to you, rather than posting them here).

I haven’t heard anyone remotely suggest limiting anyone’s right to bring a product to market. The closest this conversation ever got was my PERSONAL opinion comment that I FIND this many choices to be confusing and overwhelming.

I appreciate your participation, however try to follow along and not add things to another person’s comments that were not posted. Otherwise, you end up looking like an annoying little troll (kinda like I did when I first replied to Darlene without fully reading and understanding her comment.)

Would you care to share your thought on who will determine which product should be in the market? What will happen to FREE MARKET if there is a limit to customer’s choice.

Okay I see Smart Layers are like Smart Objects in PS. But it’s still not at all clear how to use them. When I open ON1 it opens the browse window. If I select an image and click “Develop” it’s instantly there in the Develop module. I don’t see any layers, or any options to open it as a smart layer anywhere. It just opens. The only place I see layers is the Layers module – but all I can see that is for is combining images. I can see that I can go back and forth from Develop to Effects and edit any of those settings. But as soon as I click Layers it does something in the background, and if I go back to Develop it’s all set to zeros again. Not intuitive.

I’m not 100% sure about that, could be.

I have no problems in going back and forth from Develop and Effects and re-editing in either module, whether using filters, presets or just the sliders, even after closing and re-opening. I agree that this isn’t possible in Layers which is definitely regrettable. I cannot explain why you cannot return to Develop from Effects to re-edit. It is a mystery that perhaps only On1 can resolve? The layers issue is why Photoshop remains my main go to program for more complex images editing.

MacPhun has made tremendous inroads in the market…and the recent Windows releases have significantly added to their market share.

Correct me if I am wrong, but it is my understanding that many of the former Nik Software team are now a part of MacPhun. We all know what an outstanding job they did on the Nik Collection and their patent of the award-winning U-Point technology. If my understanding is correct, I’m not at all surprised that MacPhun may follow with industry leading innovation.

Right now it’s more like PS than LR because there is no DAM or browser. But that’s coming. The closing every time with the image is odd, doesn’t happen for me.

Thanks. I forgot to comment on Luminar which I find to be an add-on for effects rather than a full raw editor for a photo shoot. It is slow to open, slow to perform changes like erase, and closes every time an image is finished. Maybe I am missing something but it does not seem to be ready for prime-time editing.

Good assessment, thanks for that Phil.

Right that is my point! When you leave Develop and go to either Filters or Layers it it burned to a PSD and all your raw editing is now applied and you can’t go back to it. At least I can’t see how to do so. Non-destructive layers in PS means the original raw edits are on a smart object layer and you can reopen the ACR box any time and edit your raw file again from where you left off. I cannot see how to do that in ON1.

Yup all good points! What kind of photo album are you looking for? I might have some suggestions. For what sizes of prints?

All true. Have you looked at the survey results above? Look at this! LR and Photoshop combined have 1239 votes and Luminar has 610. Not bad really for a relatively new guy on the block! https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5e1a19cabb2de3d690a865dacad4167d1f450e5439ebbf9ec4934bd26402b332.png

I just tested and you’re right it DOES show clipping when you hold down ALT. But I did just update the program so not sure if that did it or not. But it works for me now

I have been evaluating trial versions as well and have come to a conclusion as follows: On1 Raw comes close to replacing LR and PS with its terrific masking options but still lacks selections and move tools available with ACDsee Ultimate 2018, which does both, and Affinity. None do content aware move but it can be done in Affinity and ACDsee Ultimate 2018 with a move tool and added smart erase step. ACDsee has a DAM like LR and On1 but selections and masking are like PS rather than with On1 Raw’s easier masking tools.

Conclusion? On1 Raw does a good job of DAM with Develop edits like Lightroom and some of PS, with $40 Affinity doing the rest. That is $140. ACDsee Ultimate 2018 does all but Panoramas for $100. Each has a learning curve and each is superior to LR and PS in some ways and inferior in others, but the one-time cost saves me $128 per year for Adobe CC. So there are now good options to keep Adobe in line price wise for those concerned about that.

Phil Zwick

I am confused! If I make changes in Develop and Effects, I can see no “apply” button. I am using Version 2018 (12.0.0.4006) on a Mac running OSX 10.13.2. I can open and work on a different image and then re-open my first file and all edits are re-editable. I can close the program and still be able to do this. This is whether or not the sidecar box is ticked as I have learnt that the changes are stored in a database. The sidecar files are useful for backing-up or when using multiple computers. Where you do lose all of the edits is if you go into layers as this “burns” everything into a psd file. What is saved here when you click “Done” are the layers and masks, etc. This discussion has been useful as I have learnt quite a lot.

OMG – Darlene, you just can’t make these things up! Just after that reply, my iMAC played up – neither Apple nor I have the faintest idea why – we tried everything, to get the operating system to open (using High Sierra), and in the end we had to restore the disc from backup. Every ‘tog’s worst nightmare! Can I or can’t I recover all my photos?
Back in operation, and everything’s fine!
Which is the major reason for deciding to print them all. It’s another form of backup, and doesn’t depend on technology which reminds us all of the nursery rhyme about the little girl who had a little curl – “When she was good, she was very very good – and when she was bad she was horrid”!
I will persevere – all photos catalogued on the ‘puter + hard copy, annotated to include Meta data – all photos stored ON the computer, on the Time machine external disc drive and on solid state drives – and all photos printed.
Sigh – now the only thing apart from doing all of that, and fighting my way through all the post processing issues (which isn’t the same for printing as it is for producing an acceptable image to circulate online) is how to store the prints? I used to be able to stroll into my camera store and buy half a dozen suitable albums – they were there, there was a range in different qualities and sizes, and you could get whatever you wanted. This is like discussing horse drawn bread delivery carts with today’s kids – nobody believes you. I am closing in on a couple of potential suppliers – but neither of them respond to emails, so I am not yet at the finishing line, and the prints are piling up in boxes.

I think an excellent case in point is just looking at the debate and variety of opinions surrounding the Adobe Creative Cloud subscription pricing model. Forgetting for a moment the host of other applications that are available, just this pricing issue has users ranging from absolutely loving it to being extraordinarily angry about it.

Yes, we are a diverse community with many different preferences. In the near term, it is unlikely Adobe will lose their position leading the industry, but it is clear they will not maintain that position longer term without more innovation and customer sensitivity. Trying to be the bully on the block probably will not serve them well.

One thing that I think has been overlooked in many comparisons I have read is the amount of third party support available for various applications in the form of plugins, presets, and education. While these are not fundamental necessities, they each serve to enhance user experience working with a particular application.