Luminar Review: AI Photo Editing Just Got Faster, Plus Big Fall Update

A quick fix for a poorly lit photo can easily turn into an hour of manual adjustments. Luminar is at its best when it cuts out that busywork without taking away the option to fine-tune the result. With version 1.28 improving the editing experience further, we’re revisiting the software on Mac.

What Is Luminar?

Luminar is the flagship photo editor from Skylum that is becoming increasingly popular among beginners and professionals. 

Its excellent implementation of AI can handle all the time-consuming adjustments but still gives you the control to steer your own results. Its toolkit spans portrait retouching, landscape enhancements, 3D relighting, color grading, and much more.

Mac users can open Luminar as a standalone editor or use it alongside Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom. Apple Photos integration provides another option for people who already organize their pictures in Apple’s photo library, rather than wanting to move their entire workflow into a different application.

The cross-device ecosystem lets you start edits on mobile or iPad and seamlessly sync photos, edits, and adjustable layer histories on MacOS, or vice versa.

What’s New in 1.28?

Luminar 1.28 focuses on making everyday editing quicker and less cumbersome, rather than introducing a completely new set of tools. The main changes include:

• Streamlined Workspace: Presets, Tools and Edits now share a right-hand panel, so you can move from a ready-made look to manual adjustments more easily.
• Speed Improvements: Skylum reports exports up to 27% faster and preset previews up to 3.8 times faster.
• Lower Memory Usage: Masking can use up to 33% less RAM, which may help when working with complex edits.
• Refined Generative AI: Updates to GenErase, GenSwap and GenExpand aim to produce more natural-looking results.
• Broader Camera Support: Additional cameras and RAW formats are now supported.

Still to Come

Skylum has more updates planned for fall, including:

• Upgraded AI Assistant: Describe the edit you want, and Luminar will suggest and apply a suitable combination of tools.
• Smarter Enhancements: An improved Enhance tool will analyze each photo to make more precise adjustments.
• Atmosphere Fog 2.0: Upgraded fog effects will respond more naturally to a scene’s lighting, color and depth.
• Smart Crop: Composition suggestions will take subjects, balance and leading lines into account.
• Web Editor: Browser-based editing will offer another way to work across devices.

Luminar Editing Tools

If you’re new to Luminar, here’s a closer look at its main tools and features:

RAW Editing

I was impressed with Luminar’s ability to work with RAW files. Its non-destructive develop engine handles raw sensor data without compromising image quality. 

Importing uncompressed camera files gives you total control over high dynamic range scenes, allowing you to easily recover blown-out highlight details or pull clean shadow texture out of dark foregrounds. 

Luminar also applies precise camera-specific profiles and lens distortion corrections from the start, ensuring color accuracy before you even touch a creative tool. 

Getting Started with Presets

Presets are a useful shortcut when you have a particular goal but don’t want to build it from scratch. Luminar offers ready-made styles ranging from gentle color adjustments to more advanced effects, and it recommends options based on the photo itself.

You can apply a preset in one click, then adjust its intensity or use individual tools to refine the result. I find this approach more useful than treating presets as finished edits: they give you a direction to work from while leaving room for your own decisions. You can also save custom presets to keep the look consistent across a series of photos.

In 1.28, the process feels more fluid now that Presets, Tools and Edits are in the same right-hand panel. I found it much more intuitive to test a preset, tweak it and return to an earlier adjustment without losing track.

Layering and Masking

Sometimes you only want to change one part of a photo. Brightening a face, for example, shouldn’t also brighten the sky behind it. Luminar’s Mask AI helps by recognizing subjects such as people, skies, buildings, vehicles and vegetation, then creating selections you can edit independently.

Automatic selections aren’t always perfect, so you can tidy them up with a brush or use gradient, color and luminosity masks for more control. These options are handy when you need to soften an adjustment across an area or keep it away from a small detail. Masking also feels less demanding in version 1.28, making it easier to move between selections and edits.

Layers offer another way to build up an image. You can combine photos, introduce textures or work on individual elements, then adjust each layer’s opacity and blending mode to make the result look more natural.

Edits are non-destructive, too. If an effect looks too strong later, you can revisit its settings or remove it altogether without having to start over.

Generative AI

Luminar’s generative tools let you make changes that would otherwise involve painstaking selections and manual retouching. Version 1.28 refines all three, although the results still depend on the image. In my experience, they work best when there’s enough surrounding detail for the AI to draw on.

GenErase is ideal for removing distractions from an otherwise good photo. Brush over a passer-by or unwanted sign, and Luminar attempts to recreate the background behind it. 

GenSwap takes things further: select an area and describe what you’d like in its place, and the AI generates a new element within the scene.

GenExpand tackles a different problem by creating scenery beyond the original edges of a photo. It’s useful when a composition feels cramped or you need extra space to fit a different aspect ratio.

For smaller clean-ups, there’s also the regular Erase brush. It removes dust spots, blemishes and other minor distractions without needing to generate a larger section of the image.

Sky AI

A dull sky can completely change the feel of an otherwise strong photo. Sky AI offers a quick fix by automatically identifying the sky and replacing it with another, without requiring you to carefully trace around buildings, trees, or other foreground objects.

Luminar includes a selection of replacement skies, ranging from bright blue conditions to more dramatic sunsets. Once you’ve chosen one, you can adjust its position, orientation, and lighting to help it match the original scene.

It’s particularly useful for rescuing shots taken in poor weather, but you can also use it creatively to give a photo an entirely different mood.

Enhance AI

When a photo needs a little polish rather than a complete overhaul, Enhance AI is a good place to start. Its Accent AI slider assesses the image and adjusts exposure, contrast, colour and detail together, saving you from working through each setting separately.

There’s also a Sky Enhancer slider, which brings out color and definition in the existing sky without replacing it. I like having that option for photos where the sky is a little flat but doesn’t need a dramatic change.

Enhance AI is particularly handy when you have several photos that need similar quick improvements. You can get a pleasing starting point in seconds, then make more targeted adjustments wherever the image needs them.

AI Noise Removal and Sharpening

Low-light photos often come with unwanted grain and colored speckles, particularly when you’ve used a high ISO setting. 

Noiseless AI analyzes the image and reduces that noise while aiming to retain fine details such as hair, leaves and textures. You can adjust the strength to avoid giving the photo an overly smooth appearance.

Luminar also includes Supersharp AI for a different problem. The softness caused by camera movement or slightly missed focus.

It offers different sharpening levels, and you can apply the effect to the whole photo or just a selected area.

Landscape Tools

Luminar’s landscape tools give you ways to shape the mood of an outdoor photo, whether you want a subtle improvement or something more atmospheric.

Atmosphere AI adds fog, mist or haze using the photo’s depth information, so the effect can follow the contours of the scene rather than appearing as a flat overlay. 

Sunrays lets you introduce beams of sunlight, position their source and adjust their intensity and warmth.

There are also tools for enhancing foliage and changing landscape colours. Used lightly, they can bring out details that were lost in dull lighting; pushed further, they can give a familiar scene a very different feel. 

Skylum has also announced an upgraded fog effect designed to respond more naturally to a scene’s lighting, colour and depth.

Contrast

Luminar also uses AI to improve contrast. The two key tools you can work with are:

Supercontrast: Works on the image’s broader tonal balance. It lets you adjust contrast in the highlights, midtones and shadows separately, giving you more control than a single contrast slider. For example, you could add depth to the shadows without making the brightest parts of a scene more intense. 

Structure AI: Brings out textures and fine details in areas such as foliage, stonework and buildings. Rather than sharpening everything equally, it selectively adjusts contrast to add definition without making the whole photo look harsh. You can also dial it back for a softer finish.

The tools serve different purposes but work well together: Structure AI draws attention to smaller details, while Supercontrast helps shape the overall balance of light and dark.

Bokeh AI

A busy background can pull attention away from the person you’re photographing. Bokeh AI helps by identifying the subject and blurring the area behind them, creating a shallow depth-of-field effect without requiring you to make a detailed selection yourself.

You can control how strong the blur looks and fine-tune the background to suit the photo. It’s especially useful for portraits taken on a phone, where the original shot might not have much natural background blur. Used with a light touch, it can soften distractions while keeping the subject as the clear focus.

Lighting

Good lighting can make a photo, but you don’t always have control over it when taking the shot. Luminar offers three tools for adjusting how light falls across an image, from adding a virtual light source to making small, precise corrections.

Studio Light is designed for portraits. It identifies the subject and adds a virtual light that you can reposition to illuminate the face from different angles. Controls for brightness, colour and direction let you gently lift shadows or create a more dramatic effect.

Light Depth tackles uneven lighting by letting you adjust the brightness and warmth of the foreground and background separately. It’s particularly helpful for a backlit photo where the subject is too dark but the sky is already bright.

For finer control, Dodge & Burn lets you brush light or darkness onto specific areas. You can change the brush’s size, softness and strength to brighten a face, deepen a shadow or draw attention to a detail without altering the rest of the photo.

You can also add film grain, a soft glow, or more dramatic lighting effects.

Color

Luminar’s color tools let you adjust saturation and vibrance, while HSL controls give you a more targeted approach. You could deepen a blue sky, for example, without making every other colour in the image more intense.

For a more distinctive look, Mood applies colour-grading styles using LUTs, with controls to adjust the result. 

These effects don’t have to dominate the photo. You can reduce their strength and combine them with other adjustments, whether you’re aiming for natural colours or a more cinematic finish.

Portraits and Skin

Portrait AI identifies faces and bodies automatically, then gives you controls to brighten eyes, reduce dark circles, make subtle changes to facial features and refine body proportions. You decide how much of each adjustment to apply.

Skin AI handles the finer details, including blemishes, shine and uneven skin texture. Its smoothing controls aim to preserve natural detail rather than leaving skin looking flat.

Restraint matters with both tools. Small adjustments can give a portrait a polished finish, while pushing several sliders too far can make the person look noticeably different from the original photo.

Photo Restoration

Old photos often need more than a simple boost to contrast or colour. Luminar’s Restoration tool uses AI to revive faded colours, colourise black-and-white images and repair visible damage such as scratches.

Rather than fixing each mark individually, you can apply the corrections automatically and review the result. It’s a useful starting point for bringing ageing family photos back to life, though heavily damaged areas may still need closer attention.

User Experience

I found Luminar to be very intuitive despite its wide range of features. The Catalog structure gives you an easy way to browse photos and folders, while its editing workspace keeps the tools close to the image. 

Version 1.28 brings Presets, Tools and Edits into one right-hand panel, so you can try a ready-made look, adjust it and revisit earlier changes without moving between separate panels.

The AI Assistant, introduced in version 1.26, offers another way to find your way around. Click the chat bubble at the bottom and describe what you want to achieve, such as improving the lighting. 

It analyses the photo and presents suggested edits with previews for you to choose from and fine-tune. You can also ask how to create a particular effect, and it will point you towards the relevant tools. It’s more of a guide than a fully hands-off editor at this stage. However, Skylum has announced plans to let it suggest and apply combinations of tools in the coming update.

For Mac users, Apple Photos integration is particularly useful. Luminar can work as an editing extension, allowing you to select a picture in Photos, open it in Luminar, make your adjustments and save the edited result back to Photos. That means you can keep using Apple Photos to organize your library while turning to Luminar when you need more specialized editing tools.

Luminar also works as a plugin for Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom. Beyond the Mac, its cross-device support connects any desktop and mobile workflows through Luminar Space, allowing you to continue working on synced photos and adjustments on another device.

Luminar Pricing

Skylum offers three perpetual Luminar licences, so you can pay once and keep using the software rather than committing to a subscription. All three include the Fall 2026 upgrade, a 30-day money-back guarantee, and 24/7 chat support. 

• Desktop Only ($129 one-time): MacOS or Windows, two computer licenses. Includes one year of access to AI tools such as GenErase, Restoration, and AI Assistant.
• All Platforms ($159): Adds Luminar Mobile, cross-device editing, Spaces web galleries, and Luminar Web when it launches this fall.
• Max ($199): Includes everything in All Platforms, plus one year of Luminar Prime, which provides access to new features and a large library of presets, LUTs, skies, overlays, and courses.

Final Thoughts on Luminar

What appeals to me most about Luminar is the choice it gives you. I can start with Enhance AI or a preset when a photo needs a quick lift, then move into masking, colour and lighting controls when I want a more considered result. The generative tools open up creative possibilities, although I’d still check their results closely, particularly around complicated backgrounds.

For beginners, Luminar’s intuitive interface and AI automation make photo editing less intimidating. Presets and one-click enhancements provide a starting point, while straightforward sliders let you experiment and learn what each adjustment does. 

More experienced users can use AI to speed up repetitive tasks such as masking, noise reduction and object removal without giving up control. They can refine the results manually, combine effects and decide exactly how far to take an edit.