#raw editor

November 2016 is the month of the RAW photo processor. ON1 is set to release ON1 Photo RAW on Nov 23rd. Out of nowhere, Macphun dropped Luminar on the scene and that’s coming Nov 17th. Earlier this fall Photos in macOS Sierra saw some nice improvements. Of course, we continue to have Lightroom and Capture One to choose from.

So you may ask yourself… what RAW processor should I choose?

Why This Article?

My goal with this article is to provide information. I'd like to help you answer the question "Which RAW processor is best for me?" Consider it a starting point to help guide your choice of RAW photo processor. Maybe you’re new to photography and need a place to start. Maybe you’re considering a change from your current software. Or maybe you’re happy where you are and this will be nothing more than an interesting read. :-)

I list a set of features I think many photographers find important. It’s not exhaustive. Features are unleveled as well. Let’s use retouching tools as an example. If a package has retouching tools, the box gets checked. I don’t dive into the types and modes of retouching tools or which one set is “better”. 

The truth is, you can make great photos with any of these RAW processors. I’ve worked with all of these extensively except Capture One. I’ve used Capture One a little. However, I know enough photographers that use Capture One and they make beautiful photos with it.

Summary & Scott's Recommendations

Like all things in photography, your choice depends on your particular needs. The enthusiast’s needs are different than the solo professional’s needs, which are different than a photo house with a team of photographers. Knowing your needs is a big step in choosing the best software package to satisfy those needs. There’s the human factor, too. You may find one piece of software more intuitive than another. Some workflows will resonate with you more than others. We’re all unique.

Keeping these factors in mind, here’s how I see these RAW photo processors stack up:

macOS Photos: If you need good processing, create cards & photo books and are OK with light asset management, check out Photos. Heck...if you're a Mac user, you’ve got it for free, so you may as well try it out. There are a lot of extensions available for Photos to take the editing tools further, too. Photos is also great for making greeting cards and book. However, it’s weaker on asset management. Asset management is respectable but may fall short of your needs. Free, Mac only.

Luminar: If all you want is a RAW processor and strong photo editor, check out Luminar. It’s user interface is slick and has a lot of advanced features. It’s budget friendly, too. It is not an asset manager. One catch… non-destructive edits make large photo files, so the cash you save on the software might be spent on hard drives. $69, Mac only. Sorry Windows users.

ON1 Photo RAW: If you need good asset management and strong post processing features, check out Photo RAW. Photo RAW hits a sweet spot for many photo enthusiasts. If you need some asset management and solid processing tools, look at Photo RAW. The fastest of the bunch, ON1 Photo RAW is lightning quick. It’s Develop and Effects modules are top notch, as are its masking tools. The Browse module has good amount of asset management features, too. $99,  Mac and Windows.

Lightroom CC: If top notch asset management is equally important to you as photo processing, look at Lightroom. Lightroom is full featured and lacks very little. There will be features you don’t use (and that’s OK). There is a learning curve for importing photos. The reward is excellent asset management. Lightroom’s main issue is that it’s slow. It’s also a subscription model, which some folks don’t like.  ~$120/year, Mac and Windows.

Capture One Pro: If you need solid asset management and tip-tip photo processing, check out Capture One Pro. Capture One is also feature rich, both for processing photos and managing your assets. The UI is clean and there are no modules - all tools are available at all times (former Aperture users will like this). Like any powerful software, it comes with a learning curve. It is the most costly of the bunch. Sony shooters get a break with a well-featured free version.  $299, Mac and Windows.

Feature Comparison

Like I noted above, this is not an exhaustive list. Although, I think it gives you a solid starting point for bigger ticket features and help you home in on the right choice for you. If there's an asterisk next to a checkmark, there's a caveat or gotcha with that feature. Read the notes for details.

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Photos Luminar Photo RAW Lightroom Capture One Price Free $69 $99 $120/yr $299 Retouch Tools ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Noise Reduction ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Filters & Presets ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Non-Destructive Editing ✓ ✓ * ✓ * ✓ ✓ Local Adjustments ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Lens Corrections ✓ * ✓ ✓ Photo Browser ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Library/Catalog Export & Merge ✓ ✓ ✓ Ratings, Flags & Color Labels ✓ * ✓ ✓ ✓ * Keywords ✓ * ✓ * ✓ ✓ GPS Tagging ✓ ✓ * ✓ ✓ Collections & Albums ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ * Layers & Masking ✓ ✓ ✓ * Virtual Copies/Variants ✓ ✓ ✓ Print Preparation * ✓ ✓ Books & Slideshows ✓ ✓

Notes & Caveats

Non-Destructive Editing: Luminar saves non-destructive edits in a proprietary file format that can be quite large (orders of magnitude larger than the RAW file). It is not saving editing instructions in a database or sidecar file. Photo RAW's non-destructive edits do not extend to the Layers module.

Lens Corrections: Photo RAW has tools for manual corrections only (no automated camera profile application).

Ratings, Flags & Color Labels: Photos does not have star ratings, only a favorites tag. Photos and Capture One do not support flags.

Keywords: Photos and Photo RAW do not support keyword hierarchies (groups)

GPS Tagging: Photo RAW will display GPS coordinates if tagged on a photo. It does not have a facility to add or change the location of a photo. Capture One only supports GPS tagging with an iOS app and on a limited set of Phase One digital backs. For the majority of photographers, this means GPS tagging doesn't exist within Capture One.

Layers & Masking: Capture One offers adjustment layers only.

Print Preparation: For this feature, I am referring to photography specifics like soft proofing and output sharpening. Stuff beyond the standard "Print" dialogs for any print job.

About two weeks ago, Macphun announced Luminar out of nowhere. It's an all new non-destructive photo editor for Mac users. My friends at Macphun let me work with a pre-release. There's a lot of goodness in Luminar. I'll get to that in a minute.

Pre-orders for Luminar start today. I gotta say the deal they are offer is pretty great. Here's the particulars:

Luminar Pre-Order Offer

Pricing

New Customer Pre-Order Price: $59, includes Pre-Order Bonuses!*

Current Users of any Macphun Software, including Aurora HDR Price: $49, includes Pre-Order Bonuses*

*Pre-Order Bonuses items will be revealed Nov 2nd.

 Offer available:

November 2 - November 17, 2016

Luminar Key Features

Adaptive User Interface

Multiple Modes: From basic to advanced

One-click switch between modes

Change modes anytime

All-in-one photo editing tool set

Includes essential editing tools for different photography styles

Live editing, live processing, live previews

Non-destructive editing

Works as a standalone app or plug-in

RAW converter & processor

History panel

For a full list of Luminar features visit https://macphun.com/luminar

Scott's First Look At Luminar by Macphun

The Luminar User Interface

Now... let's get into my first look at Luminar. I used it as a standalone product during my exploring. It's works as a plug-in to the usual suspects - Lightroom, Photoshop, macOS Photos and even Aperture (but Aperture users really need to migrate). The user interface is pretty slick. It's very clean. If you've used any Macphun products before, it will feel familiar. There are a few controls across the top of the screen for opening and exporting images, zooming, viewing modes and a few other controls. Along the right edge are various editing tools from crop & noise reduction to retouching and masking.

The "adaptive" part of Luminar's UI is the controls in the upper right. I think of the editing modes as a match to a photographer's experience with post processing:

Beginner: The "Preset Panel" mode gives you a preset driven experience. If you are new to post processing, this is a great way to start. It's like Instagram... but hopped up on performance enhancing substances! There are loads of presets bundled in Luminar. Select a preset and that look is applied to your image. The overall strength of the preset is controlled with a slider in the preset preview. Simple and intuitive.

Intermediate: The "Side Panel" mode opens up... wait for it... a side panel! In the side panel you can adjust any slider to your liking. You can add and remove other filters to craft your unique look. The masking tools can be applied to specific filters. Select a masking tool, click a filter and start masking. Luminar also has the concept of a filter "Workspace". Is there a set of filters you use regularly on your photos? Create a workspace with just those filters. Workspaces are different than presets. A preset applies a set of pre-adjusted filters to your photo. A workspace presents a set of commonly used filters with no adjustments applied. If you shoot in several genres of photography, you can have workspaces for Seascapes, Urban, Family Snapshots, and so on.

Advanced: When the "Side Panel" is open, there are two additional control along the top of the Luminar UI. One displays a histogram and the other... Layers! Yeah, this thing has layers. Layers can be masked with brushes, gradients and luminosity masks. The luminosity masks aren't as full featured as Aurora HDR, but they are in there. You can add adjustment layers or other image layers. The latter opens up creative possibilities like exposure merging and texture blending. Advanced users will also expect layers to have blending modes. Luminar delivers on that, too.

It's pretty easy to see what Macphun has done with their UI. As your post processing skills improve, Luminar grows with you. It can be a simple, very approachable one-click utility for the beginner and scale up to a full-on multi-layered powerhouse of an editor.

It's worth noting the Eraser tool as well. It works just fine, similar in nature to Snapheal and the other erasers in other software from Macphun. This part of the UI I found to be a little awkward. While the erase tool is active, you paint over things you want to remove. Then, you click Erase to have your brush strokes take effect. The eraser is still active and you can repeat the process. Only until you click the green check are the erases committed (and they are committed to a new layer, regardless of what mode you're working in).

On the one hand, this is useful because you can erase objects in small batches and check your work along the way. On the other, clicking Clear will remove all of your brush strokes, not just the last set. The workaround is judicious use of Edit > Undo in the menus. I've asked Macphun to add an "Undo" button into the Eraser panel to make this more intuitive.

Other features you expect are the ability to create your own presets, load presets from other photographers. The same appears to extend to workspaces as well, although I didn't experiment with that.

A Typical Luminar Workflow

I think a typical workflow with Luminar flows in line with the adaptive user modes. You load a photo into Luminar and choose a preset to apply a base look. Next, open up the side panel and adjust the sliders and add or remove filters to fine tune the look to your taste. You might do some masking for individual filters, too. For finishing touches, you can turn to layers for localized adjustments or other creative blending.

Here are the processing steps I did for this photo:

Once I have an image I'm pleased with, I used the Export icon in the upper left to save a JPG. The export dialog is basic, but has the key features including resizing and choosing color spaces for the exported images. Photos can also be saved in a proprietary Luminar format (an "lmnr" file). This format preserves all of your filters, settings and masks. You can open Luminar files at a later time and make changes to your edits.

What's Missing In Luminar?

Not a whole lot. The photo editing tools are comprehensive. There are a few things that intermediate and advanced users will notice are lacking in Luminar:

Library or Browse View: Luminar is a photo-by-photo editor. Yes, you can have multiple photos open at any given time. However, the browsing and finding photo experience is the Mac Finder through File > Open.

Batch Processing: Luminar does not have batch processing (that I've found). You edit

Masking Brush Edge Detection: The masking brush does not have edge detection. This really needs to be there for advanced users.

Corrective Filters: Luminar is a RAW converter and processor. However, there are no filters that address lens distortion or chromatic aberration. At a minimum, filters that offer manual controls for these items. Want extra points, Macphun? Auto-detect the camera and lens and provide a one-click correction filter.

Better Non-Destructive Support: I mentioned the "lmnr" file format as the method to save your changes in a non-destructive way. It works, but it's clunky. Files saved in this way are larger than the original RAW file. Sometimes, orders of magnitude larger. My ~40MB RAW files from a Sony A7R bloat to several hundred MB in Luminar's proprietary format. Add a few layers? I have files approaching 2GB in size. And these sit side-by-side with my RAW files. This is a far cry from programs like Lightroom, Aperture, Capture One and the forthcoming ON1 Photo RAW that save editing instructions instead of full pixel-by-pixel layers. Instructions that are replayed against the RAW file later is the way to go. Hey... Luminar is a 1.0 product... I'll give it a little time.

Luminar Is Not An Asset Manager

"Luminar is a photo editor. It is not an asset manager."

When Luminar first announced, several articles popped up pitting Luminar against Lightroom (and, by proxy, ON1 Photo RAW and Capture One). That may be true for photo processing, but that's where the comparison ends in my opinion. Lightroom, ON1 Photo and Capture One help you manage your photo assets in addition to develop images.

Luminar is a photo editor. It is not an asset manager. Are you happy organizing your photos in folders, know where to find your images and need a kick butt photo processor? Take a serious look at Luminar.  If you need star ratings, flags, keywords, GPS tagging, albums, collections or image search capabilities, Luminar is not the right tool for that job. You'll need another tool to manage your assets.

Will I Be Using Luminar?

My workflow still squarely revolves around Lightroom. (I'll have more about that topic in a post later this month.) Luminar does have a place in my workflow and style of editing. For example, I see using Luminar as a one-click treatment for snapshot photos. It has many looks and filters that cannot be achieved in Lightroom alone. Also, Luminar could be a finishing tool, similar to how I use Aurora HDR (another topic I'll blog about later this month).

Luminar is another tool in my toolkit. And at $49 during the pre-order sale, it's an affordable tool. Why wouldn't I want that? 

Two different styles of graffiti that I found on my walk.

Unicorn Antiques - Part 2

For my project Digital Seepage last trimester, I did a photo shoot in an antiques shop called Unicorn Antiques.  I took a lot of photos of wonderful things and had many shots that were not used in the Digital Seepage project.  I therefore decided to make another photo set featuring the best of these photographs.

All images underwent the same basic editing process - colours boosted and crops made in Adobe RAW editor, then each image was taken into photoshop where I applied vignetting.  

Unicorn Antiques

For my project Digital Seepage last trimester, I did a photo shoot in an antiques shop called Unicorn Antiques.  I took a lot of photos of wonderful things and had many shots that were not used in the Digital Seepage project.  I therefore decided to make another photo set featuring the best of these photographs.

All images underwent the same basic editing process - colours boosted and crops made in Adobe RAW editor, then each image was taken into photoshop where I applied vignetting. 

Rusted, busted princess.

Photo of a rusty tiara entangled in some tree branches.  Originally shot for Fantasic Fables, but never used.

Skull Photoset - Part 2

These are the rest of the photos that I took of the skull.  I was originally attempting to shoot a 360 of the skull, with a macro lens - without tripod. My tripod does not reverse, so I popped some plastic bags and a small pillow down on the grass and hoped for the best.  I am pretty happy with the results.

Skull Photoset - Part 1

These are some photos that I took of a goat's skull I own.  These were originally intended for use in Fantastic Fables, but were never used.