In this tutorial, I’ll show you just how powerful the tools inside Luminar 4 are for portrait editing. So if you want to give your digital workflow a turbo boost, hang on to your hat and let’s get started!
But you may already know what Luminar can do for a single portrait. Let’s see how it performs with group shots.
Luminar 4 compared to Lightroom for portrait editing
I use Lightroom as my primary photo organizational tool and editor. But I’m also a big fan of Luminar 4 and what it can do for my images. In fact, I like it so much that I became an ambassador for Skylum.
I often do my basic editing in Lightroom and then take the image over to Luminar 4 to punch it up and add some style. But in this video, I’m going to show you how you can do your entire portrait workflow inside Luminar faster and better than Lightroom!
Here are a few quick before and after image examples. Scroll down to watch the video and see how I did this in Luminar and saved it as a Look (Preset) to easily apply to other images with ONE CLICK!
Notice the shine on her face in the before image (above left) compared to the after image on the right. That was all done with the new Shine Removal slider in the Portrait panel in Luminar 4. No cloning, healing, masking or brushing. Just the slider!
Check out how to do that by watching the video now.
Can you now see what kind of powerful tools are built inside Luminar 4?
In a previous tutorial that I mention in the video above, I talk about how I can do portrait editing in 10-15 minutes using Lightroom. You can watch that one here to see the comparison:
Portrait Retouching Using Lightroom in 10 Minutes or Less
Before and After
Here are a couple more before and after examples.
Note: Skylum is about to release their newest image editing software Luminar Neo, with a release date of early 2022, possibly even March. Read my review of Luminar Neo here, and keep up to date with all the details. I’m also developing a Luminar Neo course to get new users up to speed as soon as possible. Is Luminar AI dead? Do you need both Luminar AI and the new Luminar Neo? Is it a replacement for Photoshop? Watch my initial run-through of the latest “technical build” and my thoughts on who Luminar Neo is FOR and who it’s NOT for.
Are you convinced yet?
I don’t shoot weddings or commissioned portrait work anymore – but if I did, I can tell you that I’d be using Luminar 4 to do it, for sure!
What would normally take me about 3 hours or so to edit a portrait session, I’ll estimate that I could easily cut that in half using the AI tools available in Luminar.
Add to that the ability to save all the settings in a Preset (called Looks) and apply it with one click. AND the fact that all of this is non-destructive editing and you can tweak any of the adjustments at any time, or save them as a new Look.
Put Luminar through the paces. See what it can do for your workflow, and let me know in the comments below what you think. Show me your images!
Cheers,
