When I used a Windows PC, I used Adobe Lightroom on Adobe Creative Cloud to organize and edit my photos. Lightroom is a solid, professional-level photo-editing application. For professionals who get paid to shoot and edit photos for a living, the price of a Lightroom Creative Cloud subscription isn’t too bad and likely a good investment.
However, I’m more of a casual hobbyist photographer (even though I own a $3,000 Canon EOS 7D DSLR with ultrasonic lenses, plus I own an iPhone XS to replace a point and shoot camera), photographing landscapes as a relaxing hobby. Therefore, even the low subscription cost to Lightroom wouldn’t give me my investment worth, and Adobe is phasing out its non-subscription variant (Lightroom Classic). There may also be some professional photographers on here who simply don’t want to be locked into a subscription with Lightroom. This App Spotlight article will feature macOS Photos, Luminar (from Skylum), and Skylum Flex.
iPhoto, Aperture, and macOS Photos
In the past, Apple offered two photo-editing apps: iPhoto (free with every Mac) for consumers and Aperture (originally $500, then dropped to $200, then dropped to $80 when launching on the Mac App Store). I started out managing my photo library and editing photos with iPhoto on the Mac. It was a solid app for consumers to organize photos and make basic edits, although professionals certainly needed more. Aperture was quite a solid for professionals, and I’ve yet to find an all-in-one app that fully matches it (although Luminar and Luminar Flex are getting closer). It was still simple to manage photos, and it had a ton of professional power for editing photos that professionals could really take advantage of.
Apple discontinued both apps, replacing them with macOS Photos, which is essentially the macOS variant to iOS Photos. Photo libraries can be stored in iCloud and synced with an iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, and are even available on iCloud.com or a Windows PC (just the actual image files and folders).
At first, macOS Photos was pretty bare-bones at launch and paled in features to both iPhoto and Aperture. macOS Photos has improved over the years, and for managing photos, it does a decent job. Syncing with iCloud between devices is seamless, and it is nice knowing my photo library is available across all my devices, and when shooting pictures with my iPhone, having them appear everywhere is also great. I can easily organize photos into albums and smart albums, and macOS Photos offers other interesting ways to organize photos by people, places, favorites, and memories. Sharing photos with other iCloud users is also simple.
Editing tools for photos have improved in recent editions of macOS Photos, to the point where editing tools are generally improved over what iPhoto offered. However, macOS Photos still doesn’t offer the power that Aperture offered, and it isn’t on par with the power of Lightroom.
There is a feature in macOS Photos that does allow it to fully expand its power: photo extensions. Extensions allow third-party apps (I’ll feature two this week and two more next week) to expand the editing functionality inside macOS Photos. I’ve recently tried it with a handful of popular photo editing apps, and it works well. I am able to tap into the power some of these excellent third-party apps, all while continuing to work inside of macOS Photos. While not the same out-of-the-box experience I had in Aperture, it does allow for more power and flexibility when editing photos over what’s included with macOS Photos to help alleviate some of my sadness for missing Aperture.
Luminar
A powerful and professional-level photo editor is Luminar (currently at version 3). Luminar 3 currently costs $69 (they gave me 30% off my order) and runs on Mac or Windows. The fee is one-time (although there will likely be occasional upgrade fees), but no need for a continual subscription. While available on the Mac App Store, I purchased direct from Skylum. Luminar has an easy-to-use interface, yet there is plenty of power under-the-hood for professional photographers and the “prosumer hobbyists” (such as myself) needing more photo editing powers than macOS Photos. Luminar offers its own photo library, and photos can be added from internal storage, external storage, and even synced cloud storage. Browsing the photo library is simple, and one can rate photos and organize photos into albums.
Editing photos is a breeze, but there is far more power in Luminar than macOS Photos, putting it more in line with Lightroom or Aperture, but with a simpler interface. Editing is done through various “workspaces” which groups various editing tools (called filters) together for common tasks (quick and easy, professional-level, landscapes, etc.), and these various workspaces are intuitive. They keep a logical collection of editing filters around without being overwhelming. One can easily bring up a filters panel and add any of Luminar’s vast array of filters to the sidebar.
Luminar offers some excellent filters based on AI for enhancing photos overall, as well as enhancing skies, which are beneficial to those new at using professional photo editors or who need to quickly touch up images. Luminar also offers a series of enhancers (called “looks) that also make quickly touching up images a breeze, and new looks can easily be added. Comparing the photo before and after editing is a breeze as well, and in addition to the AI filters, there are plenty more professional-level filters available for just about any photo editing need. Luminar also makes it a breeze to copy/paste adjustments and even “sync” adjustment layer changes with similar images.
One feature I like about Luminar that makes it even superior to Lightroom and Aperture is the ability to add layers of filters, which gets Luminar one step closer to Photoshop without all the complexity of Photoshop. This allows a whole new level of photo editing while still keeping the editing workflow process streamlined and not overly complicated.
Luminar is mainly a standalone application, although there is an extension for macOS Photos that allows editing photos with Luminar’s tools directly inside macOS Photos. However, Luminar offers another great application for those who want to take the power of Luminar in other applications.
Luminar Flex
Luminar Flex offers the editing power of Luminar in a more flexible application that is more geared toward opening and editing photos instead of managing its own photo library. It also includes a series of plugins to bring the power of Luminar to other applications such as macOS Photos, Photoshop, and even Lightroom Classic and Aperture. Skylum offered me a free license to Luminar Flex when I purchased Luminar 3.
I tested Luminar Flex with macOS Photos, and it worked flawlessly and helped me recover from my heavily missing Aperture. I could bring the power of professional-level photo editing with a super easy-to-use interface, all seamlessly integrated into my macOS Photos library. I finally felt the power of using photos extensions with macOS Photos, and Luminar Flex offered all of the solid tools and filters I needed to enhance images with.
Support
For macOS Photos, support is handled by Apple, and Apple Stores even offer photography sessions to learn how to get more out of macOS Photos. For Luminar and Luminar Flex, support is handled by Skylum, which offers excellent written and video documentation, and their email and social media support is top-notch. They care about their customers and about photographers.
Bottom Line
While I sorely miss that Apple allowed a solid photo editor such as Aperture to ride off into the sunset, and while Lightroom is a solid, professional-level tool, some professional photographers as well as “prosumer hobbyists” (such as myself) simply don’t want to be stuck with another subscription and the complexity that comes with Adobe. While macOS Photos offers an excellent way to organize photos and sync them across devices over iCloud, and it offers better photo editing tools than iPhoto, professionals need more than macOS Photos alone. Luminar 3 is an excellent alternative to Lightroom offering the ability to easily organize photos, work with powerful and professional-level filters and tools, plus the addition of AI filters, “looks”, and layers gives it an edge over Lightroom, all in a simpler interface and without being shackled to a subscription.
Luminar Flex brings the power of Luminar’s editing filters in an application that works great for quickly editing photos, as well as extending the power of other applications such as macOS Photos. Its seamless integration with macOS Photos allows me to bring the power of professional-level photo editing in-line with my existing photo library. Prosumer hobbyists, as well as professionals looking for an option over a Lightroom subscription, should give Luminar and Luminar Flex a serious look. This is the first time in a long while when I’ve found a set of tools that can give me more power and performance than what I’ve had out-of-the-box with macOS Photos in a simpler interface and up-front purchase over subscription license than I had with Lightroom. I’m excited to see what’s next on Luminar’s roadmap, and Luminar will remain an essential part of my photo editing toolbox.
Nathan Parker