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Luminar gets DAM in December 2018
- Thread starter nicholasg
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Freaking finally I'd say...back in summer they said "in few weeks"
Thx God for Aperture in the meantime
Thx God for Aperture in the meantime
Still working with Aperture as well. I bought Luminar with the DAM Coming Soon proclamation while back.
From 2017 to the last month of 2018...it is about time.
I'd rather have it work right than have it early. And Aperture still works with Mohave, so hopefully they will be able to manage before “High Mohave” is released. 
I do like the improvements High Sierra brought to Photos, though still using Aperture for more control.
I purchased Luminar but really like what I see with On1 RAW 2019. What they are showing looks to be a great feature set and something I 'wish' Luminar would have done with theirs ...and show off major features.
I purchased Luminar but really like what I see with On1 RAW 2019. What they are showing looks to be a great feature set and something I 'wish' Luminar would have done with theirs ...and show off major features.
Sorry to go off topic, but can you share what improvements that were made to Photos? My Mac is in for a new keyboard, so I haven't been able to look. General internet publishers seem to ignore reporting on the Photos app...
They need a new PR group. Aside from "libraries" and the ability to synch edits, what are the "other killer features" coming? esp in regard to DAM-like features? scrolling quickly through a browser of images isn't exactly a great promo of a DAM. I suppose even this minimal feature set will be welcome, but they are still way behind some of their competitors.
I reckon they are aiming at people who don't like Lightroom for whatever reason (in my case solely UI-related, but others don't like paying for software as a subscription). My needs would be well-served by a minimalistic pro-level DAM with good editing capabilities. And that is what Luminar seems to be aiming for. I paid for Luminar twice just to help fund their DAM development. I'm not interested in stand-alone photo editors.
I think i was on El Capitan prior to just upgrading to High Sierra...High Sierra added about double the editing options. nothing killer but more than I was used to with the earlier photos. I think Mojave didn't add much
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so far...not much has been said...other than SOON.
I am liking the On1 RAW 2019 announcement much better and may end up switching to that from Aperture.
In 2016 MacPhum (now Skylum) promised the DAM in 2017. Then they did the name change and tried to have both Mac and Windows versions of Luminar. To say the least, they did a major face plant. Windows users have put lots of bad comments on the original Skylum FB page and now on their community website. Now in the latest promise from Skylum the DAM has slide all the way to the end of 2018....and there are hints that that first DAM release will only be the basics.
IMHO, Skylum management has a long wait to go with product quality, believable release schedules, and overall integrity to regain confidence lost since the original Macphun days.
IMHO, Skylum management has a long wait to go with product quality, believable release schedules, and overall integrity to regain confidence lost since the original Macphun days.
Yeah, I think they were better off when they emphasized compatibility with Lr and other products. Let consumers use Macphun/Skylum's stuff like the originals, as plugins for Lr or extensions in Photos, and let those products do the DAM stuff. But I think marketing saw an opportunity with a niche of users who didn't want either Photos or Lr or Capture One. Good luck to 'em but I stopped paying for this.
I know plenty of people, myself included, who are looking forward to Macphun's DAM precisely because they do not want to use Lightroom or Capture One.
I've been pretty happy with the results I get when I post-process my images in Luminar 2018.... We'll see what happens with this upcoming DAM thing....
May I ask what the issue with Capture One is?
oh wait...seems I was looking at on1 and confused the two
When I last tried On1, which must be about a year-and-a-half ago, I didn't like the way files were handled, because I'd still have to manage catalog items and their physical location separately.
And Lightroom, well, I just hate being boxed into different modes and frankly, don't care for the UI. I have not yet tried the New Lightroom, though, which will eventually supersede Lightroom Classic, though.
9to5Mac reports new Luminar release in November with AI Sky Enhancer. Skylum has not released any info about it that I can find.
https://9to5mac.com/2018/10/12/luminar-mac-ai-sky-enhancer-update/
https://9to5mac.com/2018/10/12/luminar-mac-ai-sky-enhancer-update/
It’s on their blog...
https://skylum.com/blog/new-unique-feature-in-luminar-a-surprise-update-and-more
https://skylum.com/blog/new-unique-feature-in-luminar-a-surprise-update-and-more
No doubt Skylum has missed their date more than once. At this point, I will believe it when I download it. They've also said it would be a free update for me, so nothing more there.
Apple Photos has improved a bit with curves and selective color being big winners. I love how it syncs across devices. Searching by date or location could be better. I almost think I need to go crazy with smart albums.
But on1 2019 and Skylum are both promising improvements in a matter of weeks.
Capture one looks nice except for that healing system. Well, that and it is priced at 3x the others.
Apple Photos has improved a bit with curves and selective color being big winners. I love how it syncs across devices. Searching by date or location could be better. I almost think I need to go crazy with smart albums.
But on1 2019 and Skylum are both promising improvements in a matter of weeks.
Capture one looks nice except for that healing system. Well, that and it is priced at 3x the others.
Prepare to be disappointed. Pretty sure there will be NO Aperture library import, according to their tech folks. Lightroom folks, prepare to be disappointed as well... I think they dumped your DAM dreams as well.
I hung in for awhile, paid for all the updates, but a lot of the promises seem to be vaporware. I look forward to being proven wrong, but I would recommend to set your sites lower. Also, pretty sure that round-tripping was killed off too (make edits from DAM with external editor, save, new file shows up in archive). This is a huge deal, and a work-flow killer for anyone who cleans more than 10 images. According to Apple, this is something the plug-in folks are not building in anymore for some reason. DXO is also doing the same with their "revival" of the NIK suite. Previously from within Aperture, if you edited with NIK and saved you got a flattened jpeg version (unlike launching NIK from within Pshop, where you got the layered tiff). So there was some sort of trade-off. The new "workflow" requires you to export the finished image somewhere, and then manually reimport it into your DAM archive.
On the brighter side I upgraded my 2tb Aperture library to High Sierra and it still works fine. Apple told me it still works in Mohave (not trying that one yet). You can also still download the legacy version of the NIK suite on DXO's website... which still supports round-tripping.
Both splinter groups from NIK, DXO & Skylum, have proved to be a bit disappointing. Hoping they get their acts together. I was holding off for a DAM solution for quite awhile, but in the end just migrated my Aperture file to High Sierra (and also to PhotosX). Painless, and just works fine.
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Spoke for an hour with an Apple tech about Aperture. He told me it works fine in Aperture. For all the talk of being unsupported, they are still making some efforts to keep it somewhat alive. Someday though, that will end. I am hoping that they pump up Photos enough to make the issue mute. The fact that you can open up the same library in either Aperture/Photos shows that they are using some care. They are aware there are a few holdouts who refuse or dislike Lightroom.I'd rather have it work right than have it early. And Aperture still works with Mohave, so hopefully they will be able to manage before “High Mohave” is released.
Random tip for those who have immense Aperture libraries. If copying or backing up your archive to another drive takes literally a week (and then freezes up your computer), use CarbonCopy Cloner. What took 5-8 days in a finder copy, takes only 1 to 1-1/2 days with no issues. Plus corrupted images are flagged, and you can kill or replace them with clean originals. Incremental backups take 10 mins, vs a day. Worth every penny!
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Roundtripping. Without this, the app is almost worthless.
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More robust support for external editors. There a lot of us who do the heavy listing image-wise with plug-ins. I only use the editing features if I am doing a "passable" quickie job, or batching a lot of images. Aperture/Photos is primarily an archiving/sorting program. Not sure if Photos has the Smart Albums feature yet, but if not, it needs it. That lets you assign a keyword and it automatically gets added to a keyword enabled album.
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Skylum actually recommended re-importing all images to their eventual DAM. If you were starting out today, maybe this is workable. Otherwise, this is not a serious recommendation.
Apple Photos has Smart Albums, and I believe they have been there since the beginning.
You can still use the external editors app to get round tripping to Photos in anything that doesn't currently support it. You just have to be satisfied with Apple Photos as a DAM. I continue to like the various editors, including Luminar, on!, and so on. It is either the managing of images or getting to the editor once I find the images in the manager. For something that sure doesn't seem like rocket science, a lot of people keep missing the point.