Photo editing platform Luminar just got faster. On Thursday, April 12, Skylum launched Luminar 2018 Jupiter, a speed-focused upgrade for the company’s photo editor and RAW processor. The company boasts speed improvements of up to five times on Windows and up to 12 times on Mac and claims improved RAW conversion with the update as well.
Mac users will see the biggest speed improvements when using the Details Enhancer tool on large files, like the 12-times speed improvement on the tool when working with a 72 Mb file from the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV. Working with a similar file size, RAW develop speed sees a 9.8-times improvement. Filters like the golden hour filter, polarizer, and dehaze see a six- to seven-times boost. RAW imports are about 4.6 times faster. Speed will also vary based on hardware — Skylum used a MacBook with an Intel Core i7 processor, 1536 GB GPU to generate those numbers.
Luminar’s move over into the Windows space is a bit more recent (and with some features missing), but users on a Windows platform will also see a speed boost. Compared to the previous version, Jupiter is up to 2.4 times faster in RAW develop, with filters, details enhancer, LUT mapping and color adjustments in the HSL panel between three to five times faster.
Along with the speed boost, the editing software also sees an improved conversion on those RAW files. Skylum says that the conversion is more accurate at calculating exposure. Gradients are also cleaner, the company says. The update also sees fewer artifacts like halos and chromatic aberration, along with expanding support to new cameras.
Automatic lens corrections, like the enhanced RAW engine, are available on both Mac and PC.
The Windows version, which just launched last year, is also beginning to catch up with the older Mac version with a handful of features, including batch processing and remote sharing. Skylum also enhanced the clone and masking tools and expanded workflow options through plugins.
“Our loyal community of users continues to offer ideas for additional features that would benefit their respective workflows, and we continued to listen, learn, and improve,” Alex Tsepko, CEO of Skylum, said in a press release. “Our goal is to produce a fast, easy, and feature-rich imaging software that can offer both single-click solutions as well as custom functions for those [that] want absolute control.”
The Jupiter update is still part of Luminar 2018 — which means that current users of the 2018 version can upgrade for free. Owners of Luminar 2017 can upgrade for $49 and new users can download the software for $69.
Luminar launched less than two years ago and has since seen several changes. The company rebranded from Macphun when adding Windows compatibility last year. Luminar is also expected to gain file management features during 2018.
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