The move to Windows was a long time coming, according to Macphun Vice President Kevin La Rue. “A PC roadmap has been in our strategy for a long time,” he confirmed with Digital Trends. “Our goal is to offer as many creatives as possible a simple, powerful, and fun way of photo-editing, no matter what platform they use.”
This is good news for Windows users who shoot high dynamic range (HDR) photos or who have been searching for a simpler, less expensive alternative to Adobe Photoshop for image retouching. Aurora HDR was developed with input from renowned landscape photographer Trey Ratcliff, with the intent of making HDR processing easy and flexible. Digital Trends had the opportunity to test out the program in December 2016 and found it to be both approachable and powerful.
We also spent some time with a beta version of Luminar in November 2016, which we called a “breath of fresh air” in the world of photo editing. That application has also received significant updates since our hands-on test.
Windows users may not have heard of Macphun yet, but the company’s apps have won numerous awards, including Apple’s “Editor’s Choice” recognition in the Mac App store for five years running. Luminar also took home the coveted 2017 Technical Image Press Association (TIPA) award for Best Imaging Software.
While those eager to test drive Luminar and Aurora HDR on Windows will get their chance with the beta in July, the full versions won’t be released until this fall, alongside new versions of the MacOS counterparts. Going forward, both versions will be developed simultaneously. We have new versions of these products already in the pipeline for the Fall of 2017 that will launch simultaneously on Mac and Windows, La Rue said.
“Our plan is to be a cross-platform software company going forward and we are starting with Luminar and Aurora HDR,” La Rue said. For now, the back catalog of Macphun’s other apps will remain MacOS-only.
Update August 16, 2017: Macphun has released details on the full version of Aurora HDR 2018 in the rather silly video below with Trey Ratcliff. As promised, the application will be released simultaneously for both macOS and Windows this September. As Ratcliff puts it, “Aurora HDR is now the best-in-class software for all users, for all computers — except for those weird Linux people.” Aurora HDR 2018 brings many new features, a completely new user interface, and boasts impressive speed improvements.
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