jm76237

Not too familiar with Luminar. Been looking at Topaz. Can anyone comment on the two?

Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

What do you want to achieve? What do you want to use them for? Edit and enhance camera JPEGs? Process and edit raw files? Manage a collection of images?

Joe

jm76237

Process and edit raw files

old man 88 Loc: Palmview, TX when not on road

I purchased the whole package of Topaz AI.
I use the Denoise AI and Sharpen AI most.
They both doing wonderful job of remove the noise and sharpen the picture.
Topaz Mask AI does a great job or removing a background.
I know nothing about Luminar.

Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

Topaz Labs is one of the only two software programs I'm aware of that will not save your work when you open and process a raw file. It will save an output image but you will not be able to return to the processing you did with the raw file and make any modifications. You have to start from scratch. It will open a raw file but it lacks numerous features that are expected from raw file converters like lens distortion profiles and camera input profiles. For processing raw files I would rate it as unusable.

Luminar was recently released in version 4. It offers much more than Topaz Labs for raw file processing but compared with competitive software it contains some glaring inadequacies. The Windows version remains unstable and too many people report it crashing. Using it feels like your testing a beta and until they get it working it's buggy as hell. It's focused on the "effects" user who enjoys editing their photos by applying canned effects. As an actual image editor it's very frustrating. For example Luminar offers adjustment layers with gradient masks but the gradients are re-editable -- you can't go back and tweak their positioning -- the word stupid is coming to mind.

I'd consider other options. What camera are you using?

Joe

jm76237

Thanks Joe. I have a Nikon D750

Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

That's a nice camera -- most people are happy with Lightroom for handling NEF files. Do you have any other raw processing software? What have you been doing?

Joe

jm76237

I use LR now. Just saw some video clips of The others and they looked nice for certain things like sky replacement

Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

OK -- then keep your NEF files in LR and if you want some canned effects like sky replacement use an exported RGB file from LR and hand that off to Topaz or whatever. Just don't start with your NEF files in those programs.

Joe

pecohen Loc: Central Maine

Which pretty much describes my own processing flow. I use LR initially, first to sort out images that need some special treatment such as HDR or panorama processing, cropping, tone and color corrections and the like. Still in LR, I pick out the best of the images to export as TIFF files for further processing, usually in Topaz Studio. The finished images I export as JPG files. Generally I delete the very large TIFF files after a month or so; I used to keep them but found I rarely used them.

ronichas Loc: Long Island

I have both programs. I am not sure what you are referring to with Topaz not being able to save a raw file. I open Topaz Studio from photoshop, after creating a second layer. When I finish in Topaz, it goes back to photoshop. I can then make any additional adjustments or just delete the Topaz layer. This is not the best raw converter, so it doesn't do things that Adobe camera raw does.

Your comments about Luminar 4 are not correct either. I use a windows computer, have not had the issues you comment about. I love the sky replacement feature and the AI features are great.

I use both these programs, after I do adjustments in Adobe Camera raw.

My suggestion is to download a trial and see what you like best about each program.

mborn Loc: Massachusetts

Good suggestion. A trial is free only cost is your time trying it out. Only do one at a time

gainesn Loc: Chickamauga, GA

Topaz studio 2 allows you to save files as projects like ps files. It retains the layers and adjustments.

yssirk123 Loc: New Jersey

I have both Topaz and Luminar, and have not experienced any issues with the present releases of either piece of software - they are both stable and run flawlessly on my Windows machine. If I had to choose just one, I would pick Luminar; however I really like several of the Topaz filters especially AI Sharpen and AI Denoise.

coralstengel

I always begin in LR. If I want special effects I will take it into Luminar 4. I have had no issues with it. I enjoy the sky replacement feature, just don't over do it.