joer Loc: Colorado/Illinois

Luminar 4 was not out very long when it was replaced by Luminar AI...no upgrade path. To get the new features you had to purchase the program again...and the old catalog is not compatible.

Now Luminar Neo is about to be released...same story.

DWU2 Loc: Phoenix Arizona area

Users should feel disrespected.

ImageCreator Loc: Northern California

I use Luminar 4 but it won't be upgraded. All their other software I avoid like a plague. My opinion is that they add a few new feature to an old product change the name and then charge you another high fee.

djlouden Loc: Ocala, Florida

I had high hopes for Luminar early on but those hopes were soon dashed by poor performance and crashes. After the release of Ver. 4 I abandoned any idea of using the product on a regular basis. Can't remember the last time I used the software for anything other than a quick glance.

Happy shooting

sodapop Loc: Bel Air, MD

Topaz AI. Many upgrades not extra charge. One purchase

goldstar46 Loc: Tampa, Fl

You're absolutely correct sir.

I was one of the original owners of luminar 4 and got sucked into the sales game program last year to buy Luminar AI... upon the inaugural release, I did my install played with it for 2 weeks under Windows 10 with a very fast, highly integrated, gaming machine which was very clean and never, ever got it to work.

The menu system would not work, and at that time Canon RAW3 files could not be worked and we're actually locked to the point to where you couldn't edit whatsoever.

All Tech Support communication to this company has to be done by email. It always takes a minimum of 72 hours for a response, sometimes longer and you never knew if the response was coming from the United States or somewhere

As a retired member of law enforcement, I began my intensive investigation and found out that this company is located in the European Union. It's total count for employees was under 150 individuals and that included all members including comp ranking CEOs down to there evangelist who Hawk the program.

In tech support, you had absolutely no guarantee that the first person who answered your question would be the same person who got the second email for a follow-up. There was no continuity and no uniform structure to their email or their service program other than- suggestions, suggestions, suggestions, suggestions. You were never ever allowed to get to a level 2 or a level 3 tech support and the visual

Further investigation revealed that most of their corporate and structured individuals were in the Ukraine and that the original creator of the artificial intelligence product had already left the company and moved on to work for oh, guess who- yes Facebook.

In my opinion this is a pretty face, being displayed on the internet and you will never ever talk directly to an a true member of their Workforce other than the Evangelist who helped the product.

Yes, after two weeks, I asked for a refund and after actually talkin by email with one of the top level CEOs I finally got the refund on my product about a week later.

I would warn anybody in considering this product. You're not buying a trusted company. You're buying software being sold on the internet without anything to back it up and just a pretty face on a web page.

I wish you all the best my friend

Cheers
George Veazey
#####

foathog Loc: Greensboro, NC

NO. users should feel DUPED.

camerapapi Loc: Miami, Fl.

"Topaz AI. Many upgrades not extra charge. One purchase."

As I am sure you know Topaz has several AI programs but I will talk about DeNoise AI. When they introduced DeNoise AI I was not that impressed. When they updated that original version and still without charging for the update I downloaded the new version and I NEVER was able to use it. I had no way to install that new update no matter what. Customer support did not impress me either. I ended up using the original version without the AI feature. As you know, Topaz is charging now for updates although I do not know to which AI in the Topaz line you are referring to.

Same experience with inPixio Studio 11. As soon as the program was updated I NEVER again was able to make a sky substitution, no matter what I did. Customer's technical support was unable to help. We have excellent softwares like we never had before but it all seems to me that they are taking avdantage of us and in many cases, like I have experienced in the past, their updates as has been mentioned come with a couple of "improvements" and a new price.

Topaz Denoise AI NEVER worked for me.

mikeroetex Loc: Lafayette, LA

And suddenly the Adobe LR/PS subscription model doesn't seem so unreasonable.

djlouden Loc: Ocala, Florida

The words of P.T. Barnum likely apply. “There’s a Sucker Born Every Minute”

Ednsb Loc: Santa Barbara

Yep and even though they say they will continue to fix the older version they never do. With Luminar AI they said it wasn’t a version release of Luminar 4 but rather a new app. With Neo, they are calling it a companion. Their sales model is to gouge their old customers while getting new customers based on the sizzle of the new features. Very dishonest in my opinion based on 40+ years of being a major software exec at companies like oracle and IBM.

sodapop Loc: Bel Air, MD

It always seemed reasonable to me for what you get for it, the very best editing stems on the market

goldstar46 Loc: Tampa, Fl

BobHartung Loc: Bettendorf, IA

Makes the Adobe Photography Plan cheap in comparison.

Ednsb Loc: Santa Barbara

Skylum has never been a competitor of Lightroom/PhotoShop. Their Data Asset Management in Luminar 3 was terrible, didn’t get better in Luminar 4, wasn’t fixed in Luminar AI and is nonexistent in Neo. It has very few of the features of PhotoShop. I think of them as what they should be - a series of plugins. They need to sell it that way.