xt2
Loc: British Columbia, Canada
mmills79 wrote:
Well.... It is just a different implementation than what you are used to but, it is layers. To your point however, NEO may not be complete for all the functionality that you experienced in Luminar 4 (or earlier Luminar versions or even other editors). I know for example that "radial" masking was not in the original release for NEO. But the goal for Skylum in NEO was to use AI to help you make it easier to select objects and turn those selections into usable masks. I do agree that Skylum never ever seems to be consistent with implementation and it gets confusing. Secondly, they don't listen to customers. So IMO they missed the boat on a few things. Fundamentally they could have built upon the original Luminar series and added new functionality without having to shake up the user interface completely. They could have even redone the platform with a new engine and still kept the user interface consistent. But nooo, someone decided that each new version was a new entity. I agree with you that if you are used to Luminar 4 or even an earlier version, what you see now looks and feels functionally different. Is that good or bad, I dunno..... but don't look for them to listen to you and fix anything. That is the biggest issue. Jim Nix usually does a reasonable job at trying to show what the new versions do. He is a speed talker but you can generally get what you need. Here's his intro to NEO if it helps:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biXv6F1S93oWell.... It is just a different implementation tha... (
show quote)
And, oh yes, Skylum is operating in a war zone with Russians trying to kill them as they develop new software…
How about storing photos on an external hard drive? Programs aren't the really large users of space--photos are.
Over the last several decades, many computers from big mainframes to phones, have some way to clean up "junk" have you done this on your machine?
xt2 wrote:
Not so quick! Don’t let the” PC/Mac wars” nonsense get to you. Both platforms face the identical challenge. Just add a portable hard drive, better yet a flash drive to what ya have already, It is so cheap that it is silly. Cheers!
The laptop I am using right now, an HP Omen gaming laptop has 17 inch display has a primary nvme, a secondary nvme and the third is a SATA. You can buy nvme and ssd drives in 4tb sizes. That is 12tb of user installable storage. No mac laptop can do that and I don't like toting around external portable drive.
Right now I have only 4tb of storage and I haven't run out yet. I have a bay for an a second NVME drive if I want to spend the money for one and need the space. Most PC laptops have at least 2 nvme drive bay most 17" have 3 to 4 drive bays, 15.6 PC laptops have at least 2 drivebays sometimes 3. Mac M1 has no internal user installable drive bays.
A word of caution... The catalog function does not work well with external drives. I had a discussion about some of the issues I saw when using an external drive with a Skylum support team member a while back and the disappointing response that I got at that time was that Skylum does not recommend the use of external drives with their software. Nor did they indicate that they would fix those issues or try to make the implementation better. Straight from the horses mouth..... Using an external drive can be iffy & you can lose work - that's just my personal experience. The catalog function is unfortunately not very flexible and they don't make it easy to change source and destination. So be wary!
mmills79 wrote:
Well.... It is just a different implementation than what you are used to but, it is layers. To your point however, NEO may not be complete for all the functionality that you experienced in Luminar 4 (or earlier Luminar versions or even other editors). I know for example that "radial" masking was not in the original release for NEO. But the goal for Skylum in NEO was to use AI to help you make it easier to select objects and turn those selections into usable masks. I do agree that Skylum never ever seems to be consistent with implementation and it gets confusing. Secondly, they don't listen to customers. So IMO they missed the boat on a few things. Fundamentally they could have built upon the original Luminar series and added new functionality without having to shake up the user interface completely. They could have even redone the platform with a new engine and still kept the user interface consistent. But nooo, someone decided that each new version was a new entity. I agree with you that if you are used to Luminar 4 or even an earlier version, what you see now looks and feels functionally different. Is that good or bad, I dunno..... but don't look for them to listen to you and fix anything. That is the biggest issue. Jim Nix usually does a reasonable job at trying to show what the new versions do. He is a speed talker but you can generally get what you need. Here's his intro to NEO if it helps:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biXv6F1S93oWell.... It is just a different implementation tha... (
show quote)
I tried Neo layers and though a little better, you cannot duplicate a layer, create a color fill layer, merge down layers, create a stamped layer, create a text layer, create a clip mask layer. I could go on. But they did add the ability to import a transparent image which they did not have before so maybe they will get layers to a basic level in the future. I am hopeful and the Skylum people have been listening to customers. Many were upset that Luminar AI removed layers, well they have brought them back and are improving them so good on them and hopefully it will get better.
mmills79 wrote:
A word of caution... The catalog function does not work well with external drives. I had a discussion about some of the issues I saw when using an external drive with a Skylum support team member a while back and the disappointing response that I got at that time was that Skylum does not recommend the use of external drives with their software. Nor did they indicate that they would fix those issues or try to make the implementation better. Straight from the horses mouth..... Using an external drive can be iffy & you can lose work - that's just my personal experience. The catalog function is unfortunately not very flexible and they don't make it easy to change source and destination. So be wary!
A word of caution... The catalog function does not... (
show quote)
I have found this as well. If you can afford it, use internal drive space. PC most often has upgradable internal storage. Mac you better spend the big bucks to get enough internal storage.
mmills79 wrote:
Well.... It is just a different implementation than what you are used to but, it is layers.
Another think I forgot to mention was that neo did not support masking on the layers which was quite crippling, This last update today, the added that functionality so Neo is moving along nicely even though their country is at war.
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