Some time ago I downloaded a trial copy of this and ran it through its paces on a number of images. This example of a tree beside a fence is a good example of what it can do. I don't claim that this is a great work of art, it's just an example. I did two things to the original, I replaced the sky and I added the birds. Both were a single mouse click (though that's not strictly true as I tried a few different skies before deciding on this one). In adding the sky you might notice it has also removed the electricity high-tension wires that ran through the middle of the original.

This is only one of its party tricks, it's also a reasonable photo editor, allowing you to adjust the many things you might otherwise do in Lightroom or PhotoShop. I think for the price it's a worthwhile acquisition.

That's the good, now for the bad.

Last night I decided to go ahead and purchase it. I paid my money and downloaded the installer. Once I ran this I tried to start the app and I got an error, something about a "database error". I did a bit of Googling and found this appears to be a common complaint (and has been for a couple of years so why is it still happening?). There was a suggestion that the catalog folder should be renamed, then during reinstallation another folder should be specified as the catalog folder. So I did this and progressed past this error. The restarted app then asked me for my email address and validation code, which I provided. It rejected the email address saying it was invalid. I tried a few more times (typing it in and copying and pasting) to no avail. So I decided to raise a support ticket. It didn't take long to realise this wasn't going to be solved quickly. There were lots of people with this problem and no suggestions of how to fix it. And their support website itself stated that due to the "higher than average" number of support calls there may be a significant delay in getting my call attended to. So then I went back to the web page that I downloaded the app from to investigate their "30 day money back guarantee" but of course I can find no way to initiate this.

On this basis I would find it difficult to recommend Luminar 4 (or any of their other products). I'm happy to recant this if the problem is solved in a reasonable amount of time.

YMMV.

Some time ago I downloaded a trial copy of this and ran it through its paces on a number of images. This example of a tree beside a fence is a good example of what it can do. I don't claim that this is a great work of art, it's just an example. I did two things to the original, I replaced the sky and I added the birds. Both were a single mouse click (though that's not strictly true as I tried a few different skies before deciding on this one). In adding the sky you might notice it has also removed the electricity high-tension wires that ran through the middle of the original.

This is only one of its party tricks, it's also a reasonable photo editor, allowing you to adjust the many things you might otherwise do in Lightroom or PhotoShop. I think for the price it's a worthwhile acquisition.

That's the good, now for the bad.

Last night I decided to go ahead and purchase it. I paid my money and downloaded the installer. Once I ran this I tried to start the app and I got an error, something about a "database error". I did a bit of Googling and found this appears to be a common complaint (and has been for a couple of years so why is it still happening?). There was a suggestion that the catalog folder should be renamed, then during reinstallation another folder should be specified as the catalog folder. So I did this and progressed past this error. The restarted app then asked me for my email address and validation code, which I provided. It rejected the email address saying it was invalid. I tried a few more times (typing it in and copying and pasting) to no avail. So I decided to raise a support ticket. It didn't take long to realise this wasn't going to be solved quickly. There were lots of people with this problem and no suggestions of how to fix it. And their support website itself stated that due to the "higher than average" number of support calls there may be a significant delay in getting my call attended to. So then I went back to the web page that I downloaded the app from to investigate their "30 day money back guarantee" but of course I can find no way to initiate this.

On this basis I would find it difficult to recommend Luminar 4 (or any of their other products). I'm happy to recant this if the problem is solved in a reasonable amount of time.

YMMV.