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The Edit view is where you enhance your images. You’ll access controls from three primary areas. The Toolbar contains general-purpose and frequently used functions of the software. The Side Panel is located to the right of the main image display; all adjustment tools, layers and the histogram can be found here. You can also save time with the Luminar Looks Panel which offers one-click presets at the bottom of the screen.
As you work with an image, the Edit Toolbar contains many commands that you’ll frequently use. These are grouped logically for easier use. Here are the buttons from left to right.
The first button controls how files are opened, processed, and exported. Clicking the Open button reveals two choices.
These buttons control how you can navigate folders in your library. As your library gets bigger, you’ll likely find yourself using folder more and more to keep images better organized.
This menu controls the opening and closing the different panels. You can make items visible for more control or hide things you don’t need for a larger editing canvas.
The Luminar Looks Panel on the bottom of the Luminar workspace is where you’ll find all of your presets. These include those created by the Luminar team as well as your own custom Looks. To hide the Luminar Looks Panel, just click the button to toggle visibility or use the Tab key to hide both the Side and Preset Panels.
These next three buttons are used for changing your view of the image size in the canvas. If you go from left to right the buttons do the following.
These buttons allow you to compare the original image with the original default image, so you can easily compare how your enhancements changes the original image.
The Tools menu holds specialty tools that help you modify an image or layer. These tools will be explored in-depth later in this guide.
The next three buttons control the layout of the Luminar application window. You will switch depending on the task at hand.
The last button in the top Toolbar is used to share an image from the application to other applications. The same image can also be shared with other editing software from Skylum (and others) or uploaded directly to social networks and other online services.
The Filmstrip displays a strip of images along the left side of the interface. It shows you all of the images in the currently selected view, album, or folder. It’s a convenient way to select images without having to switch back to the Library view.
The Side Panel gives you access to three important sets of controls. The Histogram is a useful tool for judging exposure and details. Layers lets you work with multiple objects to create a composite image or to isolate effects or textures to their own place. The Filters section gives you precise control over each filter you’ve added to a layer.
At the top of the side panel are three buttons that provide advanced controls over your images. If you are just getting started with Luminar 2018, you might leave these three options deactivated. However, as you grow comfortable with editing tasks or are looking for the most flexibility and control, be sure to explore them.
While color correcting or adjusting exposure, the histogram can be a great help. A histogram is a graphical representation of the tonal values of your image. This graph illustrates how the pixels in the image are distributed across brightness levels. In other words, it shows the amount of tones of particular brightness found in your photograph ranging from black (0% brightness) to white (100% brightness). Ideally, well-balanced images will have tonal values across the entire range of the histogram.
To read a histogram, start at the left edge, which shows the shadow regions. The middle shows the midtones (where most adjustments to an image are made), and to the right are the highlights.
The histogram is able to display Red, Green, Blue channels separately or, by default, shows all of them at once. Click on the Histogram to switch between seeing a composite Histogram or just viewing details about the Red, Green, and Blue channels (which can be useful for spotting tint issues and color casts). You can also see a grayscale average for luminance.
Additionally, clicking the two small triangles in the upper left and upper right corners will show hot and cold pixels respectively. These are pixels that have shifted or exposed to become absolutely black or white pixels.
In both cases, this can be problematic (especially for printing) as there is too much ink coverage for cold pixels and no details at all in the hot pixels. These indicators are a sign that you should adjust the exposure of the image. You may want to leave the Histogram panel open as you work because it is an easy way to learn to read the graphical details of a digital image.
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NOTE
The use of the Develop and RAW Develop filters are an excellent way to take control of the Black and White points as well as the Shadows and Highlights of an image. Pressing the J key will also toggle the clipping indicators On and Off if you want to see the pixels underneath.
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Layers are a powerful way to “build up” your images, with different enhancements and use of blending modes on each layer. Using layers, you can apply corrections or enhancements on different layers, and experiment until you achieve exactly the look you’d like for your image.
You’ll learn more about layers in the chapter “Working with Layers.”
Filters are how you can adjust the exposure, color, contrast, and style of your image in Luminar. The proper use of filters can significantly improve your image. Each filter is designed to solve specific problems or enhance an image in a particular way. The Filters section of the side panel shows any filters you have applied or that are included in a workspace.
Filters can be stacked in any order to change their order of operations. You can also add masks to filters to control their results. Filters can also have other properties like their blending mode and visibility adjusted.
You’ll learn more about each filter in the chapter “Using Filters.”
Luminar offers workspaces to streamline your approach to editing. Each workspace is a customized group of filters designed for a particular style of editing. Luminar offers pre-built workspaces that have been designed for particular tasks. You’ll find that using Luminar’s purpose-built workspaces offer uniquely tailored tools which achieve great results quickly.
Below the currently selected image is a series of quick controls so you can both review the status of an image or apply criteria to help with sorting.
The Luminar Looks Browser contains all of the one-click Presets available in Luminar 3. These Luminar Looks can be applied to any open image or to a new Adjustment layer. To apply a Look, simply click on its thumbnail. To adjust the intensity of the effect, use the Amount slider to blend the adjustment.
The Editing Canvas is the view portal that shows you the image as your edit. You can change the background color of the canvas by choosing View > Background > (Color). Different shades of gray are offered to provide proper contrast and a neutral viewing area.
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