Chapter 7: Library View
The Library View is where you explore your images. This canvas is designed to be enjoyable for browsing. It also makes it easy to rate and sort your images. Use the Library View to organize your images or to select photos for further editing.
Library Toolbar
As you work with an image, the Top Toolbar contains many commands that you’ll frequently use. These are grouped logically for easier use.
Open Button Menu.
The first button controls how files are opened, processed, and exported. Clicking the Open button reveals two choices.
- Import Images To. Copies images into a destination folder.
- Add Folder. Add an existing folder on your computer to your Luminar library.
- Open Images for Quick Edit. Bring individual images into Luminar for editing.
Navigation Buttons
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.
- Navigate Up. Go up one folder in your Luminar library.
- Current Location. View the current folder and navigate to adjacent folders in the file structure.
Show Button
This controls the opening and closing the Side panel. You can make it visible to see your folder structure and shortcuts or hide it to have more room for browsing.
Magnification Buttons.
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.
- Thumbnail Size. A list of preset magnification levels for image thumbnails when navigating in the Gallery View.
- Zoom Out. This option reduces the view size of the displayed image. The shortcut is Cmd+- (minus). You can see the current zoom level in the magnification level field.
- Zoom In. This option increases the view size of the displayed image. The shortcut is Cmd+= (equals).
View Buttons
The next three buttons control the layout of the Luminar application window. You will switch depending on the task at hand.
- Library. Browse image folders and albums.
- Edit. Adjust an image with filters for a perfect appearance.
- Info. View a selected image’s metadata to learn more about a file.
Share Image Button
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.
- Export to Image. Creates a new file in a common image format.
- Services. Choose to send to system applications or upload directly to photo sharing websites.
- Open In. Send to other Skylum applications or to other photo editing applications
Library Side Panel
The Side Panel gives you access to important controls for browsing and navigating your photo library. Shortcuts give you quick access to your images based on predetermined criteria. Use Albums to organize images with a virtual collection, images can be added from multiple folders or removed without any effect on master files. However, Folders are the way to control the images on your hard drives and work with your data directly.
Shortcuts
The use of Shortcuts offers quick access to your library with a series of predetermined shortcuts.
- All Photos. Browse your library by Year, Month, or Day
- Favorites. See all of your images that you’ve flagged as Picks (just click the heart icon or press P when an image is selected).
- Recently Added. Quickly see images that have been recently added to your library.
- Recently Edited. Review images that have been recently edited.
- Trash. Review images that you’ve queued for deletion. The images can either be deleted and moved to the system trash for cleanup or returned to the Luminar library.
Albums
Place your photos into virtual collections. You can choose images from any location or folder. Adding and removing has no effect on your actual files on the hard drive, rather use an album like you would a playlist to organize music.
Folders
Folders tie directly to folders on your hard drive. Luminar works with the real-world folder structure of your hard drive(s).
- Master Folder. When you select a folder, it will be added as a top-level folder to your folder collection. All folders contained within are also added.
- Subfolders. Any folders contained within a Master folder are added as subfolders. Additional folders within those folders are also added. You can add additional subfolders to any folder in the future by right-clicking on a folder and choosing the New Subfolder Command.
