“The point to our software is to make a much more powerful and unique editing experience. To make awesome results much easier and to bring the results that people before were not even able to expect.” – Dima Sytnik
Dima Sytnik is one of the founders of Skylum (previously known as MacPhun) and its Chief Technology Officer. During a brief conversation on Skype, I asked him what moved the development team to build a sophisticated sky replacement engine.
“I had a lot of nice images but I never shared them because the skies were really boring or the lighting difference was very bad. Like these photos of New York I was really happy with the light but the sky was boring — completely dull.”
Replacing skies changes everything
Dima continues,
“But with this new technology I was able to breathe new life into my photos. It was just brilliant! I enjoyed revisiting all of my images that were previously very bad. I didn’t even try to edit them. I was really impressed with how I can go from mediocre image to awesome image because of relighting. And thanks to other smart filters that are being put into Luminar 4. I can turn my daylight photos into beautiful sunset photos with nice clouds. It’s really WOW!”
Sky replacement is hard
When asked what the toughest challenge to overcome in replacing skies Dima described it and the solution.
“Sky replacement is a very complex task. One of the challenges was to make the AI work with transparent and semi-transparent objects. We solved the problem so you won’t have to use masking or brushes. If there is a slight inconsistency, it’s easy to adjust with one or two sliders. Because it’s AI, we automatically find the horizon and the top of the sky; you can use any sky that you have. There will be guidelines on choosing the best skies for a scene when Luminar [4] ships.
“This means you really should get out your old photos and play around with different skies. In Photoshop it’s very hard to play around and get the best sky. You have to look trough Lightroom and try different skies again and again.”
The photo below is of a tree and the sky captured with it.
Instagram!
Dima proves his point when he says,
“With Luminar 4 you browse those skies asking ‘Is this good? Is this one good?’ Then boom! You can replace them. This is an area where people can try their artistic side again. I really like this feature, especially on my images. I had lots of skylines that I would not show because the sky was plain. Now I can pick a sky and replace it quickly. Basically, I have to use this superpower before it was released to improve my Instagram photos.”
More features?
During our talk, I asked Dima if there were any other new features he wanted to share. He didn’t answer the question directly. I can’t help but conjecture — and this speculation is mine and mine alone — that there are many exciting, time-saving editing enhancements to be announced in the not too distant future. As they used to say on television before Netflix, stay tuned!
Two things of which I’m not sure:
(1) I read in another article that the skies can only be replaced with what is provided by Skylum. In other words, you cannot use one of your own sky photos and replace a boring sky with your own shot.
(2) Whatever happened to the promise of DAM in Luminar 3? Why not add the sky replacement feature to Luminar 3, which is less than a year old?
You will be able to use your own skies, but what you’ll be able to use will be limited, based on what Dima states above. I’ve also confirmed this independently with Skylum.
Secondly, it’s common that major feature upgrades get put in future versions of software. There are certainly more feature upgrade announcements to come. I’ve checked with Skylum, and Luminar 3 will continue to receive compatibility and performance updates, even after Luminar 4 is released.
Thanks for your reply, Bryan. Wasn’t it a bit odd not to elaborate a bit more about other features? Skylum is promoting a $49 upgrade solely on sky replacement? Where can we find out about more features before taking advantage of the early bird “special”?
The other features have not yet been announced by Skylum. I’d imagine that AI Sky Replacement is just the first of many, especially because we’re looking at a fall release date.
Luminar 3 will also get a free upgrade of IPTC editing and Search in 2020. Exact date not set. Like Bryan said, this is a first look at a new feature that is expected in late Fall this year.
As a PC user I refuse to trust Skylum any longer. All we hear is future update, we’re working on it, it’s not a priority right now. Instead we get sky replacement and a version of a photo time machine! No more. I’m betting when a new version of Windows breaks L3 that it won’t be supported any longer. “Its not our fault, Microsoft broke it!”. This is all a bad joke, played on the customers.