The Photographer's Guide to Luminar 4. Jeff Carlson

Full Screen, or press Command-Control-F), which does the same thing as Full Screen Preview, but retains the program’s interface items such as the sidebar. Move the mouse pointer to the top of the screen to reveal the menu bar. To get out of Full Screen mode, choose View > Exit Full Screen, or press Command-Control-F again.

       The Looks Panel

      The easiest way into Luminar editing is via the Looks panel, which offers several pre-made edits that can be applied with a single click. Those presets range from styles that make color pop or increase clarity, to ones that use cross processing for creative, artistic effects.

      Click the Looks panel button in the toolbar, or choose View > Hide/Show Looks Panel to display the row at the bottom of the screen (Figure 1-7). They’re organized by category; click the Luminar Looks pop-up menu to reveal them all (Figure 1-8).

      FIGURE 1-7: If you don’t use looks often, keep the Looks panel closed so Luminar doesn’t populate each look with a preview each time you select an image.

      FIGURE 1-8: Choose from several categories of looks, or define your own and save them for later.

      In addition to the built-in looks, you can create your own or import ones made by other people. At Skylum’s website (skylum.com), once you have an account, you can discover free and paid preset packs to add.

       Zoom

      Zoom is another feature that may seem inconsequential compared to the edit or canvas tools, yet you can easily use it hundreds of times while working on an image.

       •Fit to Screen: Press Command/Ctrl-0 or choose View > Fit to Screen to view the entire image in the working area.

       •Original Size: Press Command/Ctrl-1 or choose View > Original Size to zoom to 100% view, where the pixels on your screen correspond to the pixels in the image. This view is essential when retouching areas, creating masks, or even checking focus.

       •Zoom In: Press Command/Ctrl-+ (the plus sign) or choose View > Zoom In to enlarge the view incrementally: 25%, 50%, 100%, 200%, 300%, 600%, 1200%, 2400%, and even 3000% (which basically makes everything look like algae).

       •Zoom Out: Similarly, press Command/Ctrl- – (the minus sign) or choose View > Zoom Out to reduce the view in the same increments above.

       •Toolbar Zoom buttons: Another option is to click the Zoom In or Zoom Out buttons, or choose a zoom level from the Zoom pop-up menu (Figure 1-9).

      FIGURE 1-9: You should always check your photo at 100% several times as you’re editing. Although this menu tops out at 1200%, you can zoom in as close as 3000% using the – and + buttons!

      When you’re zoomed in, notice that the pointer becomes a hand icon. To move to another part of the image without zooming out, click and drag in any direction; or, if you’re using a trackpad, swipe with two fingers.

      To move around the image without dropping the tool, hold the spacebar as you drag the image.

       The Canvas Panel

      One of the ways Luminar differs from other photo-editing applications is the absence of a long toolbar taking up a portion of the screen. The tools that affect the shape of the image and that fix specific areas are stored in the Canvas panel (Figure 1-10). (I cover the Canvas tools in more detail in Chapter 6.)

      FIGURE 1-10: Instead of a lengthy tools palette, as found in other applications, Luminar concentrates its tools into a single panel.

      Click the Canvas button in the sidebar to access its tools:

       •Crop & Rotate: Use the Crop & Rotate tool to change the image’s composition, specify other aspect ratios, and straighten the shot. On the Mac, you can also flip the image horizontally or vertically or rotate it in 90-degree increments. Crop also applies to the entire image and all its layers. Press the C key to quickly activate the Crop tool.

       •Erase: The Erase tool removes areas of the image and replaces them using algorithms that calculate the result. It’s great for erasing objects like stray power lines. In situations like that, the software can handle the task so you don’t have to do it manually with the Clone & Stamp tool. Press Command/Ctrl-E to switch to the Erase tool.

       •Clone & Stamp: A common method of making touch-ups is to use the Clone & Stamp tool. Let’s say you need to remove some dust marks or fill in a patch of grass that stands out; you can define a nearby area as a source and then stamp (copy) the pixels to fix the spot. Press Command/Ctrl-J to switch to the Clone & Stamp tool.

       •Lens & Geometry: This collection of tools can fix distortion, chromatic aberration, fringe issues, and vignetting caused by some lenses, as well as changing the overall shape of the image.

       History

      Editing a photo is never a linear process for me. I make some edits, change my mind, go back to an earlier version, try something different—you get the idea. In some applications, you can undo a set number of times, and if you close the document, that history is gone the next time you work on it.

      Not so in Luminar (Figure 1-11). It keeps track of all your edits, from the moment you open the file the first time. To step back through your last edits, choose Edit > Undo, or press Command/Ctrl-Z. To go to any previous edit, click the History menu in the toolbar and scroll to that point. Any subsequent edits are no longer applied. As soon as you make another edit, the ignored actions are deleted.

      FIGURE 1-11: Return to earlier actions by selecting them from the History list.

       The Library

      There are a few ways of getting photos into Luminar for editing, as I detail in Chapter 2, but my favorite is the Library for one simple reason: convenience. If Luminar is your main tool for interacting with your photos, it helps enormously to have them all in one interface.

      Unlike some applications that want to consolidate all images into one