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The whole thing confuses me.
James Orr Tuesday at 4:32 PM
OOPS! I just learned that my 2700-character post was too big. Nothing reminded me the limit was 420 characters. Many forums have limits in the input window that enforces limits like this.
I've used a lot of Skylum products: PhotoLemur, Aurora HDR, Luminar 2018, Luminar 3 & 4, Luminar AI. Luminar Neo, Luminar Neo Pro. I don't use Adobe products and haven't had the chance to use Flex. I like using Neo the best, though there is still no better Skylum alternative for HDR than Aurora. Wish Aurora functionality were retained and its capacities increased to Neo level.
I have used the panorama stitching tool a bit. I find it awkward, It doesn't come close to the Microsoft Image Composite Editor in functionality, scope and ease of use.
I have learned that none of the Luminar products is a capable digital assets manager. I hate the decision to populate the top screen with all the photos in the catalog. I dislike the cumbersomeness of navigating among different levels in my file hierarchy. For example, I have a folder with RAW images and a sub folder with developed images. I don't like having the two merged in one top view.
I started with one big catalog with all my images: about 52 thousand in 2300 folders, 800 GB. The All Photos Catalog: 26 thousand files in 5100 folders, 230 GB on a fast SSD. What I wanted was to navigate through it as I do in File Explorer (Win 11 Pro). I've struggled with this for several years and haven't been satisfied. I've also used File Explorer to move image files and folders (even to rename them); the result was losing all the editing history. Even pointing to the new location when the name was the same has not helped.
I just created a new Catalog of one high-level folder: 1000 files in 60 folders, 18 GB. Before any edits the catalog shows 500 files, 380 folders, 122 MB. Of course, all the editing data I've done on a hundred or more of the images is no longer available within that catalog. Good thing that I kept the first Catalog, as awkward as it is. One's early errors, committed in good faith and ignorance, do return as ghosts later on. Even better, I saved the work as final jpg and tiff images. I would hate to recreate all the detailed work later on.
One lesson is to find and use a good digital asset manager. NOT Luminar. Then you can struggle with keeping your Luminar catalogs consistent with your management software. You might be fortunate to use Neo as a plug in within a product that is also a DAM.
Use whichever DAM you please, there will be a learning curve. I have used digiKam for about 15+ years, and it does most of what I need for an affordable cost (even as low as free). I generally keep both programs open at the same time. Edit in Neo, export the edited image into a "developed" folder (often with both a jpg and a tiff, for easy sharing online), then I refresh the DK database and add the comments, titles, geo, tags, etc.
The whole thing confuses me.
James Orr Tuesday at 4:32 PM
OOPS! I just learned that my 2700-character post was too big. Nothing reminded me the limit was 420 characters. Many forums have limits in the input window that enforces limits like this.
I've used a lot of Skylum products: PhotoLemur, Aurora HDR, Luminar 2018, Luminar 3 & 4, Luminar AI. Luminar Neo, Luminar Neo Pro. I don't use Adobe products and haven't had the chance to use Flex. I like using Neo the best, though there is still no better Skylum alternative for HDR than Aurora. Wish Aurora functionality were retained and its capacities increased to Neo level.
I have used the panorama stitching tool a bit. I find it awkward, It doesn't come close to the Microsoft Image Composite Editor in functionality, scope and ease of use.
I have learned that none of the Luminar products is a capable digital assets manager. I hate the decision to populate the top screen with all the photos in the catalog. I dislike the cumbersomeness of navigating among different levels in my file hierarchy. For example, I have a folder with RAW images and a sub folder with developed images. I don't like having the two merged in one top view.
I started with one big catalog with all my images: about 52 thousand in 2300 folders, 800 GB. The All Photos Catalog: 26 thousand files in 5100 folders, 230 GB on a fast SSD. What I wanted was to navigate through it as I do in File Explorer (Win 11 Pro). I've struggled with this for several years and haven't been satisfied. I've also used File Explorer to move image files and folders (even to rename them); the result was losing all the editing history. Even pointing to the new location when the name was the same has not helped.
I just created a new Catalog of one high-level folder: 1000 files in 60 folders, 18 GB. Before any edits the catalog shows 500 files, 380 folders, 122 MB. Of course, all the editing data I've done on a hundred or more of the images is no longer available within that catalog. Good thing that I kept the first Catalog, as awkward as it is. One's early errors, committed in good faith and ignorance, do return as ghosts later on. Even better, I saved the work as final jpg and tiff images. I would hate to recreate all the detailed work later on.
One lesson is to find and use a good digital asset manager. NOT Luminar. Then you can struggle with keeping your Luminar catalogs consistent with your management software. You might be fortunate to use Neo as a plug in within a product that is also a DAM.
Use whichever DAM you please, there will be a learning curve. I have used digiKam for about 15+ years, and it does most of what I need for an affordable cost (even as low as free). I generally keep both programs open at the same time. Edit in Neo, export the edited image into a "developed" folder (often with both a jpg and a tiff, for easy sharing online), then I refresh the DK database and add the comments, titles, geo, tags, etc.