Luminar AI Update 2 available now, includes significant updates to Sky AI

Skylum today released Luminar AI Update 2, a free update to Luminar AI focused on improving sky replacement, simplifying workflows and more.

Of the update to the AI-powered photo editor, Skylum CEO Alex Tsepko said, ‘Too often, complexity is the enemy of creativity. It adds time and frustration to a process we think should be fun, even joyful. With Luminar AI, our goal is to strip out that complexity. Update 2 builds on this work and offers more creative tools. I am excited to see what people make with it.’

Image credit: Imaginechina

Luminar AI Update 2 includes many improvements, but one of the biggest is to Sky AI. Building upon Skylum’s history with automatic sky replacement technology, the latest Luminar AI update incorporates user feedback to take Sky AI to greater heights.

Luminar AI now automatically reflects the new sky in water, whether it’s the ocean, a river, lake or pool. The software automatically conforms the new sky’s reflection to the angle and depth of the scene to produce what Skylum promises are ‘incredible results.’ Sky AI can add reflections to ripples on the surface of water as well.

Additional improvements to Sky AI include a new Relight Human feature, which can improve environmental portraits by matching people in an image to the new sky for a more natural, realistic result. Scene relighting can also now remove strong color casts from the sky on foreground objects. Further, there are new controls for rotation and horizontal offset, allowing the user to flip, rotate and position the sky in their image. Rounding out the Sky AI improvements is a new visual interface in the Sky AI panel, including additional free skies to choose from.

Image credit: Ivan Kmit

In addition to Sky AI improvements, Luminar AI Update 2 includes transformable texture overlays. PNG files with transparency can be used in Luminar AI as textures, which may be useful for adding special effects, watermarks, text, emoticons and other elements to images. Users can move, flip, rotate and resize overlay elements. There are blending modes and masks for texture overlays as well. Overlays can be synced across multiple images or saved in a custom Template for future use, which should save photographers time if they’re using the new feature for watermarking.

Image credit: LadanivskyyO

Speaking of Templates, a key feature in Luminar AI, it is now easier to find and use Templates. All Templates, including Favorites and purchased Templates, are available in the main Templates tab.

The new update to Luminar AI adds additional camera support. Canon EOS R5, Canon EOS R6, EOS 850D, EOS-1D X Mark III (lossy compressed files), Fujifilm X-S10, Leica M10-R, S3, SL2-S, Nikon Z 5, Z 6 II, Z 7 II, Olympus E-M10 Mark IV, Panasonic DC-G100 / G110, DC-S5, Sony ILCE-7C (A7C), ILCE-7SM3 (A7S III) and Zeiss ZX1 cameras are supported in the new update. Lossy compressed .CR3 files and Lossy compressed .RAF files are supported, too.

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