Skylum Unveils Luminar AI: A Fully Automated, AI-First Photo Editor

Skylum has announced a new, AI-first version of its Lumiar photo editor. Dubbed Luminar AI, the program takes all of the machine-learning tools from Luminar 4, adds some more, and puts them all into a new app and plugin that’s all about “reinventing” traditional photo editing.

Skylum has been adding AI-powered features to its more “traditional” Luminar photo editor for years now, but Luminar AI takes that sort of automation a big step forward by building the entire experience around AI instead of the regular editing tools that we all know so well.

When you import a photo into Luminar AI you won’t see sliders for Brightness or Contrast, or a Curves adjustment, or a Healing brush. Instead, you’ll see sections like Portrait and Essentials, each of which is made up of different AI tools like BodyAI, FaceAI, and IrisAI for portraits, AtmosphereAI, SkyAI, and Sunrays for landscape editing, and more general tools like CompositionAI and StructureAI to change the overall look of an image.

To be clear, those more traditional tools are still there, probably hiding under the “PRO” tab you see in the screenshots below. We asked Luminar about this and they said that they’re “keeping most of the traditional editing tools.” Luminar AI just puts a heavy emphasis on using the aforementioned AI tools and the program’s built-in AI templates first, in the hopes that you’ll never have to fiddle with sliders again.

“Luminar AI will help make image editing easier for everyone. We’ve removed the boring and difficult parts of photo editing without sacrificing creativity,” says Skylum CEO Alex Tsepko. “Luminar AI will be a great tool in a creator’s workflow. They can focus on great results — not on the process of editing.”

Today’s announcement is sort of a “first step” sneak peek, with more details to be revealed in the next few months ahead of release. For now, everything we know is contained on this website and in the screenshots included below:

Luminar AI will be available as a stand-alone application or as a plug-in for both macOS and Windows sometime “this holiday season.” For now, interested photographers can pre-order it at a special early bird price (limited to 30,000 orders) of $60 for current Skylum product owners or $70 for new customers.

Note that if you do manage to snag that early bird deal, you’ll get access to the app earlier than the rest of the world, and will also be invited to join the Luminar AI Insider program… whatever that is.

To learn more or reserve a copy for yourself, head over to the Skylum website.