RAW edit in LUMINAR 4.3

In this video we go step by step with an edit of Eilean Donan castle in Scotland. You'll find the RAW file down below in the description so go ahead and follow along if you want. The tutorial is aimed at new users of Luminar but feel free to watch if you are a seasoned user as well, as we can all pick up the odd hint and tip from everybody we watch.
As mentioned in the video this one of many workflows and to be honest it shouldn't be stuck to religiously but if you find some of it useful and you can use it in your own edits then that's a good thing. I also look at compositional elements within the image and briefly discuss them in relation to the image.
EXPLORE. IMAGINE. CREATE. thats the key. Once you have the idea then it's just the process.
There are many ways to create your images and its fun to try different things with your images.I hope the methods shown in this tutorial are useful to you in creating your own.
Its really worth exploring the software and seeing what it can do and as well as that letting your imagination run free :)
It’s good to think outside the box at times and just experiment with what you can do with your software.
The focus of the tutorial is not the final image but the process involved to get there.
Try the techniques for yourself and see what happens, if you like them use it in the future. But if not, well at least you have learned something that the software can do differently. All’s Good :)
enjoy :)
RAW FILE EILEAN DONAN CASTLE (only to be used for practice no posting on any media platform or print)
www.dropbox.co...
AFFILIATED LINK BELOW
Luminar 4.2 link
skylum.grsm.io...
macphun.evyy.n....
DRAGON PACK
To Purchase the Dragon Pack for $7.99 please follow the link below.
www.garymcinty.......
Follow me on Instagram! / garymcintyr. .
Website www.garymcintyr...
Music www.epidemicsou...

[@tdcrom]

Thank you Gary, more great knowledge.

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

Glad you enjoyed it Tom and yeah for me most of the time it has to be subtle with the sliders 😀👍👍

[@johncameron6853]

Just found your channel Gary and I'm glad I did. Excellent tutorial and easy to follow what you're doing. Eilean Donan must be the most photographed castle in Scotland. Visited it many times on my way over to Skye. Nice to hear a shots accent on the tube, and I'm looking forward to more of your tutorials.

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

Hi John, glad you enjoyed the video. Many thanks for watching😁👍👍

[@r.v.niddrie9111]

Wonderful. From one Scotsman to another. Thankyou

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

Thankyou very much for watching, glad you enjoyed it🙏😁👍👍

[@ozguy80]

Great edit, clear step by step instructions as usual. You are really helping me to become more and more confident with Luminar, Gary. Oh, and I could listen to your wonderful Scottish accent all day! 👍

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

Thank you very much! Glad you are enjoying the videos..and the accent 🙏😁👍👍

[@fredrosenbaum8630]

Gary, I always learn something from your videos, thanks!

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

Thankyou very much Fred, glad you are enjoying them 🙏😁👍

[@uncle0eric]

Thanks, Gary. I appreciate your emphasis on making subtle edits. It's remarkable how much they can add up in the final image.

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

Yeah the subtle edits stand the test of time I feel as you are only subtlety working with what you have to emphasise the overall image.Thanks again for watching and commenting 🙏😁👍👍

[@mr.sunseeker467]

Thank you very much for this great tutorial Gary !!! I really like the way you explain things and hope to learn much more from you ! 👍👍👍

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

Thankyou very much for watching, glad you enjoyed it and found it helpful 🙏😁👍

[@jledvinka]

Gary this was such a great instructional video. Lots of us have really enjoyed this. More of these please! Thanks so much!

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

Hi Jan, and thankyou very much. I'm actually up North at the moment photographing to do more of this type of video so I'm glad you have enjoyed it. Many thanks for watching 🙏😁👍

[@gbarr711]

Subtle, subtle, subtle. This is where I fall down. I go way overboard with most of mine. Excellent edit Gary. I must remember - Subtle. 👍

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

Lol thanks for watching Gavin. Its just down to personal preference though 😁👍👍

[@shirishpandey3503]

Exceptional tutorial, the power of small increments. Fantastic learning

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

Thanks again for watching and commenting Shirish really appreciated. Glad you enjoyed it🙏😁👍

[@peteromalley483]

Great video and appreciate your time in making these tutorials. Can't wait to do some editing with the file that you have kindly provided.

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

Thank you very much Peter, I enjoy making them. I'm up north just now shooting some more for images to create similar ones so I'm glad you enjoyed it. Many thanks 🙏😁👍

[@tomwarrington4150]

Great video!! Subtle is always the key. Thank you!

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

Thanks again for watching Tommy, glad you enjoyed it🙏😁👍

[@Buzz2261]

Thanks Gary, I really appreciate you sharing this image for us to work on. I'm new to Luminar and although I'm running it on 230 GHz laptop with only 8GB RAM it has been working sufficiently well when editing jpeg's. Your image is the first time that I've tried it with RAW and it seemed to work even better so thanks again!

[@willlewis4169]

Relatively new to Luminar, after deciding to move from Lightroom 6. Your tutorials are the best I have found ~ masterclasses!

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

Hi Will, glad you are finding the videos helpful. Its a shallow learning curve with this software isn't it. Many thanks for watching 🙏😁👍

[@manuelademmer6032]

beautiful photo, love how you edit your shots. thank you for showing. Have a nice das Ella

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

Thankyou very much Ella really appreciated. You too have a great day 🙏😁👍

[@mikskinner6431]

Great vid. Cheers.

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

Glad you enjoyed it, thanks for watching🙏😁👍

[@frankmeuris4665]

Thx Gary, very useful!

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

Very welcome Frank, thanks for watching 😁👍👍

[@IanElson28]

Another brilliant video.

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

Glad you enjoyed it Ian, many thanks for watching😀👍👍

[@justjoe7922]

Well done1 Quite a transformation, thanks. . .

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

Thanks for watching Joe, glad you enjoyed it😁👍👍

[@johntbd]

Great Lesson. Thanks for the download and run through. Cheers.

[@TheDavcoll]

Many thanks, Gary, new to Luminar and new to your channel Dave

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

Thanks very much for watching Dave, hope you find the videos helpful😁🙏👍

[@tdcrom]

Great video

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

Glad you enjoyed it Tom, thanks again for watching🙏😁👍

[@gunner81uk]

Thank you Gary, very informative.

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

Glad you enjoyed it David, thanks for watching 🙏😁👍👍

[@bv52gyf]

Thanks very much Gary, I only use Lightroom with the occasional dabble with Nik Silver FX. I have been struggling to find a basic workflow and this will be a great help. I hope to get to composite images at some future point and keep your tutorials for reference. Cheers.

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

Many thanks for watching and glad you found it useful.🙏😁👍

[@kenhaley5450]

Nice video Gary, I downloaded the file and enjoyed following along. I then had a second go after first running your file through Topaz DeNoise AI, it made an amazing difference to the end result - not soft any longer!

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

Ah brilliant John, glad to hear it! Hope you enjoyed editing the image, thanks for watching🙏😁👍

[@christopherlofquist1]

Great video Gary!

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

Thanks very much Chris, glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for watching😁👍👍

[@stevemcguinness2646]

I’m new onto your KZbin channel and I find it inspiring!

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

Thankyou very much Steve really appreciated 🙏😁👍👍

[@demiwalsh3895]

very nice video, i like

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

Thank you very much Glad you enjoyed it 😀👍👍

[@markwith140]

Nice Edit. I have downloaded and will give it an edit myself to see where I take it.

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

Thanks for watching Mark, hope you enjoy editing the pic😁👍👍

[@victorcarmelo8606]

Another really absorbing tutorial Gary. One thing I'm not sure of is why you AI enhanced the sky then you changed it. I personally would have stayed with the original and although it was grey I do love the brooding skies of Scotland, more atmospheric but that's just me. Great video and thanks again.

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

Thanks for watching Victor, glad you enjoyed it. It was actually just to show that there was not much going on with the sky in this image. Even pushed to 100 in AI its just blah! For the final print it was 2 or 3 exposure blends to get slight depth in the sky. Yeah broody skys are my favourite as well🙏😁👍

[@victorcarmelo8606]

@@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer Thanks for your reply. Regards.

[@78degreesfilms]

Love your tutorials. I wish you were hosting the Luminar Coffee Break.

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

Many thanks for watching really appreciated and thankyou, yes Vanelli has asked which was great, I've just been really busy of late. Perhaps a future one🙏😁👍👍

[@MrCsabaDosa]

Thank you Gary.

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

You are very welcome thank you for watching 😀👍👍

[@behramcooper3691]

Thanks Gary. I'll see what I can do with this image.

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

You are very welcome Behram, thanks again for watching 🙏😁👍

[@behramcooper3691]

UPDATE: Oh yes. I edited it in Luminar 4.3. I gave it the Golden Hour Look. Then, I changed the sky for an evening sky from my own collection. But that exaggerated the green chromatic aberration on the right slope and the right wall of the castle. Luminar fixed that. I then gave it some Sunrays placing the Sun behind the castle. Lastly, I fixed the geometry and cropped it to a 16:9 ratio and gave it a slight vignette making the main building the subject. It looks fantastic. I wish I could show it to you. I know what my Desktop wallpaper is going to be for August 2020. Thank you very much.

[@jester1786]

Really enjoyed this and love the edit I came up with, also I began following you on Instagram and reached out to you on there.

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

Hi Jeremy, thanks for watching and glad you enjoyed it. I'll check out instagram as well so many thanks for that. Really appreciated😀👍👍

[@scomart]

Because it was soft, I sent your image through Topaz Sharpen AI. Wow! The software is just getting better and better? Have you tried it? Thanks for the video.

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

Glad you enjoyed it. I haven't used Topaz in years actually and I keep hearing great things about it so its maybe worth checking it out again😁👍👍

[@davidcarson2726]

Great videos Gary, always very helpful. How do I select, cut and then paste a part of a photo back into the same photo using Luminar 4 on a Macbook pro? Been trawling user groups but can't find anything. It was always very straightforward in Photoshop Elements on my PC.

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

Many thanks David, glad you enjoy the videos. One of the easiest ways would be to duplicate the layer and then using the edit mask option of that layer, paint back in the area you want to keep. If you then want to move it to another area, use the layer transform option. Hope that makes sense😁👍👍

[@davidcarson2726]

@@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer Thanks Gary. After a lot of faffing around, I got there in the end!

[@davidfimio6637]

Thank you!!

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

Glad you enjoyed it David, thanks again for watching 🙏😁👍

[@tinevanvoorst]

Great as ever. I like the new automatic red masking for painting in, but I can't find a way to disable it when erasing and it blocks my view of where I'm going... Any thoughts?

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

Thankyou very much. Its very handy the new masking tool isn't it. You may be able to turn down the opacity of it in the mask options but I'm not sure will have to check. If you can I'll make sure and mention in the next video. Thanks for watching🙏😁👍

[@Kit2Canada]

Remarkable, thank you. A couple of questions if I may. Do you print your own edits and how often do you print ?

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

Thanks for watching Kit. I don't actually print them myself I mostly use Loxely and as for frequency of prints tbh it just depends on the image itself. If I'm lucky 6 or 8 in a year😁👍👍

[@sisyphe2010]

hi , since I watch you I don't know if I became a pro of Luminar but certainly I did improve my understanding of the Scottish accent :-)) ... I wish I knew you before so I could understand the Gallagher brothers ( (I know there are from north England but it seem to be close from yours) during my last photo-session with them (so frustrating not to understand a single word) ... So please note , I love Scottish people and their folk accent but please just try to be more British if it's possible , for a French guy well trained in English it wasn't so easy to understand ;-) thanks ... best ...

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

Hi Franck, and thanks for watching. North England is different again in its accent and colloquialisms infact even 30 miles away from myself it differs greatly😁. Glad its helping you understand the scottish accent though. I'll try to be clearer but no promises mind 😉😁👍

[@jezzadenton8854]

Interestingly, I had a shadow from the castle that was definitely visible in the new sky. That was not visible in your video so I am wondering why it was so obvious on my screen. I followed along 100%...

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

Hi Jezza, not quite sure why that's happened. What to try is go into the history tab and uncheck each step (top down) until the shadow dissappears and that should provide the answer to where this has happened. Hope that helps😁👍👍

[@jezzadenton8854]

Thank you Gary. I will give that a go!

[@zaf9834]

How do you add ‘skies’ to the pallet permanent? I purchased some additional ones but each time i need to browse.

[@iraabramson3825]

When you lighten, are you adding noise when you play with the pixels.?

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

Hi Ira, if you haven't captured enough dynamic range in your image then yes you will introduce an amount of noise in the image especially the shadows. Its always a good idea to bracket depending on the camera of course and its dynamic range capabilities. Thanks for watching🙏😁👍

[@iraabramson3825]

Gary McIntyre Photographer I shoot raw and bracket. Satisfied 1880s doing Black and White had a dark room. But my filming hundred foot reels and rolled my spoiled my own. Learned what 18% gray was and how to meter accordingly. This is something that nobody realizes today or even knows about. Or even in monochrome nobody knows about Ansel Adams zone systems

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

@@iraabramson3825 I do miss the darkroom, the smell and of days spent not seeing any daylight. We still use light meters in teaching so not all is lost😁 The 11 zone system is no longer taught at colleges perhaps at University though👍

[@JJKebab9]

Have never used Lightroom, so I can't compare with that product. But, as much as I love the functionality of Luminar, even the most recent version is slow and crashes all the time, even on my new & beefed-up PC. Unless I see some *urgent* updates to the current product, I will not be touching any software from Skylum for the foreseeable future.

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

Hi Jonathan, sorry to hear that. I have heard other users saying the same but to be honest I'm unsure why this is. You probably have tried this but did you uninstall and then reinstall yeah? As I did have problems with the plugin at first.

[@JJKebab9]

@@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer Hi Gary. I'm using the standalone application, not the plugin. I have done a clean reinstall since the update. I work in software development, so I know how tricky it can be to write software that works across all systems. However, the problems being reported by users are so widespread that it points to more serious problems with the software itself. My beef with Skylum is that, given the huge numbers of users complaining, they have not reacted (never mind been proactive) well in addressing the problems.

[@cadencecreeker]

I followed along, paused your video when I was making adjustments. I learned a lot. Thank you....including the quality of the picture on KZbin is terrible. I also saved some of the photo when cropping by going out a little wider, leaving some of the grey in the corners, and then going to the erase tool, and erasing the grey. Since the sky was muted anyway, you couldn't tell the difference.

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

Glad you enjoyed the editing. Yeah it was a really driech day so plenty of grey skies.The image quality was actually my mac as its had enough of large files I think lol and can't process/render them quickly now so had to change to pc for future videos. Thanks for watching🙏😁👍👍

[@cadencecreeker]

@@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer I edited your picture on my iMac 5K and it looks great. I know that you said that your Mac is kind of old....I really like my Mac, good luck with the PC...Is there another Mac in your future?

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

@@cadencecreeker hi and yeah still got the mac desktop but its maxed out in terms of RAM and processing power for larger files. It can still render ok when opened as a plugin from Luminar but thats about it. Love mac but unfortunately its no longer meeting the requirements I need in terms of processing and rendering and with the new one at £4k thats a bit out of my budget. This entire video rendered in 4 mins on my pc which normally takes around 3 or 4 hrs on the mac so it was a kind of easy decision to move. The pc is a spec build so I focused on processor, threads, RAM and graphics to suits my needs.😁👍

[@cadencecreeker]

@@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer Yeah, Macs are kind of pricey. I am hoping that mine lasts a long time. I bumped up the RAM when I bought it two years ago (which is real easy to do), so I think that I am at 40 right now, but can bump it up to 64....which I will probably be doing soon. One of these days, I want to get to Scotland and take pictures of castles (it was a lot of fun editing that picture)...I live in Napa California, and there are not that many castles around here...just Vinyards. Of course, we will all have to wait for this pandemic to end. If you want to see some of my vineyard pictures, check out my Instagram account @deanruggierophotography.I just started really shooting landscapes this year. I usually do sports photography (I freelance for the local newspaper), but because of COVID, I started doing more landscapes...which I have always enjoyed. And, thanks to you and Luminar, I have been able to get some decent results.

[@mchammer5592]

I always have an internal struggle with sky replacement. I LOVE the effect and use it all the time, but I always feel like I’m faking it. 😂

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

😂 as long as you are honest and say I see no problem with it. Thanks for watching😁👍🙏

[@mchammer5592]

Gary McIntyre Photographer great tutorial by the way. Just subscribed, keep em coming!

[@andrewkift6746]

I too struggled with sky replacement initially but having thought it through not so much now. Firstly, I use my own skies and would recommend every time you go out to shoot and the sky is "good", grab a couple for your own sky library. Secondly, I ask myself, "are we trying to document a factual record (a smartphone would do perfectly for that) or are we trying to enhance, beautify and create an aesthetically pleasing image for its own sake, in effect art"? and in my case, the answer is yes.

[@davidoneill9442]

Dornie The biggest hangover I ever had In The Clachan next to the bridge

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

🤣it seems to be the place for them 😁😁🙏👍

[@worldfromtheair]

I must admit as much as I like Luminar I'm still in the (bad) habit of using camera raw to process RAW files as it seems to process distortion really well without cropping image size (compared to Luminar). Of course I then have to use save as TIFF as I use that in Luminar, but hopefully using TIFF means I don't loose too much info that would be present in RAW files. I guess it's a trade off. However, most of my shots are aerial panoramic shots, so I'm almost forced to stitch the RAW files into TIFF first before editing in Luminar anyway

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

I'm a massive camera RAW fan and user as well Rodger. Most if not all of my images will go through that process at one time or another. I also like the fact that you can open as a smart object from it or if the entire edits complete save from there as well😁👍👍

[@worldfromtheair]

Yeah, in my case Luminar 4 was a big eye opener, using that and watching videos like these, it finally dawned on me in these last few months how to edit a photo (well I at least I hope so), I would gladly move completely away from Photoshop as I think Luminar 4 is much quicker and easier to use (just for photos), hopefully things like RAW image processing will be improved so I can make the final move

[@fredrosenbaum8630]

The link to buy the Dragon Pack doesn't work.

[@fredrosenbaum8630]

of course a search on your site finds it right away.

[@GaryMcIntyrePhotographer]

@@fredrosenbaum8630 thanks for letting me know Fred, I'll get the link updated👍 thanks for watching😁👍👍