Skylum's debacle: on the pursuit of money rather than value.
4800000 paid out, but not enough to ever get Integrity back.
Well, yep. We all fell for it.
Tales of a company working for profit, not for value.
DISCLAIMER:
I am not paid by anyone. I dislike Adobe as much as the next guy. I just have a limited tolerance to bullshit, and I think Skylum is full of it with Luminar 4. Yes, I have used it. It’s terribly buggy.
Is there a better showcase example of a company that decided to invest more on marketing then coders/programers? Nope.
Skylum wins the award for the most hyped product of 2019 in the photography community. They had top promotion space on Dpreview, Fujirumors, Shotkit and the likes. See how the got promoted.
Thanks to a reader who compile those quotes from me. These are photographers that sold out.
What YOUR favorite photographers and websites have been saying about Luminar 4.
"The truth is, there’s never been post-processing software available to consumers that’s quite like this…
"Skylum has turned the photography industry on its head with the release of Luminar 4. It’s no exaggeration to say that photo editing will never be the same again."
- Mark Condon, Shotkit (review)
https://shotkit.com/luminar-review/
"Luminar 4 is full of easy-to-use editing tools that are perfect for photographers who want to streamline the process of editing their photos."
"Speed improvements to the software are evident"
"Clearly Skylum has taken the necessary time and money to invest in Luminar 4 to create a serious contender."
"The 'usual' photo-editors feel monotonous and old compared to Luminar 4 – and Skylum has breathed some necessary life into the photo-editing process."
- Will Nicholls, Nature TTL (review)
https://www.naturettl.com/luminar-4-review/
"I've tested an early beta release and found the new features, particularly sky replacement, rather incredible."
"Luminar 4 is a breakthrough tool because of its clever use of AI that brings real results that are still under the photographers control. The one-click sky replacement is absolutely stunning."
- Fstoppers (advance review)
https://fstoppers.com/originals/luminar-4-coming-soon-here-fstoppers-advance-review-417941
"So far, I have honestly been blown away with both of the 'Sneak peeks' that Skylum has offered to their new software"
- SLR Lounge (preview)
https://www.slrlounge.com/skylum-luminar-4-ai-structure/
"A New Era of Photo Editing"
" I was skeptical when first learning about the new Luminar 4 and how they’ve added several tools using Artificial Intelligence (AI). By experience, automation and photo-editing rarely go well together. Luminar 4 proved me wrong. Very wrong."
"I can highly recommend this for anyone who’s curious to make a change or looking for a software to get started with."
- Capture Landscapes (review)
https://www.capturelandscapes.com/luminar-4-review/
"[Skylum] is about to drop Luminar 4, and it’s certainly something we should all be excited about."
"To say that Skylum has brought it in Luminar 4 is an understatement."
- Photography Talk
https://www.photographytalk.com/luminar-4-first-impressions
"As a Lightroom alternative, it is still lacking some key features, especially around metadata, and the performance when loading images is still a little slow compared to other applications."
"Depending on your needs it may well suffice, but on the library and organising side of things, it still needs a lot of work."
Score: 4/5
- Thomas Fitzgerald Photography (review)
https://blog.thomasfitzgeraldphotography.com/blog/2019/11/luminar-4-review
"The performance of Luminar 4 is much improved compared to Luminar 3."
"Luminar is also the ideal solution for newcomers who want to learn photo editing but are intimidated by Lightroom’s complexity."
- Phototraces (review)
https://www.phototraces.com/b/luminar-review-skylum/
"So...Luminar 4 is out and I've finally had some time to give it try. I absolutely love it!"
- Richard Bernabe
https://twitter.com/bernabephoto/status/1197569186718982146?s=20
“...the features and use of artificial intelligence is incredible but in a logical way."
"Luminar 4 wants you to grow with it and I can definitely recommend it for multiple reasons.”
Beginner Photography Podcast (review)
https://www.beginnerphotographypodcast.com/photography-tips/skylum-luminar-4-photo-editor-review
"Luminar 4 is a quantum leap forward. It offers tools that everyone needs and nobody else provides."
- Andy Bell Photography (review)
https://www.andybellphotography.com/blog/2019/11/11/skylum-luminar-4-first-looks/
"This is a very positive review, I’ll tell you right now. If you just trust me, then go grab the new Luminar 4 now!"
"Luminar is a great photo editing program that is simple, fun, and fast."
"It’s extremely easy and fun to use and designed for all skill levels."
"You’ll find the controls in Luminar are much more powerful than the ones in Lightroom. I’d also wager to say that Luminar has at least 5 times as many control options as Lightroom."
"Better than Lightroom?... Well, YES, it is better in many ways. As of the time of writing this, I’m still using Lightroom to organize my photos because moving several hundred thousand is quite a project but for everything else, it’s Luminar for me. As I mentioned, Lightroom is so slow."
- Trey Ratcliff, Stuck in Customs (review)
https://stuckincustoms.com/luminar-review/
Had enough bullshit? These guys lied to the community. Why? To get those sweet affiliate dollars. Andy Bell Photography calls it a quantum leap software: at this point, he is just f-cking with us. It is a garbage product, sold by photographer who rather make a buck then giving value. It is just sad.
Skylum MUST have known that their software was not fully baked. They got greedy: instead of hiring more coders, beta-testers and software engineers, they kept a lean team to spend less. Wanna bet that was the case?
You know what kills a company in 2020? Greediness. The web community has no mercy for these scammers.
What a let down. A quick look at Skylum own support forum will tell the story, while a look at Dpreview comment section will reaffirm the case that Luminar 4 is half-garbage, half-buggy-lightroom-wanna-be-replacement.
Yes, I’ve tried Luminar 4 on my Macbook Pro (i7, 16gb ram, 1gb video, 500 ssd): Atrocious performance. It lags! It lags! I reached 730% CPU usage to put a simple color filter over a 1mb photo. It crashed a few times. I lost the first edition of this article when Luminar 4 crashed my whole Macbook Pro (a rarity). I wanted to like this software. After all, I am the one writing a post about me leaving the Adobe Empire a few days ago.
See some comments and CPU usage:
Why the hell is using 2.40gb of ram for one picture?
735% CP Usage.
This guy tells it.
There are hundreds of negative opinion about Luminar 4: yet, many bloggers “rave” about it. Are you f-cking me? Are these guys paid by Skylum? No – but they get the juicy money from affiliate link.
Where is the integrity these days?
Luminar 3 was a half-baked, over-promised and under-delivered type of software. Dpreview, Shotkit and many others promoted Luminar 4 despite that fact. Now Luminar 4 also turns out to be a piece of junk… It’s like, can we just all stop a second and help each other out for real?
Maybe we should just sit down and create our own piece of software, a la Aperture 3. Maybe I’m not kidding.
Anyone else have trouble with Luminar 4?
JP
(See for yourself the comments)