can load your own skies into Luminar. However,
they must be tif or jpeg files. If most of your pic-
tures are in the psd format (as mine are), the im-
ages you want to work on in Luminar 4 must be
converted to tif or jpeg using the command: File
save as. In the dialog box, you can choose the
file format.
Luminar 4 has a lot of creative tools. Some are
very similar to other plugins such as structure,
clarity, color enhancement, etc. As you can see in
the screen capture of Luminar’s dialog box below,
there are also many presets to choose from. It’s
great to have so many ways of tweaking images
in one software package, but it is the sky replace-
ment feature that is particularly brilliant.
To replace a sky, first open an image in Photo-
shop. In the example below, the original picture
shows two roseate spoonbills in flight against a
bland and uninteresting sky. Then open Luminar
4 using the Filter pulldown menu. Choose the
Creative submenu by clicking the icon indicated
by the red arrow. The first item (green arrow be-
low) indicates AI Sky Replacement. When
you click that, another dialog box opens
(shown above). The Sky Selection (blue ar-
row) option only appears if there is a clearly