Luminar 4 - latest before and after images

I have been playing around with some of the new features in Skylum's Luminar 4 (pre-release) and I have another pair of before and after images to share with you. Firstly, here is the before image:

Now this is an image I took on my FujiFilm X-T2 using my FujiFilm 50-140mm f/2.8 R LM OIS WR lens. I had the camera on a tripod and the exposure was ISO 6400, aperture f/5, shutter speed 1/60 sec and focal length 70mm (105mm full-frame equivalent).

As you can see the image is a little dark which was intentional as I didn't want to over-expose the bright lights on the container ship and docks. Even so, when checking I could see that some of the brightest light sources were clipped but as they appear small in the image you don't notice them when viewing normally.

Now, as I was shooting well after sunset I know that once I correct the exposure there will be noise in the image and I will need to do something about that.

So, once I boosted the exposure to lighten the image I had to use the Denoise tool to reduce the visibility of both Luminosity and Colour Noise in the image. However, this had too much of an impact on the details of the ship and docks so I used the masking option in the Denoise tool to mask out those areas of the image that I didn't want the Denoise effect to impact on. I then did some modest Sharpening to bring out more details in the ship and docks.

I tweaked a few other setting such as dialling back the shadows, using the AI Enhance Tool to improve the overall look of the image. After these tweaks this is the final image:

You do need to see the images at a larger size to appreciate the changes so do click here to see the larger versions. I know that there isn't a great deal of difference (when you view in the blog post) but do check the images out at the larger size on my Flickr page.

If you wish to pre-order Luminar 4 you can do so here: Luminar Pre-order at a Special Price.

Update: If you buy the bundle that gives you Luminar 3 now, a collection of Luminar Looks and Luminar 4 when it is released, you can get an additional discount using my personal code newbeltane at checkout.

In the meantime be sure to check back for my post showing before and after images using the A! Sky Replacement feature. It's pretty awesome!