Luminar 4 and Black and White Film Emulation
Skylum's Luminar 4 is scheduled for public release next week and has already been made available to those of us who took advantage of a pre-release discount back in July.
Opening to mostly rave reviews, this photo editor for Windows and Mac platforms has some great new tools using AI technology, including sky replacement and quick enhancement of faces in portraits. For us black and white enthusiasts, there are also dozens of black and white presets that can be downloaded for use in Luminar. But the latest version continues the company's failure to attend to weaknesses in the emulation of the look of black and white films.
This is particularly disappointing since Macphun's Tonality CK plugin for the Mac platform had the best monochrome film presets of any software I have used.
I ran a test of several photo editors that reproduce the look of black and white films, comparing their "out-of-the-box" presets for Ilford SFX 200, a black and white film in 120 or 35mm sizes for standard panchromatic work or with specific filters, producing an infrared look.
Here's the master color image I used, a close-up of a grungy sign on a storefront. Development and processing was in Luminar 4. Note this image has no blue tones, which for this film presets should result in very dark tones.
The first black and white rendering below is from the Luminar 4 "Look," a preset assigned the Ilford SFX 200 label. This look came from a suite of presets that was developed for an earlier version of Luminar. Unfortunately, it's the worst of my examples here. Luminar 4 lacks a border/frame feature and will not add watermarks.
The best of the trials, the second black and white example, is from Macphun Tonality CK, one of a suite of plugins marketed for Mac computers before the introduction of Luminar for both the Mac and Windows worlds, and the point when Macphun became Skylum. So, Tonality is now legacy software and no longer available for sale. Tonality CK has a limited, but very good selection of borders that may be used with the final rendering. It does not handle watermarks.
The third rendering example was produced by the black and white film preset for Ilford SFX 200 in ON1 Photo RAW 2020. It should be noted Photo RAW also has a large selection of borders that can be added, and it processes watermarks, also.
The final example was produced in Exposure X5, the editor from Exposure Software, the company formerly known as Alien Skin. Exposure produces the biggest and best variety of black and white and color film emulations for digital images. Exposure contains a an extensive set of borders most appropriate for use with old-look films, and the borders don't necessarily retain their size ratios on non-standard image sizes. Watermarks can be added automatically on export.
DxO FilmPack 5 is another software product with great film emulations, but they are limited in number and do not include Ilford SFX 200. Thus I didn't include FilmPack in this test.
I should emphasize that I tested only one image here, and the results could vary with another picture of different colors. It's also important to note that each of these products contains adjustments which replicate the various color glass filters used with black and white films. In theory, with proper adjustment of the sliders, one should be able to get comparable results with each of the software apps.
However, busy photographers don't want to spend a lot of time twiddling sliders of one product that can be achieved out of the box with another app. And with black and white film looks, Luminar 4 just doesn't make the grade, in my opinion. I'll use Luminar 4 for color work, but for emulation of a standard black and white film look I'll stick with Tonality CK, running as a plugin in PhotoLine.
Opening to mostly rave reviews, this photo editor for Windows and Mac platforms has some great new tools using AI technology, including sky replacement and quick enhancement of faces in portraits. For us black and white enthusiasts, there are also dozens of black and white presets that can be downloaded for use in Luminar. But the latest version continues the company's failure to attend to weaknesses in the emulation of the look of black and white films.
This is particularly disappointing since Macphun's Tonality CK plugin for the Mac platform had the best monochrome film presets of any software I have used.
I ran a test of several photo editors that reproduce the look of black and white films, comparing their "out-of-the-box" presets for Ilford SFX 200, a black and white film in 120 or 35mm sizes for standard panchromatic work or with specific filters, producing an infrared look.
Here's the master color image I used, a close-up of a grungy sign on a storefront. Development and processing was in Luminar 4. Note this image has no blue tones, which for this film presets should result in very dark tones.
 |
| Luminar 4 rendering of a sign with plenty of red tones but no blue ones. |
The first black and white rendering below is from the Luminar 4 "Look," a preset assigned the Ilford SFX 200 label. This look came from a suite of presets that was developed for an earlier version of Luminar. Unfortunately, it's the worst of my examples here. Luminar 4 lacks a border/frame feature and will not add watermarks.
 |
| Selecting the "Ilford SFX 200" Look in Luminar renders the above image as the default. |
The best of the trials, the second black and white example, is from Macphun Tonality CK, one of a suite of plugins marketed for Mac computers before the introduction of Luminar for both the Mac and Windows worlds, and the point when Macphun became Skylum. So, Tonality is now legacy software and no longer available for sale. Tonality CK has a limited, but very good selection of borders that may be used with the final rendering. It does not handle watermarks.
 |
| Black and white rendering of the Ilford SFX 200 film emulation from Macphun Tonality CK via the German photo editor, PhotoLine. Tonality is no longer sold nor supported by Skylum, but if you still have it (or have a license to download it), the plugin can be run on Photoshop and some other editors. Unfortunately, it won't work on Affinity Photo. |
The third rendering example was produced by the black and white film preset for Ilford SFX 200 in ON1 Photo RAW 2020. It should be noted Photo RAW also has a large selection of borders that can be added, and it processes watermarks, also.
 |
| Black and white film-look rendering of BF9, the Ilford SFX 200 preset in the B&W Film set of presents in ON1 Photo RAW 2020. |
The final example was produced in Exposure X5, the editor from Exposure Software, the company formerly known as Alien Skin. Exposure produces the biggest and best variety of black and white and color film emulations for digital images. Exposure contains a an extensive set of borders most appropriate for use with old-look films, and the borders don't necessarily retain their size ratios on non-standard image sizes. Watermarks can be added automatically on export.
 |
| Default rendering from the Exposure X5 B&W Infrared Film BF9 preset for Ilford SFX 200. |
DxO FilmPack 5 is another software product with great film emulations, but they are limited in number and do not include Ilford SFX 200. Thus I didn't include FilmPack in this test.
I should emphasize that I tested only one image here, and the results could vary with another picture of different colors. It's also important to note that each of these products contains adjustments which replicate the various color glass filters used with black and white films. In theory, with proper adjustment of the sliders, one should be able to get comparable results with each of the software apps.
However, busy photographers don't want to spend a lot of time twiddling sliders of one product that can be achieved out of the box with another app. And with black and white film looks, Luminar 4 just doesn't make the grade, in my opinion. I'll use Luminar 4 for color work, but for emulation of a standard black and white film look I'll stick with Tonality CK, running as a plugin in PhotoLine.
Updated 16 November 2019
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