Luminar 4 cheat sheet: How to find your way around the Luminar 4 Library window
The Luminar 4 Library window is where you do all of your image opening, importing and organizing. You select the Library view using the first of three buttons (6) at the top of the tools panel on the right. The second button (7) is for the Edit view. The third Info view (8) simply displays the camera’s EXIF (shooting) information.
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The Library view actually has two modes. This is the Gallery view (4) which shows your images as thumbnails. There’s also a Single Image view (5) which shows a selected photo full size with basic editing controls. There is a second cheat sheet for this.
It’s also possible to open and edit images individually from your computer (1) without importing the whole folder, just like the ‘old’ Luminar and a regular photo editor.
Key: Luminar 4 Library view annotations
If you click on the annotated screenshot above it will open in a new tab. This might make it easier to swap between the screenshot and the annotations.
1 ADD FOLDER/EDIT IMAGE
Luminar stores your images in a catalog so you need to import them first. Once a folder is imported, Luminar will monitor and update it ‘live’.
2 THUMBNAIL SIZE
You can change the size of the thumbnail images in the Gallery view. Here, it’s set to Small, a good compromise between easily identifying photos and getting more of them on the screen.
3 EXPORT IMAGE
You can export images as an email or SMS attachment or send them to Smugmug if you have an account. You can also send them directly to other photo editing applications.
4 GALLERY VIEW
There are two viewing options in the Luminar library. Gallery View (the most useful) shows all the images in a selected Folder or Album as thumbnails and is best for filtering, finding and organizing photos.
5 SINGLE IMAGE VIEW
If you double-click a thumbnail in the Gallery View, it opens in Single Image View. This is not the main editing window, just a way to view a large versions of a photo without leaving Gallery View.
6 LIBRARY WINDOW
The Library view, selected here, is where you import, view and organize the photos in your catalog.
7 EDIT WINDOW
If you want to edit images in depth, you need to switch to Edit mode. There is a separate cheat sheet for this.
8 INFO
This is the third viewing option, but in reality it does very little, simply displaying the EXIF (shooting) information for the current image.
9 SHORTCUTS
These shortcuts are created automatically by Luminar to help you find your Favorite images, Recently Added images, images from specific dates and more.
10 ALBUMS
These are ‘virtual’ collections of photos. A single photo can be in many different albums. You add images to Albums manually – Luminar does not yet offer ‘smart albums’ based on searches.
11 FOLDERS
All the folders you import into the Luminar catalog are shown here. These are real ‘live’ folders. Any changes you make here will be reflected on your computer, and vice versa.
12 GALLERY THUMBNAILS
You can double-click a thumbnail to open the photo in Single Image view, click to select it and then swap to Edit mode, or multiple-select images for moving them between Folders and Albums.
