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Opening Images for Editing

  • Updated

There are several ways to open images for editing in LuminarAI.

  • You can add folders, leaving your photos exactly where they are on your hard drive.
  • You can import images from a memory card or external drive, moving or copying them to a new location.
  • You can open images from any location with the Edit Single Image command, which allows you to easily edit and export photos that you don’t want to keep in your Luminar Catalog.

Editing a Single Image

The Edit Single Image… command makes it easy to work with individual photos in LuminarAI. It’s also useful for editing images that are not in your LuminarAI Catalog. Editing a single image is similar to using previous versions of Luminar as a standalone application.

When to Use the Edit Single Image Command

When you want to edit a single image or several images but not Add or Import them to your Catalog, you can use the Edit Single Image… command. This is great in situations when you want to develop a few photos or when you have a photo you want to quickly process but not keep in your Catalog after you’re done editing it.
When you open an image with Edit Single Image, the file remains in its original location on your hard drive and you can access the image in a special collection in your Catalog panel called Single Image Edits.

  1. You can open a single photo for editing in one of four ways:
    • Click the + button in the top toolbar and choose Edit Single Image…
    • Choose File > Edit Single Image…
    • Press Cmd+O (macOS) or Ctrl+O (Windows)
    • On macOS, drag an image onto the LuminarAI application icon
  2. A Finder or File Explorer window will appear. Navigate to the image(s) you want to edit.
  1. Select the image(s) you want to edit. (You can select multiple images using the modifier keys Shift and Cmd/Ctrl.)
  2. Click Open. The image(s) you’ve selected will appear in the Filmstrip. If you’ve selected multiple images, the first image you selected will be opened in the main window and will be ready to edit.
  1. To select another image to edit, scroll through the Filmstrip or open the Catalog tab.
  2. You can save your edited images for use in other applications in the Export tab.

Managing Images in the Single Image Edits Collection

Images will stay in your Single Image Edits collection until you remove them. This collection is built automatically. You can use the Showing: and By: drop-down menus in the top right corner of the Single Image Edits window to reduce the number of images shown or change the order in which they are displayed.

  1. To remove an image from the Single Image Edits collection, right-click on the image.
  2. Then select Remove from Single Image Edits in the menu that opens.
  1. This will remove the image from your Catalog but keep the file safely in its original location. If you decide you want to keep a Single Image Edits photo in your Catalog, you can simply drag it to any of the folders in your Catalog panel. The original photo will then be moved on your hard drive to the folder you place it in within your LuminarAI Catalog. Even though the image is now part of your regular Catalog, it will still show up under the Single Image Edits collection until you remove it from there.

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