It’s been a while since I took a look at the photo editing app Luminance here. It’s a photo editor that gives you both one-click filters as well as some pretty slick pro photo editing capabilities in a simple and elegant interface. It’s not a Photoshop-for-the-iPhone, but Luminance can easily do nearly all of the edits and color moves many iPhoneographers are likely to need.
Read more about the update after the jump. >>>
I previously reviewed version 1.0 of the app about a year ago. I liked it, but version 1.0 was missing features that several updates since have added, really improving the usability of the app. The latest version isn’t a huge update, but adds some good features to help make the app even more usable.
I noticed a bug or two in the newly revised filters and presets, so I suspect there will be a maintenance update soon. The new update features four new one-click filters — presets loaded with various adjustments. The new presets are Florence, Azul, Fade B&W, and the missing Verana, which I couldn’t find in the new presets. There’s a blank preset, but I don’t think that it’s the missing filter. In Luminance’s excellent History tab, the blank preset shows up as (null). It looks like a no-filter or original setting even though it’s not at the end of the panel where you’d expect. This isn’t a dealbreaker for me. Everything works, but it’s frustrating and should have been caught in beta.
You can now view a lot of important photo info and Exif data, including photo location, camera, shot settings, timestamp, etc. In the FX or Adjustment screens, simply tap the lower righthand corner of the image to toggle photo info and full-screen view options.
Luminance now has Undo. You can now swipe the screen to undo or redo actions.
One last undocumented bit…. Luminance is no longer old iPhone-friendly. You’ll now need at least iOS 4.1 to use the app. That means the very oldest iPhones are no longer supported.
Luminance supports greater than 8 MP images and preserves and saves the EXIF data in an image, including Geotags.
There are still no frames or textures. Luminance, like its name implies, is all about light and color. Despite the one or two bugs in this update, it’s an easy to use image editor with plenty of one-click presets to add any of several retro analog looks to a photo. It’s powerful enough to make some critical color moves, and it’s super easy to copy your adjustments and apply them to other images.
Luminance is $0.99. It’s a Universal app, so it’ll run great on an iPhone or iPad. Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.Requires iOS 4.1 or later.
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