Photolemur 3 review: highly recommended

Photolemur 3 review: highly recommended

Introduction

Photolemur is an automatic photo enhancer that uses Artificial Intelligence to enhance your pictures, be it RAW files or jpegs. You can use it directly by drag and dropping images onto the interface directly or from applications such as Windows Photos, or both Mac and Windows versions of Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom.

Previous versions and Skylum

Photolemur has been around for a few years, and earlier versions weren’t really worth the expense as you can read here in my original Photolemur  1 and 2 review. 

But since Skylum (or Macphun as it used to be called) bought this technology, a few important things have changed. No longer can we say that images look over processed. In fact the enhancements look very natural with a good degree of added sharpness, contrast and vibrancy. And a few new features that I will talk about later.

RAW support

Besides JPEG, TIFF and DNG files, RAW files are now also supported. If you are a castle free jpeg only shooter, I would highly recommend to start shooting in RAW camera format and quickly running everything through Photolemur 3 for a more polished and generally more eye-pleasing image.

Photolemur 3.0 in use

It’s a simple matter of drag and dropping  photos, or choose images using the ‘Import’ button in order to gain access to the advanced Photolemur third generation technology. After the logarithmic calculations have been made, you can view the difference between the quality of the original image and Photolemur’s edit. This by using the ‘before/after’ slider. To save the photo, simply click on the ‘Export’ button and choose any of the export options.

New features

What I especially like in this new and tweaked version of Photolemur are the Facial retouch and Eye enlarger functionalities. Let’s look at these functions and see what they do with real life images.

Facial Retouch

The new Facial Retouch tool can be used to improve the look of skin and teeth and remove eye circles and wrinkles. You should look at this as a photoshop lite version which makes enhancements similar to what a plugin like Perfectly Clear does. It’s a method that retouches faces without getting a fake “photoshopped” or iPhone processed look.

The results are similar to pictures taken of your subject on a good day, with enough sleep and feeling happy.

Eye Enlarger

Photolemur 3.0 also has a brand new Eye Enlarger tool. It can recognize and enlarge eyes for a more awake and I had my coffee look. Again, it’s not exaggerated at all but a slight enhancement that makes all the difference to the final picture. Your subject will be happy and so will you.

Photolemur Styles

There are now 6 uniques styles available in Photolemur 3, which can be applied to your photos to make any image look perfect. Think of them as presets for a different look or feel, without the hassle of image processing software like Lightroom or Photoshop.

We’ll have a look at the available presets. We’l start off with the original image, a horseman from the Nomad games held in Kyrgyztan last September 2018. Fantastic experience with lots of photo opportunities by the way.

Evolve preset

The Photolemur 3 “Evolve” preset adds more warm tones and increases both local and global contrast. It’s reminiscent of Kodak film from the early seventies.

Apollo preset

The “Apollo” preset takes us back to the mid sixties with a shift in both reds and greens. Great for blogging or instagram.

Fall preset

Another retro style preset, “Fall” increases saturation I the red channel for a warmer, vintage final image.

Noble preset

The “Noble” preset does not have such a big impact than many of the other presets, instead it decreases some saturation and flattens the tune curve like what would happen in analogue film.

Spirited preset

The “Spirited” preset is a more modern take on Fuji analogue film. Works well on some images though not on this particular one that already has lots of earth tones.

Noble preset

The “Mono” preset is currently the only black and white preset available. I think it’s a good idea to leaver the interface as simple as possible as Photolemur 3 should be RAW images on autopilot without too much hassle. The “Mono” preset is a nice B&W conversion though, with lots of contrast for a classic black and white look.

New Export and batch processing functionality

It’s now possible to export directly to SmugMug and seamlessly apply Settings to all images; for me, the big advantage is that you can make a preset and apply Boost, Styles, and Facial Retouch to a batch of images. Easy for your landscape shots or that series from the wedding.

Use Photolemur as a Windows Photos extension

1. Checkmark Photolemur in System Preferences > Extensions.

2. Open a photo in Photos and go to the editing screen by clicking the edit button.

3. Click on “Extensions” and choose Photolemur.

4. Photolemur will launch in extension mode. After the magic is done you can set the intensity of the adjustments using our opacity slider.

5. When you’re satisfied with the result click on “Save Changes”. The edited photo will automatically return to Photos.

Photolemur as a Lightroom and Photoshop plugin

Purchase and availability

With a single license, you can activate Photolemur on one computer now with a 35% discount (only $22.99) for a short time here: Photolemur 3 Single licence.

The single licence is now 30% off for a limited time for only $22.99, the family licence for up to 5 computers is $39 with discount here: Photolemur 3 family license (5 devices).

And I can offer you a 30% off coupon code with this coupon:  WimArys30%off