Читать книгу The Photographer's Guide to Luminar 4 - Jeff Carlson - Страница 37

Some applications that manage a photo library store image files in specific locations. Lightroom (the newer, cloud-focused version, not Lightroom Classic) and Apple Photos default to putting the files into their own directories, which aren’t in user-accessible locations. Luminar, by contrast, can use any folder on your computer.

Initially, Luminar starts building your library by setting the Pictures folder as the default source, since that’s likely where your existing photos are stored. You’ll see those photos show up in the Library module as Luminar scans the folder and any subfolders it contains.

If that’s where all your images reside, you don’t need to do anything else. All new photos added to that directory automatically appear in your library.

A Case for Not Using the Pictures Folder

Your computer’s Pictures folder is the natural location for photos, so it makes sense to start there when building a library from scratch. However, if your Pictures folder is like mine, there’s a lot of detritus you may not want in your Luminar library.

Pictures is the default image dumping ground for most applications, meaning you may scoop up a lot of unrelated photos, thumbnails, and miscellany. Instead, I suggest storing your photo library in a different directory. It can be a folder within Pictures, or elsewhere on disk. To accomplish this, remove the Pictures folder as a source folder in Luminar, and then add your dedicated library folder as a new source folder.

FIGURE 2-9: Duplicate the Background layer in Photoshop before you use Luminar’s plug-in.