It certainly is a kind of tone mapping, and yes there are some color artifacts, but at 100% they are not overtly distracting. Those tradeoffs are small for my photography needs and audience, and far less distracting than the artifacts from RTs tone mapping.
The fringing appears in both photographs, so I don’t know what you’re seeing, but if you can point them out more clearly I’d like to know what I’m missing.
Hi, I got the strong impression that I don’t like your Luminar version and not your RT version. I fear you will say the same about my RT version …
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Hi,
thanks. To be honest, I do not like your Luminar version, it’s really not my taste. However, I’m not here to criticize 
so I tried to get in the same ballpark with RT. This is not how I would process your image, but maybe you find this acceptable? 
You can’t see it, agriggio, but your versions lower midtones are EXTREMELY flat. Apply it to a portrait shot and you’ll see it more clearly, where faces will be solid grey… The Luminar version has no issues like that.
Your curve flattens out all details and color in the lower midtones. 
took me 50 sec in LR
and with a gradient mask
I also betatested Luminar (and for that matter most of professional photo and video software out there), has some interesting tools, lum masks, wow effects (which are hard to tame) – ah the IA, yes yes, the AY! - and plenty filters. They keep adding stuff but even with saved pressets (which do not keeo the masks) at the core the workflow is way too slow for me.
It is interesting to see where the guys who want to eat the crumbs left by adobe’s super duper tyranic system are going, they are probably all going to the restroom to copy each other to death {sigh}… I haven’t seen anything worth writting home about… not in the DAM world… the last surprise was Oleg’s innovative 3DLut creator (like in 2013) and very possitive experience from camera bag photo, very cool, even if they max output is 8bit tifs. Sorry I digress
2 min in Photoflow, lift shadows w luma mask, oposite with HL, split details as TM
the horrendous desktop wallpapper is from apterus 
Well, I can’t say I disagree, but OTOH I did tell you I didn’t like it 
Just FYI, here’s a version that I consider acceptable – without any attempt to emulate what Luminar gives. (warning: you may very well dislike this as much as the previous one)
If you want to strongly boost midtones & shadows, this looks decent to me. Done with Darktable.
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Since you don’t care about halos and poisonous vegetation, BAMM:
Do I like my version? Hell, no but I shot everythnig I could find at it! 
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@Halo I believe the point of your post is that you want a one-slider solution to add contrast to the highlights, and I would like that too. An “Add punch to the clouds without halos in the sky” slider.
As for the instagrammed Luminar challenge,
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Thanks for your thoughts, everyone. I tried some suggestions. Some came close, but ultimately a few sliders to put contrast and color back into compressed highlights would be hugely useful I think to the majority of RT users who love the interface and control.
RT is the best raw converter I’ve ever used, and I’ve used so many the past decade and a half. I love it, and I hope sometime this feature can be built in. It would perfectly round out the program for all my needs.
Today I received an email promotion about upcoming Luminar 2018. I think this post of @Halo is an advertisement because this person seem to be just repeating that Luminar has what he wants and RT doesn’t. I hope @Halo (who joined this forum just a day ago) clarifies this doubt to all of us.
For Macphun’renown I hope no, as the processing example provided seems to me very bad and overdone.
Surely @Halo doesn’t fear halos 
Easy now guys, let’s keep the accusations to a minimum. The best thing about this forum is that we welcome all people. 
I’m not a perfectionist, no, but I also would just be happy if I could get more color and contrast in highlights alone. I don’t need shadow boosting as much.
Neither me and sorry for the joke
Haha. I don’t plan on buying Luminar 2018 and I would discourage folks from doing so if they don’t need contrast and color boost in compressed highlights. I need it for a very, very limited number of files.
Furthermore, the program is hugely buggy on my machine, and Macphun has been less than forthcoming with a proper solution. For that reason along I will not be buying as product support for a paid product is essential for me.
If that improves markedly, then I’ll spam this board until the very end about the awesomeness of Luminar. lol
