Luma Portrait

Luma Portrait is a native photo and portrait editor for Mac and iPad. Organize a project, select images, develop color, retouch individual people, make local adjustments and export finished photographs in one workspace.

Take each photo to a result you like

• Non-destructive projects: organize ratings and retouch flags, save adjustments and masks with undo/redo support, and keep edited results separate from original photographs.
• A complete color workspace: lighting, white balance, levels, curves, color editing and balance, presets and LUTs, with local layers and opacity controls.
• Individual portrait adjustments: detect people locally and adjust skin, tone and available facial/body controls separately. Controls are disabled when reliable detection is unavailable.
• Detail and creative tools: liquify, healing, clone stamp, brushes, crop, editable text and imported overlays.
• Color Expert: choose a reference locally, compare before and after, adjust strength and apply editable layers. Reuse a reference for batch color transfer.
• Original-resolution output: export JPEG, PNG or 16-bit TIFF while keeping the project and editable settings.

Manual editing, built-in person analysis and local color transfer do not depend on remote AI. An optional assistant can use a local or remote image model you configure for reversible editing suggestions. Read this app's privacy notice before using it.

Version 1.0 (2026102302) is preparing for release. It supports macOS 15.6 or later and iPadOS 18.6 or later, with no iPhone version. A store download link will be added when publicly available.

1. Create a project and import

Create a project from the home screen and confirm its name and folder. Choose photos from files, folders or the system photo library, select candidates and confirm. Drag and drop also opens an import confirmation. Supported inputs include JPEG, PNG, HEIC/HEIF, TIFF, Sony ARW and DNG/Apple ProRAW; support for a particular RAW camera depends on the system decoder.

File imports can reference originals directly or create copies in your chosen import directory. Photo-library imports create copies. Only the still image of a Live Photo is imported, and iCloud-only items may need downloading. Files delivered by the photo library are not necessarily unmodified camera RAW files.

2. Select images and save work

Open a photo from the main asset panel. Use round selection controls for batches and organize ratings and retouch flags. Removing a photo requires confirmation, can be undone and preserves the external original.

Projects store adjustments, person masks, thumbnails and caches, with idle autosave as well as explicit saving. Keep referenced originals when moving a project, or use Relocate Original if a file cannot be found. Save Project Copy gathers available external originals into a portable .lumaportrait package; it fails clearly if an original is missing. External-reference projects use format version 2 and cannot be opened by older app versions.

3. Develop color, then refine locally

Adjust lighting, white balance, detail, levels and curves with sliders, numeric entry or individual resets. Add adjustment layers and control their scope with rectangle, lasso, brush, person, background or skin masks, feathering, inversion and opacity.

For reference-based color, open Color Expert at the top, select an image and compare Before / After / Reference. Adjust overall or individual-person strength before applying. Check representative photos before a batch; batch application can be undone. Color transfer is not pixel-for-pixel copying and cannot create lighting, materials or details absent from the source. Existing deformations, strokes or decorations can limit availability, so consider color transfer before retouching.

4. Retouch people and details

Person detection runs locally after a photo loads. Select one person or everyone in the portrait panel and use available skin, tone, facial and body controls. Incomplete detection or unreliable landmarks can disable a control. Check overlapping people, clothing and edges.

Use canvas tools for liquify, small blemish repair, cloning, whitening touch-ups or crop. Choose a clone source first; Option-click changes it on Mac. Healing targets local blemishes rather than large-scale generative reconstruction. Hide Person produces transparency and does not automatically reconstruct the entire background behind someone.

Mac supports a mouse, trackpad and keyboard shortcuts. iPad supports touch and Apple Pencil features on compatible hardware; pressure, hover and squeeze availability depend on the device.

5. Configure the optional assistant

Manual editing and export work without the assistant. If needed, add a service address, image-capable model, Token and reasoning level in Settings. A local service may allow a blank Token. Use a trusted HTTPS address for remote services.

Load Model List contacts the service. Saving a connection for the first time sends a locally generated digit image to test vision and may incur provider charges. Before sending a conversation, review the text, current-preview option and reference attachment. The request can also contain editing settings, regions and image-analysis attachments. Text-only requests may still include the current photo's editing context; turning off the preview does not mean no data is transmitted.

If Prefer DeepSeek at Night is enabled, conversations between 20:00 and 08:00 may use a saved, image-verified DeepSeek connection instead of the selected connection. Turn this option off if you do not want switching. Check the actual configuration and request information. One operation may involve multiple model requests; charges and server retention follow the relevant provider's terms.

Some validated color results apply automatically, while portrait suggestions generally require confirmation. Both can be undone. Review the result before saving finished work; an AI suggestion is not a visual-quality guarantee.

6. Export, back up and clean up

Select one or more photos and export JPEG, PNG or TIFF, choosing the folder and JPEG quality. Name collisions receive a number. Current output uses sRGB; TIFF is 16-bit, JPEG and PNG are 8-bit. iPad can also save finished images to the system photo library. Dimensions depend on the original and edits such as cropping.

Preview and full-resolution export share editing logic, but fine textures, denoising and edges may differ. Very large RAW files or many local layers can take time. Inspect full exported files for important deliveries.

Projects, separate import copies, external originals, exports, the system library and backups are different locations. Back up before cleaning. Removing a project photo does not erase every copy. Before sharing a project package, check for originals, person masks, reference attachments and conversation history. Contact sherardchina@gmail.com for privacy support.