Whether you use a professional camera or a smartphone to capture your photos, there’s an almost 100% chance that you are using a mobile device to view, share, and maybe even edit the photos you capture. This is why it is no surprise that Skylum has now created a mobile app that harnesses some of the most popular and advanced editing tools available. So, we are bringing you this Skylum imgmi review today. Is the app good enough that you can leave your laptop at home? Maybe, maybe not.
Simply put, with imgmi you can now use the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to not just edit your photos, but turn them into photos that resemble digital art with just a few easy taps on your mobile device. Why is it so exciting that these advanced editing features are coming to mobile devices? Well, it already sounds completely outdated to say that in order to be serious about creative imagery, you need to sit down at a desktop computer. The reality today is that a lot of art is created on the go. Furthermore, a lot of that art is created purely for presentation on social media. It’s time for your editing workflow and creative tools to be as ready as you are for life on-the-go!
imgmi is available as either a subscription or a one-time purchase! (Google Play| App Store)
imgmi Review | Key Features
So, what does this new mobile app, “imgmi” offer? Here are a few of their primary tools:
- Sky Select (Replace)
- Remove Power Lines
- Erase (Content-Aware)
- Filters (Color Grading)
- Enhance AI
- Adjust (Basic Corrections)
The interface is very intuitive; you open an image immediately and begin apply adjustments. When you’re satisfied with your creative results, you have a share tool that allows you to go straight to your social media platform of choice, or use other means of communication. Of course, you can simply export images and save them to your phone for sharing later, too.
Before we get to the Pros & Cons of our imgmi review, let’s take a closer look at each of the main features. Do they work? What do the results look like? Read on…
Sky Replacement
One of Luminar Neo’s hallmark features, which it does incredibly well, is sky replacement. With their AI, the selection of complex images with different patches of the sky is perfect almost every single time. I cannot imagine how many hours of delicate work this feature alone is saving artists compared to having to manually select and mask every little detail.
So, right off the bat, if your creative inspiration often leads you in the direction of composite art and sky-swapping, then this feature alone is worth it for anyone using a mobile device.
Of course, imgmi doesn’t get it perfect every single time. Thankfully, when the sky/horizon edges are done wrong, or when the transition just doesn’t look right, Skylum has included three main tools for fine-tuning your sky replacement: Adjustments, Orientation, and Mask. The Adjustments section allows you to make subtle tweaks to the lighting and blending of the earth and sky images, and of course, the Orientation tool lets you move the sky around. Within the Mask adjustment section, there are these sliders: Global, Close Gaps, and Fix Details.
(NOTE: The above screenshot is for interface display purposes; none of the sample images in this review actually needed any adjustment to the mask; the AI did a perfect job every time! We did make adjustments with Relighting, Brightness, and Warmth, though.)
All in all, this is one of the most powerful editing tools that I have ever seen on a mobile device, and in my opinion, it is a must-have for anyone who wants to do this kind of creative editing on their phone. The only drawback is that, so far, it doesn’t appear to be possible to add your own source (sky) imagery for swapping in; a useful feature that other Luminar software has offered.
Remove Power Lines
This feature has been highly touted by desktop users of Skylum software for a while now; simply put, it just works. We have seen this tool demonstrated innumerable times, and our own tests have shown perfect results almost every time.
Once again, what was once a complex, tedious task is now just a few taps on any mobile device.
Content-Aware Object Removal (Erase)
For everyone else who doesn’t need to erase power lines, but has all sorts of other objects they might want to erase from their image, we have the Content-Aware Object Removal tool. Once again, it just works beautifully well.
When you’re presenting your images on social media, little details can become big distractions. So, when you’re creating art using real life, a tool like this is indispensable.
Enhance AI
This tool takes advantage of Luminar’s AI to give you one single slider that intelligently makes all of the common adjustments you would use to make an image pop, such as contrast, saturation, and highlight/shadow management.
Whereas the previous tools are all rather advanced, and essentially a departure from photography into the realm of digital art, the Enhance AI tool is a very traditional, basic adjustment. Still, its use of AI allows it to know just what to do with your images to make them look better, naturally.
Our verdict on this tool is unanimous: it just works! It makes images “pop”, without making them look over-edited. Enhance AI seems to always know how to balance shadow & highlight recovery, plus contrast and saturation, all at once. As you can see in the above example, the image still looks relatively natural, even with the slider cranked to the max!
Filters (Stylization / Color Grading)
One of the most beautiful ways to depart from natural/accurate and dip into the world of creativity is with subtle effects collectively known as filters or color grading.
Skylum has created an excellent collection of different looks, or filters, that you can use to stylize your imagery. Whether you’re looking for a specific vibe for just one blog or Instagram post, or you are trying to evolve and define your style across your entire body of work, this feature is worth looking at.
imgmi Review | Pros & Cons
Okay, let’s get to the final verdicts in this imgmi review. What are the pros and cons? Aside from the fact that the features mentioned above all work very well, there are a few other keys that will help you decide if this app is right for you.
Features & Performance
As you can already see, the features that Skylum has put into imgmi work beautifully, and we can highly recommend the app purely based on whether or not you’re interested in those tools.
However, there is another question to be answered in this regard: performance. If an app is buggy and crashes a lot, then quite honestly it doesn’t matter how good the results are, we wouldn’t recommend the app.
Thankfully, imgmi performs beautifully smoothly; we only experienced one or two random “quits” where the app just closed itself. Generally speaking, even the most advanced AI tools only take a second or two to load. (NOTE: testing was done mostly on a basic $199 phone, too!)
User Interface
Skylum aimed to make the imgmi app a very simple yet powerful one, and they succeeded at both, to some extent. Honestly, in some cases, the app is almost too simple, but that may just be my tendency towards appreciating advanced, complex tools after so many years of reviewing photography products.
For one, I wish there was a simple “back button” interface system that allowed you to either undo your most recent edit or just get back to the main app beginning interface. Instead, if you hit the “back” button (on an Android phone) …you simply exit the app entirely.
There are a few other minor tweaks that I’d like to see to the interface, but overall I think Skylum accomplished what they set out to do. They balanced simplicity and user-friendly interface with a handful of fast, powerful image editing tools.
Value
To be honest, we are not a fan of monthly subscription services. Whenever possible, we prefer to own our tools outright, including software. Therefore, our top recommendation is to just buy the imgmi app with a one-time purchase of ~$40.
(Google Play Store | Apple App Store)
However, they offer a relatively affordable weekly subscription option, (just ~$3/week) as well as a free 7-day trial. This might be useful if you don’t plan to use the app all the time, and instead only need it here and there when you are traveling.
Alternatively, the annual subscription is just ~$20/year, so once again, it’s a good value. Still, if you can afford it, just own the software for $40.
imgmi Review | Conclusion
All in all, we are indeed impressed with what imgmi has to offer; it is a refreshing balance of a simple, basic interface and advanced features that aren’t matched equally by lesser alternatives.
We would love to see additional features in the future, of course. Skylum took a big leap forward with their Luminar Neo software, and literally, any of those features would make a great addition to imgmi. Hopefully, we’ll get what we want! Either way, it’s already an app that we can highly recommend checking out.
(Google Play Store | Apple App Store)
