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AI tools

Lumidex Studio's AI features run entirely on your Mac. No cloud service, no account, no per-use uploads — your photos never leave the machine. Here's how the models work, and how to use the tools that ship today.

On your Mac, always

Every AI tool in Lumidex Studio runs on-device, using Apple's Core ML on your Mac's own hardware. Your images are never sent to a server for processing, and there is no telemetry. The only time the app reaches the network for AI is the one-time model download described below.

How the models download

To keep the app download small, the larger AI tools don't ship their model inside the app. Instead, the first time you use one, Lumidex Studio downloads that tool's model once — directly from Lumidex's own servers — and caches it on your Mac.

  • First use of a tool shows a brief one-time download (a progress bar while it fetches, then a moment to verify and install).
  • Every use after that is instant and offline — the cached model is loaded straight from disk. There's no per-use network request.
  • Models are downloaded only from Lumidex's servers, never from a third party, and each one is verified after download.
To be completely clear

Downloading a model sends nothing about your photos — it's the same as downloading a software component. Your images stay on your Mac before, during and after. If you're offline the first time you reach for a tool, it will simply wait until you're connected to fetch its model; once cached, it works with no connection at all.

Denoise

Denoise removes the grain and colour speckle from high-ISO and low-light photos while keeping detail, using a modern on-device model. You'll find it in the Develop module, in the AI panel on the right.

  1. Open a photo in DevelopSelect a photo and press D, or click Develop in the module bar.
  2. Click DenoiseIn the AI panel, click Denoise. On the very first run you'll see the one-time model download; after that it starts straight away. The button reads Working… while it processes.
  3. Compare the resultWhen it's done, use Show Original / Show Denoised to flick between before and after. If you don't want it, click Revert.
  4. Set the strengthDrag the Amount slider to decide how much of the denoised result to use. Lower values keep more natural texture in skin and fine detail; the change is instant and doesn't re-run the model.

Denoise is saved as part of the photo's develop settings, so it stays applied, composes with your other adjustments, and is re-applied at full resolution when you export. Clicking Denoise again starts over from the original rather than denoising twice. To apply the same denoise across many photos at once, use Copy Settings with AI Denoise ticked, select the photos you want, and Paste Settings — a progress strip shows the batch running through them.

Note

Denoise works from your RAW or source image and is fully non-destructive — your original file is never changed, and you can revert at any time.

Super Resolution

Super Resolution enlarges a photo and reconstructs fine detail, for cropping in tight or printing bigger than the original resolution would normally allow. Unlike Denoise, it doesn't edit the photo in place — it creates a new, higher-resolution copy and stacks it with the original, so your source stays exactly as it was.

  1. Open a photo in DevelopSelect the photo and press D, or click Develop in the module bar.
  2. Click Super ResolutionIn the AI panel, click Super Resolution and choose a size from the popover: a native 2× or 4× enlargement, or a custom long-edge in pixels. (As with Denoise, the first run downloads the model once.)
  3. Find the resultThe new, higher-resolution photo appears stacked with the original when it's finished. Your source file is untouched.

AI Select masking

AI Select makes a mask by clicking on a subject: a person, an animal, a car, the sky. An on-device segmentation model works out the outline and snaps it to the real edges, so there's no brushing around hair or branches.

  1. Choose AI SelectIn Develop, click the AI Select tool in the tool strip under the scopes. The first time, its model downloads once.
  2. Click the subjectClick what you want to select. The selection shows as a red overlay so you can check it.
  3. AdjustMove any of the mask's sliders (exposure, colour, texture, clarity and so on). The overlay hides as soon as you do, and the change applies only inside the selection.

An AI Select mask behaves like any other mask: it appears in the mask list, can be switched off and on with ⇧H, and its overlay toggled with O.

Lens Blur

Lens Blur adds a shallow depth of field after the fact. An on-device model estimates how far away each part of the photo is, and the background (or foreground) is blurred by distance, like a wide-aperture lens.

  1. Open Lens BlurIn Develop, open the AI panel and find Lens Blur. The first time, its depth model downloads once.
  2. Set the focusClick Set Focus Point, then click the subject you want sharp.
  3. Shape the blurAmount sets how strong the blur is, Focus moves the plane of focus nearer or further, and Range sets how deep the sharp zone is.

The blur scales with the image, so an export at full resolution looks the same as the preview. Very strong blur in front of the subject is the hardest case and can look less natural than background blur.

More on-device intelligence

Several other features across the app are powered by the same on-device approach — no cloud, no uploads:

  • Natural-language search — describe a photo in plain English (“yellow guitar”, “red car at night”) and results rank by what's actually in the image. Library ▸ Analyse Photos ▸ Build Semantic Search Index… (guide)
  • Auto-tagging — suggests keywords for your photos in bulk, written to a searchable index. Library ▸ Analyse Photos ▸ Auto-Tag Photos with AI… (guide)
  • Assisted culling — groups a burst and surfaces the sharpest frame. Library ▸ Assisted Culling… (guide)
  • Duplicate & near-duplicate finders — catches exact copies and re-exports/re-imports at different sizes. Library ▸ Find Duplicates (guide)
  • People — detects faces so you can name people and browse by them. Library ▸ Analyse Photos ▸ Find Faces Again… (guide)