Skylum has come out with Luminar Flex, which as far as I can tell, is Luminar 3 but without the system crashing 'cataloging' feature.
It claims to support Lightroom (classic) and Photoshop, but the plugin didn't install in Photoshop CS6, even though there was nothing about what VERSION of Photoshop as in it had to be "Creative Cloud" (aka Rent me Forever) As I have typed before, I have an older version of CC on my computer, and it just sits there for issues like this. I installed Luminar Flex, then went into Programs\Common Files\Adobe\PhotoshopCC\ and copied it over to the Photoshop CS6 (and CS5)directory, and it works without a problem.
Skylum claimed it was a freebie for those who purchased that disaterous Luminar 3, but I had to use one of my Luminar 3 license activations to use it (I will be emailing them regarding that). As for Flex's functionality, it's much better than Luminar 3. As I am old school, and make my own catalogs of photos, and events, the cataloging feature was of no use to me, so having Flex as a straight up plugin works much better for my work flow. I still use On1PhotoRaw for developing and the majority of the 'heavy lifting', but sometimes, I have to add a little something from other photo processing programs that On1 lacks. (Sorry, On1, you know I'm a big fan, but even well known On1 photographers use Lightroom for other tweaks).
If your system can handle Luminar 3 (mine is no slouch, but even with this beast, Luminar 3 would grind things to a glacial crawl) there's no real need for Flex. But for me, personally, Flex is a much better fit than Luminar 3 in my Photoshop workflow.
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