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Luminar Neo - My First Impressions

Mystical Woods - move mouse over  for an before / after     In December of last year I was asked whether I'd like to take a look and try out the photo edit software Luminar Neo. So I was provided with the program and the extensions pack. At the moment there are seven extensions available, I installed four of them that I thought could be useful in my workflow. These are Noiseless Ai, Upscale Ai, Supersharp Ai and Magic Light Ai.  Until I was asked to try Luminar Neo, I had not heard of the program, but the opportunity to partner with Skylum and make some additional money convinced me to take a look. That means: This text contains affiliate links. What is Luminar Neo? Skylum's Luminar Neo is a photo editing tool that makes editing your photos quite simple. Many of its features are enhanced by artificial intelligence that lead to sometimes stunning results and are intuitive and easy to use. LUMINAR NEO - special offer until 28 February 2023 Lightroom and Photoshop plugin I almo

Making of WILD MOMENT

Hello,
sometimes I really like to challenge myself, meaning I'd like to change something really ordinary into something special...which isn't always easy as you can imagine.

In case of the work at hand I had a vague idea what type of original photo I would need. Thankfully I remembered that there are some rather weathered birches close to where I live. So I went out, took some shots of them and returned home to begin with my work.

Please move over the picture to see the before/after, thanks!


One Wild Moment
I liked the white bark of the birches and also liked the other trees in the background, because they provided some darker texture, that I knew I could use later.


Step by Step description


Layers One Wild Moment

- First I made a layer copy of the original picture.
I wanted to have an overall dark appearance with only hints of colour. As the sky was very bright I had to find a way to darken it. 
- I chose  a texture to achieve this. I selected the bright parts of the sky and only applied the texture on that part (Multiply , around 70% opacity).
- I then merged the copy of the background layer and the texture and chose a motion blur with an 90° angle and a Distance of about 250 px.
- I think it is quite boring to have a blurred picture like that and so I added a layer mask and started to paint black on that mask to bring out the trees and parts of the underlying background. For this task I usually choose a very low brush flow of app. 3-5 %, which gives you a lot of control.
- The sky was still too bright for my taste, so I again took the texture and plaid aroud with blending modes and a layer mask until I was satisfied. (see layer 3)
- Layer 4 added blue hues ( Curves: choose the blue channel and drag the lower left end of the curve up, that way you get dark blues in the blacks)
- With all the vertical motion I wanted to have a contrasting motion as well - I added an empty layer and selected a bird brush. I placed the bird in the middle and added a horizontal motion blur on the bird.
- Layer 6 function is to set a focus on the middle part of the picture with the bird in its centre. 
- the two other layers I needed to further work on light and contrast.

That is all it need.

Have a great weekend!

Need some textures? Please visit my shop on Creative Market or cose something from the galleries on my Homepage.

Thankks very much!

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