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 almost exclusively edit my images in Lightroom and Photoshop, so I was pleased to find out, that one can edit images via a plugin (that was easily installed btw) in Luminar Neo. The result shows up as a new image in LR and would be eligible for further editing. 

One image edited in Luminar and the other in Lightroom

Luminar Edit

Lightroom Edit

I processed some photos via the LR plugin, but also solely in Luminar Neo to see how that works. 

Sky Replacement

Every review of Luminar is talking about the Sky ai - tool and I had to try that. It was quite stunningly accurate and easy to use. I am looking forward to use it on a variety of pics with different light conditions and foregrounds.

Have look at this image where I used it

December Parkway

   

Layers in Luminar Neo

The other feature that triggered my interest is the ability to add layers. I often use textures and overlays to add elements an interest to my images. Although this feature isn't as powerful and versatile as Photoshop, I found, that it is sufficient to create images, that doesn't further editing in Photoshop.

I was able to change this rather simple dark scene into an moody greenish image adjusting light, sharpness and the tones of the trees and of course, by adding texture layers and bird overlays.

Hazzy Tree - move mouse over to see before/after effect

   

Conclusion

I really have only scratched the surface, but I must say that I am quite satisfied with what I was capable to achieve with this software. If you have some experience with other photo editing software (LR, PS, Affinity..) you'll quickly find your way in. I think that LN is also much easier to learn for people with only little experience, while enabling them to create superb images.

So, good first impressions.

I will explore Luminar Neo further and you can expect to read about thus here on my blog.

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