A lot has changed since my first Luminar Neo Review. Upon launch, Skylum Software‘s Luminar Neo was full of promise and framed with rough edges, but that was many moons ago. Today, Luminar Neo includes a complete feature set while being vastly more stable and significantly quicker.
Furthermore, the Luminar Neo Extension pack turns Luminar Neo into a fully-fledged AI-powered image enhancement suite with features such as AI Noise Reduction, Sharpening, and upscaling. So, is Luminar Neo worth it? Let’s find out. Jump to Conclusion
Luminar Neo Review – Contents
- What is Luminar Neo
- What can Luminar Neo do
- Luminar Neo Key Features
- The Luminar Neo Extension Pack
- Using Luminar Neo
- Is Luminar Neo any Good?
- Luminar Neo Compared
- Luminar Neo vs ON1 Photo Raw
- Conclusion
What is Luminar Neo
Luminar Neo is an AI-powered photo editing application for PC and Mac. Released on the 17th of February 2022, Luminar Neo replaces Luminar 4 and Luminar AI. Read Luminar Neo vs Luminar AI.
Luminar Neo is different from other photo editors. Although Luminar Neo features traditional tools such as white balance and tone curves – these adjustments make way for tools such as Sky Enhancer, Golden Hour Glow, and Skin AI. Thus, the only thing you have to do to apply an effect is to drag an Effect slider.
As a result, Luminar Neo enables you to expertly edit a photo even if you don’t know anything about photo editing. For this reason, I consider Luminar Neo the best photo editor for beginners.
But as you will find out in this Luminar Neo review, Neo’s beginner-friendly design should not be confused with dumbed-down simplicity. On the contrary, Luminar Neo offers plenty for beginner and expert photo editors.
Luminar Neo Release Date
17th of February 2022
Luminar Neo System Requirements
| Luminar Neo Specifications | PC | Mac |
|---|---|---|
| Processor | Intel Core i5, AMD Ryzen 5, or better | Intel Core i5 or Better, Apple M1 |
| Memory | 8GB. 16GB Recommended | 8GB. 16GB Recommended |
| Operating System | Windows 10 64 Bit (v1909 or higher) | MacOS 10.14.6 or higher |
| Storage | 10GB (SSD Recommended) | 10GB (SSD Recommended) |
| Display | 1280×768 or better | 1280*768 or better |
| Graphics | Open GL 3.3 Compliant GPU |
Luminar Neo Cost
Luminar Neo costs US$119 when bought outright. Alternatively, you can subscribe monthly or yearly and receive the Luminar Neo extension pack. Visit Skylum Software for the latest prices.
Luminar Neo Promo Code
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Download Luminar Neo
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What can Luminar Neo do
Photo Management
Photo management in Luminar Neo is pleasant, straightforward, and quite basic. For instance, you can assign your photos to custom albums and rate images as Favorite or Rejected.
If you’re looking for advanced photo management features such as tagging, face recognition, and geotagging – you can’t go wrong with ACDSee Ultimate. Read ACDSee Ultimate 2023 Review.
Presets
Presets in Luminar Neo present a one-click route toward a well-processed image. Furthermore, Luminar Neo has hundreds of presets varying from simple touch-ups to retina-burning art filters.
And if you can’t find a filter you like, you can create your own presets or buy additional collections from the Skylum Software Marketplace. Read Luminar Neo Presets for more information.
Photo Editing
Editing your photos in Luminar Neo is easy. The tools you’ll use most of the time are Accent AI and Sky Enhancer AI, both of which you’ll find under Enhance AI. By tweaking these two adjustments, you can process your landscape photos to perfection. In the video below, you’ll see how easy it is to edit your photos in Luminar Neo.
Then there’s Structure AI for adding a little pop, and you get all the usual stuff, such as color adjustments, sharpening, and noise reduction. And if you want to go old-school, you can access traditional adjustments such as Exposure and Tone curves under the Develop tab. However, this is Luminar Neo, and it wouldn’t be a Luminar without a spread of AI special effects.
Luminar Neo Key Features
This Luminar Neo review section will cover Neo’s headline features. These include.
- Layers
- Sky AI
- Relight AI
- Mask AI
- Portrait Bokeh AI
- Portrait Background Removal
- Face AI
- Skin AI
- Body AI
Layers
With Luminar Neo, you can add effects layers to your image or blend multiple images. Unlike layer-based specialty applications such as Adobe Photoshop, Luminar Neo does not have adjustment, text, and shape layers. On the upside, layers in Luminar Neo are easy and fun. Read Luminar Neo Layers for more information.
Sky AI Sky Replacement
Sky AI enables you to remove and replace your photo’s sky with another while relighting the scene to match. While Sky Replacement is nothing new, Luminar Neo has boiled down this once-complex task into just a few clicks. Best of all, its fun, and it works great.
Relight AI
With Relight AI, you can adjust the brightness and warmth of the foreground and background of your photo independently. This is extremely effective for correcting back-lit portraits. Read Relight AI with Luminar Neo for more information, or watch the Relight AI video tutorial below.
Mask AI
Mask AI is an automated masking tool designed to save you the tedious process of manual selection and brushing. Once your subject is masked, you can apply adjustments specifically to the masked subject while leaving the rest of your photo unaltered.
Overall it works pretty well, but it falls short; you can refine your selection with manual brushing. Read Luminar Neo Mask AI Review for more information.
Portrait Bokeh AI
Portrait Bokeh AI in Luminar Neo adds background blur, or bokeh, to your portraits and selfies. Best of all, it’s really effective, and you can adjust parameters such as depth, blur amount, and the brightness of specular highlights.
As a result, Portrait Bokeh AI is one of my favorite features in Luminar Neo and a great way to add a few thousand dollars worth of blur to your smartphone selfie.
Portrait Background Removal
As the name suggests, Portrait Background removal is a one-click tool for removing your subject’s background. This is useful if you want to insert a new background or use a background-less person in a graphic such as a Youtube thumbnail.
Overall, it works pretty well. Read Portrait Background Removal with Luminar Neo for more information.
Face AI
With Face AI, you can whiten teeth, remove dark circles under your eyes, redden lips, and much more, and it’s as easy as dragging a slider with your mouse. The Face Light adjustment is very useful for overcoming poor light and adding a little glow to your subject.
Skin AI
Skin AI is effectively what we used to call airbrushing. But in Luminar Neo, it’s nothing more than a slider. Simply drag the slider to the right to smooth and even your subject’s skin.
Plus, there’s a Shine Removal tool that does exactly that and an automatic Skin Defects Removal AI tool that sometimes works, sometimes doesn’t, but is well worth trying.
Body AI
With Body AI in Luminar Neo, you can shrink or enlarge your subject’s body and waistline. While it’s easy to be cynical about such features, it does work and does have practical applications beyond vanity, such as countering weight-adding wide-angle lens distortion.
The Luminar Neo Extension Pack
The Luminar Neo extension pack is a premium add-on for Luminar Neo and features six extensions, including Noiseless AI and HDR Merge.
With the extension pack, Luminar Neo transcends standard photo editing and becomes more of an image enhancement application like Topaz Photo AI. Read Topaz Photo AI Review