I think Luminar Neo is a great choice for beginners who want a simple and effective image-editing workflow or prolific enthusiasts who want to minimize time spent at their computer. And with a fresh ‘Spring Update’, Skylum has enhanced its flagship software’s feature-rich toolset even further.
Version 1.27 supercharges Luminar Neo’s portrait retouching tools, expands Bokeh AI for use with portraits and objects, and enhances masking with a new Mask Feather tool. I’ve been particularly excited to try out the enhanced portrait-retouching tools, because although the recent ‘Fall Update’ delivered a plethora of impressive AI-powered upgrades, such as Restoration and Light Depth, portrait-specific inclusions were notably absent.
Manual portrait retouching involves some of the most technically advanced editing techniques, making it an especially daunting task for beginners. Thankfully, Luminar Neo’s latest enhancements demolish this learning curve, allowing you to retouch skin to a good standard in minutes, not hours. But Luminar Neo’s ‘Spring Update’ isn’t just about tools to improve your people pics. Here’s everything that's new...
AI-powered portrait retouching
The meat of the ‘Spring Update’ is improvements to five key areas within the Portrait drop-down menu: Dark Circles Removal, Face Smoothing, Body Smoothing, Shine Removal, and Blemish Removal. The former resides within Face AI, while the rest can be found in Skin AI.
The Dark Circles Removal tool works very effectively by accurately identifying and brightening the area beneath the eye, all while maintaining the texture of the skin and matching the colors of the surrounding areas. It’s not limited to subjects that are facing the camera, either, working effectively on 3/4 shots and tilted heads.
Moving on to the Skin AI tab, Shine Removal is a more subtle effect, which helps to reduce shiny patches of skin. This is something I’ve had to perform, manually, in traditional layer-based editing software countless times, and Luminar Neo's AI provides very similar results. The difference is that it takes seconds to apply instead of minutes. It’s not a miracle cure for poor lighting, though, and I wouldn’t expect it to be. However, it’s a useful tool to take the edge off more intense patches of light when you didn't get it quite right in-camera.
I was delighted to find a much-improved Blemish Removal tool. Removing blemishes manually is a time-consuming experience, especially if you’re processing multiple images, but Luminar Neo’s previous iteration simply wasn’t reliable enough. Well, the upgraded tool is a huge improvement.
The AI now accurately detects and targets most blemishes and removes them. It will also remove permanent blemishes, such as moles, but you can reduce the slider slightly to bring them back or head into ‘Masking’, set the Brush to ‘Erase’, and bring them back manually.
Finishing off the portrait-retouching updates are Face Smoothing and Body Smoothing. I used the former on a variety of images and found it to accurately detect and target the subject’s face, while smoothing out the skin without going overboard. By that I mean retaining some texture within the skin, as well as laughter lines in the corners of the eyes and mouth. The end result avoids that outdated airbrushed look in favor of a more modern natural aesthetic.
Add bokeh to your images
Bokeh AI was formerly Portrait Bokeh, designed for use exclusively with portraits, but can now detect and mask objects, too. It allows you to add a cinematic, shallow depth of field to images by blurring backgrounds and even allowing you to adjust the shape of the bokeh that's formed. And while I’d still implore you to get it right in-camera, I think this is a fun tool for those without access to fast lenses.
It works similarly to the Light Depth tool in that the tool itself builds a three-dimensional map of your image, so you get a visual representation of the mask, dragging a point back and forth to indicate what stays in focus and what begins to blur. The intensity is controlled using a simple ‘Blur’ slider. Instant results will depend on the complexity of the foreground subject that’s being masked, but you can of course refine the mask via the tool’s in-built ‘Masking’ tab, which leads me neatly onto the final big update.
More control over your masks
I think Luminar Neo’s strength is the ease and speed of its image-editing workflow. In most cases, I find the software’s AI tools to be accurate enough that masking isn’t required. However, most tools do have a ‘Masking’ tab so adjustments can be applied locally for those who require a more hands-on approach.
Masks can be created manually using a Brush, Linear Gradient or Radial Gradient, with Mask AI and Object Select AI for automated selections. Mask Feather increases the functionality of masks by introducing two new sliders to the ‘Masking’ tab: ‘Feather’ and ‘Shift Edge’. The former allows you to soften the edges of a mask, while the latter expands or contracts the mask’s boundary.
If you’re looking to pick up Luminar Neo for the first time, you can enjoy up to 74% off Luminar Neo’s perpetual licenses, starting at just £99 / $119, while returning customers can take advantage of a special personalized offer. And if you want to try before you buy, you can take Luminar Neo for a spin via a 7-day free trial.
