When it comes to removing distractions in your photos with Luminar Neo, you can head straight for the new Background Removal tool. But what if you just want to disguise the distraction and not remove it? Likewise, removing power lines and dust spots is super easy. But what happens when it gets a little more complicated? Well, there are tools to help, but a little bit of know-how and some patience work wonders. So, I took two images and gave them slightly different treatments to show how to correct these two common problems.
Using the Erase, Layers and Layer Properties
There are a few different tools in Luminar Neo for removing things. There’s the Background Removal tool, but you may not want to remove the background. There is also the Portrait Background Removal, but again, I don’t want to remove everything. Then, there is the Erase, Dust Spot Removal and Power Line Removal. For smaller distractions, they work pretty well. But sometimes they leave a slight halo effect around larger objects. So that’s when you need to get a little more creative.
Luminar Neo is great for just that. Duplicate your layer and then move it to cover your distractions. Then, remove unwanted areas in the Layer Properties Panel with the Masking tool. Fabulous. If your background is too busy this may not work but for simple fixes like my image, it worked a treat.
Using masking tools
For pretty much any tool in Luminar Neo, there is a masking option. This allows you to brush in or out any part of a mask with that adjustment tool. I used the Develop tool in the Essentials panel. Carefully brushing in and out what I wish to darken, then it was a simple case of adjusting my exposure, highlights and shadows to darken down the area required.
I haven’t edited these images any further, but it is a simple step to start your editing process from here. Remember, you can revisit any area already edited in the Edits tab.
