This morning, Skylum announced the much-anticipated Luminar Neo, a new program with technologies that seeks to let photographers tell visual stories in new ways and bring their ideas to life. Luminar Neo features several new tools, including RelightAI, Powerline Removal and dust spot removal. Also included is a new Layers feature.

“There is a fine line between the photo you took and the photo you imagined,” said Ivan Kutanin, Skylum CEO. “Often, small details make the difference. In Luminar Neo, we’ve built an editor to help you create the photo you imagined.”

The new Luminar Neo engine

The Luminar engine was built from the ground up to help creatives do more. Using artificial intelligence it analyzes your photos to unlock new, AI-driven editing possibilities:

RelightAI

With RelightAI, creatives can control scene lighting, letting them adjust lighting and color warmth in a scene. Using a precise 3D Depth Map, adjustments are independent for far and near objects, letting you easily fix portraits where the foreground subject might be overexposed.

RelightAI isolates problem areas for correction, leaving the rest of the image untouched. Combine RelightAI with other scene aware tools and photographers can precisely adjust the lighting of any photo.

Remove Dust Spots

Automatically identify and seamlessly remove small artifacts, like dust spots, from every photo with the help of AI.

Remove Powerlines

Uses AI to automatically identify and effortlessly remove power lines from landscape photographs to create a pristine image free from clutter.

Layers

Combine different images into unique compositions and include new elements from built-in overlays and object libraries.

Presets

Instant style changes designed by professional photographers of every stripe. Or, build and save your own unique looks for reuse on future shoots.

Performance gains

Skylum also advertises that Luminar Neo is significantly faster than LuminarAI for complex photo editing tasks. Driven by the new Luminar engine, artists can now enjoy the following performance gains.

macOS users can expect to see improvements in export time (86% faster), switching time between effects (35% faster) and RAW opening process time, which on average, is 61% faster.

Windows users can expect to see RAW opening process time improved, on average, by 20%, in addition to speed improvements when switching from Catalog to Edit mode (17% faster) and adding a new folder to the Catalog (69% faster).

Seamlessly mirror photos between desktop and mobile with Luminar Share

Luminar Share transfers photos between Luminar Neo and your mobile devices. Once connected, easily find and edit your mobile photos, directly in Luminar Neo. Our photo mirroring technology allows you to see your Luminar Neo edits on your mobile device in real-time, making it easy to share and optimize them for social media.

Technologies coming soon

Skylum also previewed two new technologies — Portrait Background RemovalAI and MaskAI — to be released in spring 2022 in a free update.

Portrait Background RemovalAI

Using human aware algorithms, Portrait Background RemovalAI cleanly isolates subjects and removes backgrounds with just one click. When needed, edges can be refined quickly. Coupled with layers, this tool enables creators to build unique compositions using multiple photos without the tiresome manual process of masking.

MaskAI

When opening an image, Luminar Neo identifies many items, like the skies, bridges and flowers. Artists can select and use several of these elements to generate precise AI-powered masks using MaskAI. This helps users control the transparency of a layer, use a mask to target how a tool is applied and combine multiple AI-powered masks together for complex editing.

Pricing and availability

Luminar Neo is available starting today, and is available as a standalone application for macOS and Windows, as well as a plugin for Lightroom Classic and Photoshop. It also works as an extension for Apple Photos on macOS.

Luminar Neo is available as a perpetual license or as a subscription, and is on sale through March 3, 2022:

  • 1 seat: $79 for lifetime license or $59/yr. for subscription
  • 2 seats: $99 for lifetime license or $79/yr. for subscription

In addition to both versions getting the upcoming MaskAI and Portrait Background RemovalAI features in a future update, those with a subscription will get the added benefit of receiving all future updates and additional new feature add-ons.

Create the photos you imagined, with Luminar Neo

Your photos are precious. That’s why Luminar Neo puts them in the spotlight. Check out the latest in AI photo editing, with tools to make your workflow faster and allowing you to bring your unique ideas to life!