The impetus for Skylum Luminar Neo was the desire for a photo app that would make extensive use of AI to improve and enhance your digital images. It has a simple interface that’s a pleasure to work in, and it retains the company’s previous Luminar application’s sky replacement and extensive set of filters and editing tools. It also gets layer support with a library of textures and overlays. Unique AI adjustment tools and filters—and the fact you can install it as a plug-in for the more complete Photoshop and Lightroom apps—make it a worthy addition to any photographer’s software toolkit.

Since my last look, Skylum has delivered a steady flow of what it calls extensions—really just optional features and effect modules you can install or not as you choose. These come with the subscription pricing option or you can buy them each separately ($49) or all seven together in a pack ($299). Upscale AI, Supersharp AI, Focus Stacking, Background Removal AI, Noiseless AI, and HDR Merge are the latest extensions, and I like the strategy of not forcing everyone to install lots of features they may not use. The company continues to improve the program’s user interface and performance, as well.

How Much Does Skylum Luminar Neo Cost?

Luminar is available directly from Skylum’s site for $149 (often discounted), with no subscription required. Skylum is still selling the simpler Luminar AI application ($47), which is mostly about applying one-click fixes and styles to your photos, but lacks some of Neo’s powerful features. Luminar Neo is available as a Windows Store app and a Mac app in the App Store (I prefer desktop apps be available in the app stores, since they make updating and installing on multiple computers easier and are vetted for security and functionality). There’s a 30-day money-back offer.

For comparison, Capture One costs $299, CyberLink PhotoDirector costs $99, and DxO PhotoLab costs $219. Lightroom costs $9.99 per month and you have to pay for as long as you want to keep using the app.

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Setting up Skylum Luminar Neo

At setup (or later), you can install Luminar Neo as a plug-in for Photoshop and Lightroom Classic, but unlike its predecessor, it doesn’t let you install plug-ins in Luminar Neo itself (for example, for Topaz noise reduction). The program takes up about 2GB of hard drive space, similar to Lightroom’s size. When the installation is done, you sign into a Skylum account and then you’re presented with a QR code to install the companion mobile app for wirelessly transferring images.

On the first run, you see a very simple interface with a big Add Photos button. There’s no explicit import process in Luminar. You choose a folder and bingo, all the images it contains are added to your Luminar catalog. Though this means you do without things like transferring image files from a card to your computer, it does get you to your pictures fast. You can start viewing and editing instantly. My card with 858 files was “imported” in a few seconds. Moving forward and backward through images in the catalog was also snappier than in most applications.

I would prefer that the Add Photos button could find attached camera media as many apps do, but it doesn’t. Instead, it’s simply a File Explorer, but it’s not that hard to find your camera media folder and start working on the pictures. I had to allow the program to access my Pictures folder in Windows, since I had folder protection enabled in Windows Defender settings.

A Clear, Simple Interface

The program’s compact and dark interface lets you concentrate on your picture. It’s far less busy than Capture One’s interface, almost feeling more like a mobile app. It’s not, however, very customizable, and there’s not a lot of “getting started” type help, though given its simplicity and clarity, that’s not a big issue.

The app has only three modes, Catalog, for viewing all your images; Presets; and Edit. In Catalog view, you zoom by spinning the mouse wheel (much simpler than in Lightroom), and you’re not restricted to major stop points like 33% and 50%. An i icon opens an info panel showing shot settings and camera model. And a search magnifying glass makes quick work of finding photos based on filename, although you can’t refine the search based on metadata such as f-stop or lens model, as you can in Lightroom and DxO Photolab.

Below the image, you can favorite it with a heart icon or reject it with the X for some quick culling, but there’s no keyword tagging or color coding. You also get a filmstrip ribbon along the bottom for a view of the collection.

On the left sidebar is an option to see All Photos, organized by date, with convenient filters to show recently added or edited images. Below that are computer folders and custom Albums. There are no standard program menus, like File, Image, and View, along the top. To see the standard menus, you click the Luminar logo.

In Edit mode you can switch between Tools, Edits, and Presets. Clicking an eyeball icon shows the original view of your photo, but I wish there were a split-screen before-and-after view. I do appreciate that double-clicking on sliders returns them to their defaults, and you can easily see any previous edits and undo them in the Edits tab.

For initial raw import, the Develop tool in Edit mode, gives you profile choices of Luminar Default, Adobe Standard, camera defaults, or custom profile from DCP or DNG files. I had no trouble loading raw images from newer camera models such as the Canon EOS R6, the Fujifilm X-T4, and the Nikon Z 6. The default rendering of shots from my Canon EOS 80D resulted in a fine image quality, on par with Lightroom and Capture One, as you can see above. Capture One remains the best at initial import, though, to my eyes, with more detail and less overexposure. Of course, different camera models yield different results, and you can adjust the initial import in any of these apps for a better image.

Standard Adjustments With Skylum Luminar Neo

After you choose the develop profile, a goodly group of adjustments remain in the Develop panel on the right side, including Exposure, Smart Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, Blacks & Whites, Curves, Color, Sharpness, Noise Reduction, and Optics. That last group includes a manual barrel and pincushion slider, along with a checkbox for Defringe. For some raw file types, the menu has an Auto Distortion correction and Auto Fix Chromatic Aberrations checkboxes, too. The CA correction worked in a test shot, as did the geometric distortion correction, but the latter took several seconds before its results appeared on my test PC.

A Skylum rep told me the app includes a database of lens and camera profiles for these behind-the-scenes optics corrections. For gear not in the database, it uses general algorithms.

Of note is the Professional section at the bottom of the right-hand control panel, which offers separate contrast sliders for Highlights, Midtones, and Shadows. You also get Curves with RGB selectors and White balance settings with an eyedropper tool.

You don’t get Auto settings for the standard lighting and color sliders. The Enhance tool serves in place of that, and a slider lets you increase or decrease its strength. It yielded pleasant improvements in my test shots, in a sort of HDR way often boosting contrast and saturation.

The Crop tool offers an AI option that finds the subject and suggests a crop (see below). It does a decent job cutting out excessive same-texture areas that take away from the subject. The crop section also has Horizon Alignment, but I didn’t have any luck with that; it failed to level the horizon in my test shots.

Noise Reduction (in the Develop edit group as well as in a separate Denoise section) doesn’t offer an automatic option, but its luminance and color noise sliders work well, even maintaining decent detail. It’s not at the level of detail recovery you find in DxO PureRaw, however.

For even more anti-noise power, you can install the Noiseless AI extension (included with a subscription). This turned out a result on par with DxO DeepPrime XD’s. Here, it’s the center image, with Topaz DeNoise on the left and DxO DeepPrime XD on the right.

Here’s the noisy original for comparison:

The Skylum tool lets you choose between Low, Middle, and High adjustment levels, and also lets you tweak the results with sliders for Luminosity, Color, Details, and Sharpness. I was impressed with how well it worked.

Luminar Neo includes a plentiful selection of Color tools, with not only saturation and vibrance, but also HSL and hue shift options with sliders for eight colors.

Special Tools in Skylum Luminar Neo

You don’t buy Luminar for standard correction tools like exposure and saturation, though. You buy it for its AI. Two unique AI-powered tools in particular stand out as unique: Relight AI and the Erase tool’s Remove Powerlines feature. New extensions add powerful new capabilities like background removal, AI sharpening, AI denoising, HDR merging, focus stacking, and AI upscaling.

Relight AI

This innovative tool in the Creative section may be reason enough to buy Luminar Neo. It lets you change the brightness selectively for the near and far parts of the image, determined using 3D AI mapping. You can apply Dehalo, and near and far warmth, too. The tool is good for both portraits and landscapes. Below, the model near the camera is brightened while the background stays dark.

My own test shot of a West Mexican chachalaca up a tree shows that it’s good not just for portraits. Note that the branches farther back on the right remain dark after the adjustment.

Remove Powerlines

This unique tool is found in the Erase tool group’s Objects Removal section, and can improve many an urban street scene, as you can see below. I took the opportunity to apply the program’s Old Town filter, too, for a markedly better-looking shot. Note the removal of not only the big vertical power line, but also smaller horizontal ones farther down the street. It’s quite an impressive tool!

Another new tool in the Erase group’s Objects Removal section is Remove Dust Spots. Like Remove Powerlines, it’s a one-button-press affair, although you can fine-tune results by clicking a brush over any parts you want to blend in. It’s similar to Photoshop’s content-aware spot healing tool.

You still get Skylum Luminar’s signature sky-editing tools, which do an excellent and effort-free job of determining what’s sky and what isn’t and replacing the latter with a more beautiful one. You also get Portrait Bokeh, Face AI, Skin AI, and Body AI features. The last lets you trim a few pounds off your subject and slim that waistline a bit. It did a good job identifying human forms in my testing. The Face AI tool offers Light and Slim sliders which also did a convincing job.

Remove Background AI

This is a tool type that’s been appearing in a lot of photo software, and I question Skylum’s need to charge extra for it, though you do get it if you’re a subscriber, so no advantage to Adobe on that count. You find Background Removal AI in the Masking section of Layer Properties in Edit mode. You can choose Human, Flora, Architecture, Sky, Mountains, or Man Made Ground for selection; the choices vary based on the photo’s contents. I wasn’t particularly impressed with this selection tool compared with others in Adobe software, ACDSee Photo Studio, and Capture One. Notice that it considered part of the ceiling to be part of the human, and in another shot it didn’t select a side wing of a building. There is a refinement brush to add to and remove from the selection, an essential help.

Supersharp AI

This extension (included with a subscription or available separately) has a goal similar to Adobe’s abandoned Camera Shake Reduction tool: to fix blurriness from camera shake, but it attempts to sharpen simply out-of-focus shots, too. It made a nice improvement on this shot of a Snow Goose flying overhead:

As with the Noiseless AI extension, you get Low, Middle, and High adjustment options. You also get choices of Motion Blur and Universal. The tool takes some time to work its AI magic, so don’t expect instant results after clicking the button.

HDR Merge

This is a standard tool in many photo applications, but with Skylum it’s an extension. I’m used to right-clicking on the component images to create an HDR merge from a menu option, but with Luminar Neo you must drag the selected images (from 1 to 10 of them) over to the HDR Merge panel on the right. You then click the Merge button, and after half a minute or so, a new thumbnail appears in the center panel. My first try didn’t turn out sharp; you need to hit the settings gear and choose Auto Alignment (and optionally Chromatic Aberration Reduction, and Ghost Reduction) for a decent result. In fact, the result was brilliant after doing this, but you don’t get options for different styles as you do in CyberLink PhotoDirector and ACDSee Photo Studio.

Layers

Layers let you add overlays and use various blend modes—Darken, Multiply, Screen, and so on. They’re not as complex and intimidating as Photoshop’s layers, but they’re quite useful and powerful enough to create some cool effects. You can use them with your own images for a double exposure effect. You can apply adjustments like Exposure to just the new layer, but when I selected the original layer, the adjustments applied to all layers—Photoshop gives you more control over the selection of layers for editing.

In the Mood section under the Creative category, you find a generous selection of LUTs in categories like Cinematic, Creative (including B&W choices), Cross Processing, and Portrait Lighting. Sliders adjust the strength of these effects as well as their contrast and saturation.

Upscale AI

This tool, like the HDR Merge, works from the Catalog view, in which you drag image thumbnails onto a target on the right. It did smooth the staircase effect on angled lines (see the N in the sample above).

Landscape

This tool section offers Dehaze, which doesn’t add a color cast the way Lightroom’s does, along with Golden Hour and Foliage Enhancer, both of which add a nice touch when used in moderation.

Presets

This is the rightmost option in the Edit panel, offering one-click fixes like you get in the company’s other, simpler product, Luminar AI. These presets can turn a drab shot into an arresting one with minimal labor. Choose from illustrative thumbnails for Portrait, Landscape, Macro, Lifestyle, Filmatic, and more. Again, sliders let you increase or decrease the effects’ strength, and if what’s included isn’t enough, Skylum sells more sets of presets on its website.

Focus Stacking

Shallow depth of field is a desirable effect, but this tool lets you do the opposite: Get different distances all in focus. I took four shots at different focus lengths and dragged them onto the Focus Stack tool. This aligns the photos and uses the in-focus part of each. Here, the far dumbbell number and the near one appear in focus in the end result, whereas that wasn’t the case in any of the source images, so the feature works as advertised.

Skylum Luminar Neo Performance

Using some of the AI tools made my graphics card fan whir up when testing on Windows 10, and it could take a while for an image to update with an edit. I prefer seeing some indication of processing, as Lightroom does. It also crashed once, though I had a lot of programs running at the time.

Luminar started life as a macOS photo-editing app, so I also installed it on an M1-powered MacBook Air to see how it performed there. The AI is done on your local machine, not in the cloud, which is a plus. As mentioned, there’s no importing from memory cards, so that’s not a performance factor. The program was very stable, which can’t be said for all apps that do high-level AI computing on large media files.

Output and Sharing

A companion mobile app for Luminar Neo lets you transfer photos from the desktop version of the app to your smartphone. The iOS version lets you see live edits on the phone, while that same capability is planned for the Android version. You simply scan a QR code with the phone and you’re good to go. You can also send images from the phone to the desktop app; they appear in a newly created folder in Catalog view. Other options include exporting an edited shot to a local folder or to your email client.

The Print option in the main menu exports the editing photo and brings up the OS’s printing feature, but there are no layout or contact sheet options.

Unique AI Fixes and Effects

Luminar Neo is designed as a photo optimization and enhancing tool, replete with AI photo fixes and effects. It’s a pleasure to work in, thanks to a clear, usable interface. While you can organize your catalog with albums and pick/reject, Luminar Neo isn’t a full workflow solution, so you might be better off using it as a Lightroom Classic plug-in. It does some impressive things with your digital photography, so it’s well worth getting if you love perfecting and/or creating with your images. For the full complement of state-of-the-art editing tools, Photoshop and Lightroom Classic are our Editors’ Choice programs.