Skylum Luminar Neo Reviews: 4.3/5 — Solid Choice

Luminar is a very capable and robust product that allows for some great editing capability. I've really enjoyed the application of AI to the editing flow nad what it has made possible and the time saved for some tasks.

Luminar has gotten in the habit of making pretty regular new product releases that should really be updates to existing software. They will include one or two new features and charge an entirely new premium as though it's a ground breaking new product.

Luminar has allowed for significant time saving with some editing tasks via the use of AI. These tasks include things like sky replacement and over-all "one click" AI image editing. While not perfect, it's great for quick fixes.

Luminar provides a simplified workflow that enables unskilled users to quickly process raw photographs. When I want to edit a single image in a few clicks, I open Luminar instead of Lightroom.

Luminar's main drawback is its speed. It can take seconds to switch images (a 46 MP NEF, for example), so a lot of time is spent just waiting for the UI to catch up. This adds up to a lot of wasted time. Then when it comes time to export, you'll be waiting once again- and far longer than you would with Lightroom.

I can teach Luminar to novices a lot faster than I can teach them effective Lightroom. However, I find that novices also gravitate toward Luminar's more irritating features like sky replacement. Suddenly, everyone's photos have the exact same fake skies, milky ways, etc. Tacky, tacky, tacky!!!

Easy interface and great editing tools for almost any type of photography, in addition to a one-time payment instead of a subscription plan.

Awful performance on Windows PCs, and no "undo" when in the "erase" tool. With Intel i5, Nvidia 1050ti 4gb, 500gb m.2, and 32gb RAM, the application would take several seconds for any effect to render after touching any slider. The erase tool is it's own module inside Luminar 4, opening it's own dialog box to work in. Entering the erase tool takes my PC about a minute, and panning the image causes pixelation and lag, forcing you to stop and wait for the image to load so you can see what you're doing. After all your erasing (basically spot healing tool with a content aware fill function), saving the results will take at least a minute before the module closes and brings you back to the main Luminar interface, creating it's own layer. But there is no "undo" ability in the erase tool, so if that content aware algorithm messes up a spot, you have to cancel and start over.

Excellent raw processor/photo editor with a clean, modern interface, helps put that extra polish on all your photography. Especially useful for portraits and landscapes, there's a variety of adjustments that easily add that extra pop to your images. Simple sliders can manipulate effects to your liking, including some that would take multiple steps in Photoshop, such as eye/teeth whitening, skin smoothing, eye enlarging, orton effect, and sky replacement.

The overall aspects of the app was good, and other peoples results using this app looked well

when I tried using this app, it was very difficult to actually get the results that I wanted out of it.

I couldn't really solve my photo editing issues with this product. Had to switch to Lightroom

The range and variety of presets is really the selling point. The raw processing power assisted with AI also helps to set the starting point quite quickly. The masking technology is on par with big giants like Adobe,

Speed, slow rendering of photos. Although the developers claim the speed to be improved, its still the weakest point of the system. Slow Real-time feedback for a change is killing the overall user experience.

Alot of my photos are taken in general setting where not much processing is required. The presets and quick AI features get these images to a respectable point quite fast. Quick to share with friends and family.

Quick and easy to use filters, but the w

Quick and easy to use filters, yet compared to adobe products they seem rudimentary at best. The work flow is also very strange considering that there is a sort of non linear history by default. It's decent for quick touch ups, but honestly a modern phone can do what this app does.

Initially I was interested in the AI features, but as mentioned before they are extremely rudimentary and not at all as helpful as something like the neural filters in photoshop or Topaz products.

We can organize our photos and also edit with various designs and colors.

The quality of the image and graphics. No

Graphics for a Marketing campaign.

The price is superb, the interface is streamlined and makes workflow smooth. I enjoy the ERASE feature and the portrait and sky editing modes.

The AI uses a lot of power and causes delays and site lags. A mobile version should be developed. When downloading and importing my photos, there is a glitch whereby I then have duplicates I don't need/want.

I am able to edit any image! I love the clone and stamp tools, and am able to produce high quality marketing images and flyers. The quality of Luminar software is superb, with minor fixes. All in all, I think that Luminar is pretty equivocal to photoshop or other editing softwares.

The Luminar technology is very good. It helps save time and increases your creative efforts with photography. For instance, the sky swap feature in Luminar AI is excellent.

Unfortunately, the way that Skylum (the vendor behind Luminar) does business is awful for several reasons. One, when you buy a lifetime license for Luminar, you expect that it will receive ongoing development. Well, soon enough, they'll discontinue the product you just purchased and release a "new" product so that you have to buy the new version to benefit from ongoing development. This is very disingenuous. Two, as another user pointed out, Skylum operates like a marketing agency rather than a software vendor. You'll be bombarded by marketing emails, and worse, annoying "offers" every time you run Luminar. The app appears to have the option to disable those ads, but the disable option "conveniently" does not work. Third, you can suggest improvements in the Luminar user forum but those suggestions are ignored and any critical commentary (which would help further the product and the user experience) is not well received by Skylum.

I've been able to replace skies in photos quickly and otherwise boost the creative effect in photos.

Luminar has been around for a bit, and their newest release as of this writing, Luminar 4, has a pretty spectacular AI sky exchange engine that works really well. It let's you easily swap out your boring sky with a more exciting/dramatic sky to give your photos an extra oomph. Beyond that it also has the regular photo processing tools that will get you where you need to go. As a whole Luminar is a pretty good tool that has a lot to offer.

Luminar seems to draw heavily from your computer resources. When I was using Luminar 4, I noticed that just starting up the software made my computer fans kick on, and it pretty much stayed at top speed the whole time I was using it. The software is also rather slow and lacks responsiveness, so it takes a few seconds to respond every time you change anything. Definitely slows down the workflow.

Photo processing. The sky exchange was pretty cool, but I didn't really realize any benefit beyond what I would get in Lightroom/Photoshop.