Skylum Luminar Neo

Skylum's Luminar Neo uses artificial intelligence to make editing images simple, but it also has a wealth of easy-to-use controls. Angela Nicholson takes a look

- Angela Nicholson

Skylum developed Luminar Neo from the ground up to be different from previous Luminar editors like Luminar 4 and Luminar AI. It has all the Luminar AI tools and a very similar layout, but there are additional features and more ‘state-of-the-art technologies’. Unlike previous editions of Luminar, Luminar Neo has a modular engine and this enables faster image processing.

Luminar Neo is available to purchase with a one-time payment of £129 (discounted from £169) or as a subscription. The one-time purchase includes Luminar Neo and all the maintenance and feature updates delivered for this software version. It can also be expanded by purchasing the 2022

Extensions Pack mentioned in the ‘Extensions’ box on page 46, for £249. Alternatively, a Pro subscription which costs £79 for the first year and £89 per year thereafter, brings the Luminar Neo software and all future updates and versions, plus all the extensions released during the subscription period and the Perfect Fluffy Clouds Pack.

Getting started

As usual when you launch an image-editing software package, the first step in using Luminar Neo is to open an image. Luminar Neo has a catalog section but it works with your computer’s filing structure and you don’t have to actually import images into it. Instead, you just need to let it know which folders you are interested in working with. It’s also possible to work on individual images by using the ‘Add Image’ button in the top left corner of the window to locate your desired file.