This photo editor is blowing my mind

Todd Dominey
3 Sept 202316:19

TLDRIn this sponsored video, the creator discusses their experience with Skylum Software's photo editing application, Luminar Neo. They highlight the app's unique features, such as the Enhance AI tool, which uses multiple underlying tools to improve color and tonality. The video also showcases other creative tools like the Golden Hour slider, vignette control with subject-aware placement, and the Inner Light feature. The Relight AI tool is praised for its ability to add depth to images by analyzing and adjusting the foreground, midground, and background. The creator also mentions advanced settings for dodging and burning, the Atmosphere tool for adding fog and mist effects, and the Matte tool for a filmic fade. They demonstrate the Glow effect, including the Orton effect for a more natural light appearance, and the Super Contrast tool for targeted tonal adjustments. Finally, they explore the Panorama stitching tool, which allows for manual adjustment of perspective and warping to achieve the desired composition. The video concludes with information on how viewers can try Luminar Neo for themselves.

Takeaways

  • 🌟 The video introduces Luminar Neo, a photo editing software by Skylum Software, which is gaining attention in the industry.
  • 📷 The presenter, a long-time user of Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop, explores Luminar Neo's features and compares them with the tools he's used to.
  • 📂 Luminar Neo offers a catalog view for browsing and organizing images into albums, with support for editing RAW images and built-in lens correction profiles.
  • 🎨 One of the standout features is the 'Enhance AI' tool, which uses artificial intelligence to improve color, saturation, contrast, and tonality with a single slider adjustment.
  • 🏞️ The 'Landscape' tool includes a 'Golden Hour' slider for adjusting the warmth of light, and a vignette tool with unique 'Inner Light' and subject-aware placement features.
  • ☀️ The 'Relight AI' tool allows for non-destructive adjustments to the brightness of different areas of an image, creating depth without the need for manual gradients.
  • 🌄 Advanced settings include tools for dodging and burning with color temperature adjustments, and a dehalo feature to reduce unwanted halo effects in images.
  • 🌫️ The 'Atmosphere' tool adds fog, mist, and haze effects, while the 'Matte' tool creates a filmic fade by adjusting the black and white points of an image.
  • 🌟 The 'Glow' tool, including an 'Orton' effect, enhances the appearance of light in images, with adjustable softness, brightness, contrast, and warmth.
  • ⚙️ 'Super Contrast' is a unique feature that allows for targeted contrast adjustments to highlights, mid-tones, or shadows independently.
  • 🧩 The new 'Panorama Stitching' tool is highlighted, which not only stitches images together but also allows for perspective warping and adjustments for a more natural look.

Q & A

  • What are the primary applications the speaker has been using for their photo editing work?

    -The speaker primarily uses Adobe Lightroom Classic and Photoshop for their color raw photo editing work.

  • What is Skylum Software known for in the context of the video?

    -Skylum Software is known for its flagship photo editing app, Luminar Neo, which is highlighted for its innovative features in the video.

  • How does the speaker describe their experience with the Enhance AI tool in Luminar Neo?

    -The speaker describes the Enhance AI tool as surprisingly effective, noting that it improved color, saturation, vibrancy, and contrast in a way that exceeded their initial expectations.

  • What unique feature does the Vignetting tool in Luminar Neo offer?

    -The Vignetting tool in Luminar Neo offers a unique feature where users can control the placement of the vignette effect and adjust the 'Inner Light' to brighten the center of the vignette.

  • How does the Relight AI tool in Luminar Neo differ from traditional gradient techniques?

    -The Relight AI tool differs by applying a contoured mask instead of a hard line, analyzing the image to recognize foreground, midground, and background elements, and automatically applying adjustments for a realistic look.

  • What does the Atmosphere tool in Luminar Neo do?

    -The Atmosphere tool adds effects like fog, layered fog, mist, and haze to the image, providing a range of styles and methods to create a desired effect.

  • How does the Matte tool in Luminar Neo affect the image?

    -The Matte tool creates a filmic fade effect by lifting the black point and compressing the highlights, which flattens the contrast in the image.

  • What is the Orton effect and how is it implemented in Luminar Neo?

    -The Orton effect is a technique that adds a glowing effect to an image by blending a slightly blurred and colored version of the highlights into the image. In Luminar Neo, it is implemented through the Glow tool with options to adjust softness, brightness, contrast, and warmth.

  • What is the purpose of the Super Contrast tool in Luminar Neo?

    -The Super Contrast tool is a global contrast adjustment that targets specific tonal regions within the image, allowing users to apply contrast to highlights, mid-tones, or shadows independently.

  • How does the Panorama stitching tool in Luminar Neo differ from similar tools in other applications?

    -The Panorama stitching tool in Luminar Neo allows users to manually adjust the perspective and warp of the image to correct vertical lines and position the horizon line as desired, offering more flexibility than some other tools.

  • What is the benefit of shooting panoramic images at 180 degrees even if some of the material may not be used?

    -Shooting at 180 degrees provides more raw material to work with, allowing for better cropping and adjustment options in post-production, ensuring that the final image meets the photographer's vision.

  • What is the speaker's recommendation for those interested in trying Luminar Neo?

    -The speaker provides a special link and discount code in the video description and also mentions a QR code for downloading a free trial of Luminar Neo for both Mac OS and Windows.

Outlines

00:00

📷 Introduction to Luminar Neo and Its Features

The video begins with the presenter's introduction to Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop as their primary tools for photo editing, but they express curiosity about other companies and their offerings. They highlight Skylum Software and its photo editing application, Luminar Neo, as an interesting new player in the industry. The presenter was given the opportunity to explore Luminar Neo through Skylum's support and shares their genuine, unfiltered opinion on the software. They delve into the features of Luminar Neo, including its catalog view, RAW support, lens correction profiles, and various editing tools. The presenter is particularly impressed with the 'Enhance AI' tool, which uses artificial intelligence to make sophisticated adjustments to the image.

05:01

🌄 Exploring Luminar Neo's Landscape Editing Tools

The presenter showcases Luminar Neo's landscape editing tools, emphasizing the 'Golden Hour' slider for adjusting light tones, a vignette tool with unique 'Inner Light' feature, and the 'Relight AI' tool that intelligently applies gradients to enhance the viewer's focus. They also discuss advanced settings like 'Dehalo', 'Warmth Near', and 'Warmth Far' for color temperature adjustments, and the 'Atmosphere' tool for adding fog and haze effects. Additionally, the presenter introduces the 'Matte' tool for creating a filmic fade effect and the 'Glow' tool for adding a glowing effect to images, including the popular 'Orton' effect.

10:01

🖼️ Advanced Effects and Panorama Stitching in Luminar Neo

The video continues with a discussion on advanced effects such as the 'Super Contrast' tool, which allows for targeted contrast adjustments to specific tonal regions of an image. The presenter also demonstrates the new 'Panorama Stitching' tool, which enables users to blend multiple images into a panoramic view. They highlight the tool's ability to adjust perspective and warp the image to correct vertical lines and horizon lines. The presenter shares their technique for shooting panoramic sequences and emphasizes the importance of capturing a wide angle to allow for cropping and adjustments.

15:03

🔗 Conclusion and Access to Luminar Neo

The presenter concludes the video by summarizing their experience with Luminar Neo and its capabilities. They provide a special link and discount code for viewers to try Luminar Neo, mentioning that the links are affiliate and support the channel. The presenter thanks Skylum for sponsoring the video and expresses their appreciation for the opportunity to explore and share their honest opinion about the software.

Mindmap

Keywords

💡Luminar Neo

Luminar Neo is a photo editing application developed by Skylum Software, highlighted in the video as an alternative to Adobe's Lightroom and Photoshop. The narrator explores its features and capabilities, emphasizing its AI-driven tools that enhance image quality with minimal effort. For example, the 'Enhance AI' tool automatically adjusts color, tonality, and contrast, demonstrating Luminar Neo's ability to simplify complex editing tasks.

💡RAW support

RAW support refers to the capability of Luminar Neo to handle RAW image files, which are unprocessed and contain the complete data from the camera sensor. This feature is crucial for photographers who require full control over their editing process. The video mentions that users can directly edit RAW images in Luminar Neo, taking advantage of built-in lens correction profiles to fix common issues like chromatic aberration and distortion.

💡HDR merge

HDR merge is a tool available in Luminar Neo that combines multiple images with different exposures into a single photo with enhanced dynamic range. This technique is useful in situations with high contrast scenes where it is difficult to capture details in both shadows and highlights simultaneously. The narrator mentions this tool as part of the suite of specialized features in Luminar Neo that cater to advanced editing needs.

💡Panorama stitching

Panorama stitching is a process where multiple overlapping images are merged to create a single wide-angle image. In the video, Luminar Neo's panorama stitching tool is demonstrated, showing its ability to handle image alignment and blending seamlessly. The tool also offers options to adjust the perspective of the stitched image, enhancing the user's control over the final output.

💡Relight AI

Relight AI is an innovative tool in Luminar Neo designed to adjust the lighting of different parts of an image independently. This allows for enhancing depth and focus in a photo by darkening the foreground or brightening the background, as described in the video. The tool uses AI to analyze the image and apply a contoured mask, avoiding the harsh transitions typical of linear gradients.

💡Enhance AI

Enhance AI is a feature in Luminar Neo that automatically improves image quality by adjusting various parameters like color, saturation, and contrast. As showcased in the video, the tool significantly enhances an image with a single slider, providing a quick and effective method to improve the visual appeal of photos without manual adjustments.

💡Vignette

In photo editing, a vignette is an effect that darkens the edges of an image to draw focus to the center. Luminar Neo offers an advanced vignette tool that not only allows for standard adjustments but also includes options like 'Inner Light' to brighten the center, enhancing the image's focal point. The video highlights how this tool simplifies adding depth and focus without the need for complex masking techniques.

💡Atmosphere AI

Atmosphere AI is a creative tool within Luminar Neo that adds environmental effects like fog, mist, and haze to images. It helps in creating mood and depth, making scenes appear more dramatic or ethereal. In the video, the narrator explores how this tool can transform a scene with subtle additions, enhancing the storytelling aspect of photography.

💡Color and tonality

Color and tonality are fundamental aspects of photo editing that involve adjusting the hues and brightness levels across an image. Luminar Neo offers a range of tools to manipulate these elements, aiming to achieve a balanced and visually appealing result. The video discusses how the 'Enhance AI' and other tools work under the hood to automatically correct and enhance these aspects, simplifying the editing process.

💡Editorial independence

Editorial independence refers to the creator's freedom to produce content without external influence from sponsors. In the video, the narrator emphasizes that while the review of Luminar Neo is sponsored by Skylum Software, the opinions and content are entirely his own, ensuring that the review remains unbiased and trustworthy.

Highlights

The video discusses the use of Skylum Software's Luminar Neo, a photo editing application.

Luminar Neo offers RAW support and lens correction profiles for chromatic aberration, distortion, and vignette correction.

The editing interface in Luminar Neo has a mix of technical and creative tools, similar to Adobe Lightroom.

The 'Enhance AI' tool utilizes various underlying tools to improve color and tonality, offering surprisingly good results.

The 'Landscape' tool includes a 'Golden Hour' slider to adjust the light's warmth and color.

The 'Vignette' tool allows for the darkening of edges and the brightening of the center of an image with a simple interface.

The 'Relight AI' tool applies a contoured mask to an image for a more realistic look without manual gradient adjustments.

The 'Advanced Settings' include tools for dehazing, adjusting warmth, and other nuanced adjustments for a more natural look.

The 'Atmosphere' tool adds fog, mist, and haze effects to an image for a diffused glow.

The 'Matte' tool creates a filmic fade effect by lifting the black point and compressing the highlights.

The 'Glow' tool includes an Orton effect for adding a soft, glowing light to an image.

The 'Super Contrast' tool allows for the application of contrast to specific tonal regions of an image.

The new 'Panorama Stitching' tool in Luminar Neo allows for easy blending of panoramic images.

The Panorama Stitching tool provides options to adjust perspective and warp the image for better alignment.

The video is sponsored by Skylum Software, but all opinions and content are the reviewer's own.

A free trial of Luminar Neo is available for download, and a special discount code is provided in the video description.