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Photographer Dustin Abbott looks at new features in Luminar Neo like Portrait Bokeh, Power Line Renewal, Scene Relight, and more... Is Luminar Neo worth buying? Check out the video to find out. Get Luminar Neo by visiting this address: https://bit.ly/LumNEOda | Use the coupon code DUSTINHDR to get discounts on Skylum software.
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Table of Contents:
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0:00 - Intro to Luminar Neo
2:11 - Powerline Removal
4:18 - Scene Relight
Show More Show Less View Video Transcript
0:00
Hi, I'm Dustin Abbott and I'm here today to give you a quick update on the newest version
0:15
of Luminar. This is the new Luminar Neo that right now is in the pre-order stage and I
0:21
finally have had access. I haven't talked about it to this point because I haven't had access to a
0:26
working build of it until now. And obviously as a reviewer, I'm not a marketer, I'm a reviewer
0:31
And so I didn't want to bring any kind of information until I actually knew what was
0:35
going on, how it worked. And so as always, Luminar, and the reason why I continue to do
0:41
these reviews is that Luminar has become a very popular alternative to Lightroom in particular
0:48
but kind of enhancing a little bit of what both Lightroom and Photoshop will do. But obviously
0:54
at a lower price point. And I do think that their focus on AI innovation and automating different
1:02
tasks as a part of the editing process is having some influence, I think, on Adobe in that I have
1:09
noted with the most recent builds of Lightroom that more and more I'm seeing AI-powered technologies
1:15
that are there. And so I do think that they are an innovative company. And traditionally, my
1:20
takeaway has been from Illuminar products that they are really great with the innovation
1:24
with new ideas, and they're also very good at marketing, but sometimes less good at their
1:30
overall kind of execution and bringing everything up to a fully stable and well-supported process
1:40
And I think those of you that have had frustrations, it tends to be more on that end than of the
1:44
actual design and innovation that comes in the software. Because as I noted, they do that
1:48
really, really well. And so as always, Neo is the newest version and it comes with a number of new
1:55
AI tech. And so some of those I'm going to just briefly demonstrate here today and see if they
2:02
actually work, if they work in a stable fashion and if they work in a timely fashion. All of those
2:07
things tend to be very, very important. And so these various, some of the new technology tends
2:13
to be around automating the removing of background objects and that obviously can be a really
2:19
time consuming if you did it the old Photoshop way with masking. That can be a really time
2:23
consuming thing And one of the things that they focused on on a part of this I am completely in favor of and that is there is an automation for removing power lines That is a little bit of a pet peeve for me Some
2:35
people are not bothered by power lines. I personally hate to have power lines in my
2:40
shots and so sometimes they can be unavoidable. And so I'm going to start with a fairly simple
2:46
just a single line here and so we'll take a look at that and we'll see how it works
2:53
And so anyway, here is an image that I wanted to take
2:58
I really liked the light that was behind this, but I wanted to see if I could eliminate that power line that was in the way
3:06
So we go to the erase tab now and we click remove power lines
3:11
And so it's an automated process. So in this case, we have got a total of three power lines
3:15
but they're running fairly simply through it. And you can see that it has done basically a perfect job of eliminating that
3:21
So no problem there. But what happens in a more complicated situation? Things are not always this simple, and so here was a beautiful sky, but as you can see, there is just a mess of power lines. There's trees involved, a lot going on
3:35
So the automation process was pretty quick, but it's not perfect. Fortunately, their new Erase, it works a little bit different than it does in Lightroom in that you actually kind of select everything you want and then you click Erase
3:48
But between these two steps, there we go, got it. You can see that it's cleaned up everything pretty nicely
3:54
And so in a matter of seconds, we have got a very clean in product
3:58
And so I would say overall, while it doesn't work perfectly yet, and let's be honest, none of these software things to this point ever work entirely perfect
4:07
That was a much quicker process than trying to select all those power lines and remove them manually
4:13
And so I would say that the automation process has done something really, really effective there
4:19
So let's take a look at another one of the new features here
4:22
And this they call relight. And so basically what it is, is kind of zone lighting for a scene
4:28
So in this case, I have got a seam that I like, but what I want to do is equal things out
4:34
So I'm going to take away a little bit of the brightness of the foreground and then raise some brightness in the background
4:41
And then you can see with this depth, it really allows me to position things the way that I want
4:46
And so the byproduct is with a few more tweaks all done in Luminar that I was able to get you know the finished look that I really really like out of this image And so again I think that this is something that is a useful thing It done some AI evaluating of different aspects of the scene allows you to play with that
5:06
And again, rather quickly, you can do some relighting to make for a more effective image
5:12
So going into a different kind of category, they have got a new thing called Portrait Bokeh
5:18
And so what this is doing is adding some software layering to the actual optical quality of the image
5:27
So this is something akin to what Apple has done, for example, on their iPhones
5:30
where it is basically a software generation rather than an optical generation of bokeh
5:36
But let's see if it actually works here. And so I have got an image that we're going to use here that has a nice looking amount of blur
5:44
but I want to play with this and see if it actually is going to be able to produce a more compelling image
5:50
And so going into the background, I am going to bring up the brightness a little bit
5:55
but where we're really going to see the magic here is where we look at the depth correction
6:01
And so in this case, by applying that, and there is a little bit of a lag I found in this
6:05
but you can see that now we have really, really defocused the background
6:09
and you can do a few more tweaks. I can add in a little bit of warmth to the bokeh
6:15
And you see this kind of, at the moment at least, where it kind of phases in and out for a moment
6:21
But after that, and then I'm going to do one final thing here
6:25
Let's give you a little bit of a toggle. And so you can see how it looks before and after
6:32
So by clicking down here, I can go from the before to after. And so you can see that basically it's like increasing the aperture of the lens
6:39
and producing a nicer looking end result. And so a few more minor tweaks
6:44
If I go in, for example, without a race tool and take out a few of the acne spots
6:49
and add a little tiny bit of vignette, here we get a finished portrait
6:53
that I really like the look of. And so those are just a few of the new technologies
7:00
that are a part of Luminar Neo. And to this point, again
7:04
my complaint always on Luminar has been that I don't find that it's quite as reactive, quite as real time when you compare it to
7:14
something like Lightroom. But at the same time, I do recognize that we're getting increasingly
7:18
complex things I mean doing all of that masking behind the scene is actually pretty impressive And so to be able to do that and by the way Lightroom is now starting to use some of these AI masking and it too takes a few seconds to
7:33
do its work because it is a complex software algorithm calculation that's being done there
7:39
And so I would like to continue to see them develop that speed to where they're maximizing
7:45
the potential of that. But I will note that it has run perfectly stable for me. I've had no
7:49
crashing, even though I'm working with a not final retail build of the software. And so I think that
7:55
they're continuing to make progress in that point. And, you know, they develop their own unique
8:01
interface. There's things I like about it. There's things that I don't. I like the, you know, all the
8:06
since there's a lot of tools there, I like the fact that you can just kind of quickly expand them
8:11
What I would like to see, however, is some kind of notification on there when you're actually
8:16
ready to basically press enter. You're wanting to apply the changes that you've made. Right now
8:22
it seems like the applies, basically you close that tab and it applies those things. To me
8:28
it's not as clear and decisive as what I would like to see. So maybe one suggestion for the final
8:33
build. But if you're already invested in Luminar, you've got an upgrade path right now that is
8:39
really quite inexpensive. And there are some, in Neo, there are definitely some very useful tools
8:45
that can just maybe simplify your process. And there are other background removal things that are there
8:53
which I think are going to be useful as well. I just didn't want to go into a deep dive of demonstrating everything here today
8:59
So I think that if you like what Luminar does, then I think that this is just a logical progression
9:04
and probably worthy of a relatively inexpensive upgrade. There is information about that in the description down below
9:10
if you want to check that out. And there are promotions right now around the holidays
9:15
but there is a coupon code there as well that's going to work at any point. It'll save you a bit of money on that
9:20
So check that out. And of course, if you're interested in Luminar, this is a great time to jump on board
9:25
If you're not, go back to your regularly scheduled life. I'm Dustin Abbott
9:29
And if you'll look in the description down below, you can also find links to follow me on social media
9:33
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9:39
Be sure to ring that bell so you get notifications when new content drops. Thanks for watching
9:44
Have a great day. and let the light in
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