Luminar NEO: How to use the Dramatic Tool

The Dramatic tool in Luminar NEO allows for extra creativity. It lowers the saturation and increases the contrast, helping you achieve a gritty cinematic look in your photos. The Dramatic tool is often used for landscape, portrait, urban and creative photography. Find out more about it in this article.

GIFT 🎁: Download your Free Luminar NEO Shortcut Cheatsheet and immediately speed up your editing workflow in Luminar NEO! Click here to get your gift!

In this article:

• What is the Dramatic Tool
• Introducing the Dramatic Toolsliders
• Getting started with the Dramatic Tool
• Video tutorial
• Luminar NEO

What is the Dramatic Tool

The Dramatic tool allows for creativity. It lowers the saturation and increases the contrast, helping you to achieve a gritty cinematic look in your photos. Its effect is similar to that achieved by the bleach bypass darkroom technique. The Dramatic tool is often used in stylized fashion shoots, urban images, and grungy athletic portraits.

Introducing the Dramatic Tool sliders

Standard Settings

Amount

The Amount slider controls the overall intensity of the adjustment.

Local Contrast

This slider adds a targeted contrast adjustment to the finer details of the image.

Advanced Settings

Brightness

This slider darkens or lightens the details in the image. It’s useful for bringing out details in areas like skies.

Saturation

This slider controls whether colors become washed out or are more saturated.

Getting started with the Dramatic Tool

Dramatic Tool: 

• Open the image in Luminar NEO using the Add Photos button (Cmd/Ctrl + O) in the Catalog module (L).
• Move to the Edit module (E).
• Depending on the image, apply a basic development with the tools available in the Essentials section (Develop, Enhance AI, Color).
• Open the Dramatic Tool and start by sliding the Amount slider as far as possible (100) to see the maximum effect. When you start using the Amount slider, the other sliders will become available to use.
• Zoom in to at least 100% to see all the fine details of your photo, and increase or decrease the Local Contrast slider depending on the amount of effect you wish to apply. Zoom out.
• The brightness slider is useful for bringing out the details of your photo. By setting this slider to the maximum (100), you will achieve a minimal white look. By setting this slider to 0, it will darken your image, perfect for a moody and gloomy look.
• The saturation slider will allow you to create a washed-out effect by setting it to 100. Adjust the slider depending on the look you wish to achieve.

Dramatic Tool video tutorial

Watch the full video tutorial covering all sliders in this tool.

Luminar Neo: Elevate Your Photo Editing with AI-Powered Tools

Luminar Neo is Skylum's cutting-edge photo editing software powered by advanced AI tools. Since its release, it has become a favourite among photographers for its intuitive interface and powerful features that simplify complex editing tasks while still offering incredible creative control.

Whether you’re looking to enhance landscapes, portraits, or any genre of photography, Luminar Neo equips you with the tools to do it effortlessly. Its versatility and focus on streamlining workflows make it a great alternative to traditional editing software like Photoshop.

Explore Luminar Neo’s capabilities here.

Don't forget, you can get 10% off with our exclusive code CPNEO10 at checkout.

And if you're looking for new elements to add to your Luminar Neo, make sure to check our best-selling Luminar Neo Power Bundle 👇