Luminar NEO: How to use the Mystical Tool

The Mystical tool in Luminar NEO is very popular amongst landscape photographers. It gives you the ability to add a dreamy look to your images with simple one slider adjustments. The tool even has a few additional sliders for finer adjustments of shadows, saturation and warmth. Learn more about how to create a fantasy look by increasing contrast and adding a creative glow in our latest blog post.

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In this article:

• What is the Mystical Tool
• Introducing the Mystical Tool sliders
• Getting started with the Mystical Tool
• Video tutorial
• Luminar NEO

What is the Mystical Tool

The Mystical tool gives your image a dreamy look by softening the luminescence while increasing the contrast and saturation. It can create a fantasy look by increasing contrast and adding a creative glow prioritized in the lighter areas of the image.

Introducing the Mystical Tool sliders

Standard Settings

Amount

This slider adjusts the overall strength of the tool. For a moderate effect and a more realistic image, keep the value of the Amount slider below 40. If the Amount value is 0, the tool is not applied. Move the slider to the right to increase the Amount.

Shadows

This slider adjusts the black point for the darker areas of the image.

Colorize

Saturation

This slider is a useful way to adjust the colour saturation of the Mystical effect.

Warmth

This slider adjusts the hue of the Mystical effect towards the warm end of the spectrum.

 👍: At a low setting, the Mystical tool will give the image more contrast and can increase colour.

Getting started with the Mystical Tool

The Mystical tool is, like many creative tools in Luminar NEO, traditionally used in the second phase of the editing after the standard development. The development can be done in Luminar NEO using the Essential Tools and in other applications like Lightroom or Photoshop Camera RAW. Once the image is ready for further effects, use the simple sliders to get the desired look of the overall image or use the masking tool to create powerful local adjustments.

Mystical Tool: 

• Open the image in Luminar NEO by using the Add Photos button (Cmd/Ctrl + O) in the Catalog module (L).
• Move to the Edit module (E).
• Then, navigate to the Mystical AI tool in the Creative section of the editing toolbar (right side).
• Open the tool by clicking on the down-arrow at the end of the tool.
• Move the Amount slider towards the right until the desired effect is applied to your image.
• Use the additional sliders to adjust the effect even further.

Mystical Tool video tutorial

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

Luminar NEO

Luminar Neo is the latest editing software from Skylum. It was announced back in September 2021, and it's been highly anticipated since.

Luminar Neo is an AI-powered photo editing software. Skylum has said that Neo isn’t replacing their previous release—Luminar AI. But Neo sets out to fix some of the issues users faced with Luminar AI.

We were impressed with the AI tools in Luminar AI. But like many others, we encountered performance issues. Luminar Neo uses the same AI tools, but the new high-speed core engine improves speed and performance.

Luminar Neo isn’t just more of the same. We’re happy to see Skylum has taken Neo in a different direction, adding layer and mask AI tools to the program. This broadens Neo’s appeal, taking it in an Adobe Photoshop direction.

Learn more about Luminar NEO here.

Use one of our discount codes: CPNEO10 will give you a 10% discount - CP10 will give you a $10 discount.