Enhancing Water with Luminar Neo’s Water Enhancer AI: A Step-by-Step Guide

In today’s blog, we’ll explore Luminar Neo’s Water Enhancer AI tool, a powerful feature designed to enhance water in your photos quickly and easily. This tool allows you to adjust contrast, brightness, and color to achieve stunning water effects. Whether you’re working with a tropical paradise shot or a serene lakeside scene, Water Enhancer AI provides the flexibility to bring out the best in your images.

Getting Started with Luminar Neo

1. Open Luminar Neo and navigate to the Catalog module.
2. Select your image and click on the Edit button (or press “E” on your keyboard) to move to the editing module.
3. In the editing toolbar, scroll to find the Landscape section, where you’ll see the Water Enhancer AI tool.

Exploring the Water Enhancer AI Sliders

The Water Enhancer AI tool comes with several sliders, each offering control over different aspects of the water in your photo. Let’s break down each of these controls:

1. Amount Slider
   This is the first and most important slider. Increasing the amount activates the Water Enhancer AI, prompting the tool to scan your image and automatically detect water bodies. Once identified, the tool creates an automatic mask for the water areas, indicated by a red overlay when you hover over the image.

   The Amount slider controls the intensity of the enhancement. Pushing the slider to the right increases the vividness of the water, making it more striking. Moving it to the left tones down the effect. To get a feel for its impact, it’s best to start by increasing the amount all the way before adjusting to your preference. You can always reset the slider by double-clicking on it.

2. Blue Slider
   As its name suggests, this slider lets you adjust the blue tones in the water. You can either remove blue completely by pulling the slider to the left or create a vibrant, deep blue by moving it to the right. If you want to achieve a balanced look, try setting the blue to around 50.

3. Green Slider
   This slider adjusts the green tones in the water. You can increase it for a more emerald or turquoise effect, which is especially useful for images of tropical or coastal locations. You can experiment with both the blue and green sliders to achieve the ideal balance of color in your water.

4. Original Color Slider
   This slider controls the contrast between the enhanced water and its original hues. By adjusting this, you can blend the effects of the blue and green sliders with the natural tones in the image. It helps in achieving a more natural look by maintaining the integrity of the original water color while still enhancing its vibrance.

5. Brightness and Contrast Sliders
   These two sliders provide further refinement:

   • The Brightness slider adjusts the overall lightness or darkness of the water.
   • The Contrast slider increases or decreases the contrast within the water, deepening shadows and enhancing highlights.

Advanced Masking with Refine Area

Once you’re satisfied with your initial water adjustments, Luminar Neo offers an advanced masking option: Refine Area.

In the Refine Area section, you can use familiar tools like Draw, Erase, and Restore to fine-tune the mask created by the Water Enhancer AI. This is particularly useful when the AI mistakenly selects non-water areas, such as grass or rocks, or if it misses some parts of the water.

• Draw: Adds areas to the mask.
• Erase: Removes areas from the mask.
• Restore: Restores the original mask created by the AI.

You can adjust the brush size, softness, and strength for precise control. If you make a mistake, simply switch to Restore to bring back the original mask or use Draw to add missing parts manually.

Final Touches: Mask Feather and Depth

Finally, the Water Enhancer AI tool offers two additional controls:

• Mask Feather: This softens the edges of the mask, creating a smoother transition between the enhanced water and other areas of the image.
• Depth: Adjusts the perceived depth of the water, adding a sense of layering and dimension.

Conclusion

With Luminar Neo’s Water Enhancer AI tool, enhancing water in your landscape photos has never been easier. Whether you want vibrant blues for tropical scenes or more subtle adjustments for lakes and rivers, the tool offers versatile control to suit any image.

Give this tool a try, experiment with the sliders, and don’t forget to fine-tune your edits using the Refine Area section for the best results.

Bonus: Check out our brand-new Luminar Neo Travel Preset Bundle with over 120 presets, designed to transform your travel photos in just a few clicks. Head to our website or click the link in the description for more details!