DJ (00:01)
Welcome to the LumaCast, your premier gateway to the universe of limitless photo editing. Dive into the galaxy of Luminar software and the dynamic world of AI photo editing. Join us weekly for a burst of creativity and the drive to transform your photos with confidence and skill. Broadcasting directly from Clever Photographer headquarters, it's time to welcome your hosts.
Jakub Boars and Holly Linton.
Speaker 2 (00:31)
Hello everyone and welcome back to the second episode of our Lumicas, the podcast where we talk about Luminar Neo, photo editing and all things photography. If you've never been with us before, my name is Jakub Bors, I'm a professional landscape photographer based in West Sussex, England and I'm also founder of Clever Photographer. But much more importantly on the side of me as my great friend and co-host, Holly Linton. Hello Holly!
Holly (00:59)
Hey Jakub, how are you?
Speaker 2 (01:00)
I'm great. I'm really excited for today's episode. Holly, can you tell us what we're going to talk about in today's episode?
Holly (01:08)
Sure, today we're gonna be debunking and dispelling the myths behind Luminar Neo. Apparently there's a bunch of them going around.
Speaker 2 (01:17)
I actually went to several photography shows here in UK and I kept collecting all these myths and stories about Luminar Neo and this is why we thought it would be great thing to put them together and talk about them in today's episode. But before we do that, Holly told me that she actually has an educational adventure scheduled for June. So Holly, would you like to tell us more about it?
Holly (01:41)
Sure. I was asked to do my very first presentation on Luminar Neo in a virtual creative workshop that's going to take place June 21st and 22nd. We'll be able to put the description or link to that in the podcast so you can learn more about it. But it's a full weekend of 13 hours of special guest presenters, yours truly being one of them. So I'm really looking forward to it and sharing my love of Luminar with the community.
Speaker 2 (02:09)
Excellent. So this is in June, but today we are talking about some myths in Luminar Nio. And the very first one is people often told me or they tell me that they think that Luminar Nio is only for beginners. Now what to say about that? Well, actually on the last show in London, we had a visitor on the stand and the visitor was Joel Grimes, which is very famous portrait photographer from United States and
He was like one of the biggest star of the photography show. And he came to me and he talked to me about photography. And then he kind of told me that he actually used Luminar Neo quite often as a part of his workflow. And he's definitely not the only one. There is lots of big photographers who do use Luminar Neo as a part of their workflow. People like Trey Recliff or Serge Ramelli and more. Now, both are big photographers, but not only that, the application itself also have some.
tools that are kind of specific for professional photography. Things like focus stacking or batch processing for the HDR images, quite often used in interior design or similar photography as well. And there are other like a studio light or gen expand and similar tools. I always like to say that Luminar Neo is probably one of the most intuitive photo editing applications out there. There are definitely lots of professional photographers who also take the advantage of the speed, the fact that you can very quickly get the result.
or at least see what the image is about and that it's very intuitive. Holly, what do you think about it? Well,
Holly (03:40)
Luminar Neo only user. So from my standpoint, I would say, you know, now that I'm an expert after five years, it's not just for beginners, but I was obviously a beginner at one point. So I think it's a great software for someone who was like me a little bit late to the gate as the saying goes, only just starting to learn how to edit five years ago. So I'm glad to hear that all these, you know, top
professionals are using it. So you've definitely debunked the myth with that one. So I do kind of feel like even though it's a simple to use software, like you said, now that the people who get a little more advanced with using it, I'm not saying, my gosh, I need to turn to somewhere else now. I need to start learning Photoshop or something because this isn't meeting my needs. would say Luminar Neo meets all my needs as a standalone product. Either way, whether standalone or as a plugin.
I think it's not just for beginners.
Speaker 2 (04:41)
I definitely agree with you. With that, that brings us to another of my favorite myths out there actually, and that's AI tools kill photography and photo editing and all that, which I don't think that's true at all for multiple different reasons. But when we actually look at the application itself, it does have in overall three kinds of tools. It has the traditional tools, just like any other photo editing application.
all his favorite developed tool with exposure and contrast and highlights and all that. And you can be as detailed and as specific on what you want to create. After that, it has something what I like to call smart tools. Yes, some of them will have the AI in the name, but actually all they're doing is they combining multiple tasks together. One example is for example, the enhanced AI or structure AI. Structure AI basically takes creativity, details and all that and just apply it in one go.
rather than you have to apply multiple different sliders. So this is a smart tool. And then, yes, it does have some of the real AI tools. This is where you're replacing what's on the actual image, like GenSwap or GenerativeExtent or maybe even the Noiseless AI. know, those, actually really adjust the pixels on the image and adjust what's there. But if you get to that point when you need to adjust something in your creative process, then they are there and you can use them. But there is a full scale.
of tools that you can use in Luminar Neo and definitely it's not just the AI tools. And now I am very curious about what you're gonna say, Holly.
Holly (06:12)
Well, I just I said like mirrorless cameras are the way forward. AI is the way forward to its it's going to be around. There's about 11 AI tools in Luminar Neo and they don't all work great for what you're trying to accomplish. But some of them, I think, can really help you along. Like, for example, how would you do a sky replacement without sky AI? I don't know how I would do it. I don't.
think I'd be able to, maybe there is a way. But even like magic light AI, how you could add like a little light flicker with your overlays. But it's kind of nice to have that technology to be able to just quickly, you know, make something look great. So I feel like the AI has its place, like you kind of said, use it to your advantage when it works for your image. And you can kind of, yeah, make fast improvements. I think it helps speed you along and
when Luminar first announced that they were going to do the Gen erase. At first I said, ⁓ don't go there. Just focus on continued improvement of the software. Don't jump into that bandwagon. But I could see why it's necessary to keep up with the Joneses as that expression goes of keeping the technology moving forward. So I think that it doesn't take away your creative control. It really just enhances it.
Speaker 2 (07:39)
100 % 100 % ⁓ Okay, so we definitely debunk that even just by simple saying that there is definitely the option of doing even just the traditional editing in Luminar Neo and then you can top it up with some of the AI tools and that actually brings us nicely to the myth number three, which is also my favorite one, but I think it comes with lots of misunderstanding and that's about Luminar Neo not supporting raw files.
or in some cases not supporting the RAW files correctly. I think what I want to start with Lumina Neo itself, I just kind of had to look at the list, support over 1,400 different cameras and 16 different brands. It does read most of the current profiles out there. So it's not that it doesn't open or you can't edit the RAW files. I think where the issue quite often comes is with the camera profiles. So you know, when you open the image, you open your developer.
the camera profile that you can click on it. And it basically applied different profiles on how you can read the photo. Some camera brands will just have the one like Adobe standard or Luminar standard, but some will have a long list of different profiles that you can apply. And some brands do not support that in Luminar Neo. And I understand that can be quite frustrating because maybe you want that specific look you are looking for, but that's how it is.
And more importantly, it's not the case of the application not being able to edit the image. It just doesn't have that one specific look. From my own experience when it comes to raw editing, you know yourself and probably lots of listeners that I do lots of different projects on YouTube. I do lots of different editing. So I also work with lots of files from different photographers, not just me. And that means that I tested lots of different cameras, camera brands, camera types. And I never really personally had an issue with opening raw file.
But there may be some, I don't know. What do you think, Holly?
Holly (09:32)
I thought that this topic was about camera profiles. So I'm learning something a little new here. So with camera profiles, I've seen a lot of that in the Neo Facebook groups where people say, even just yesterday, there's someone who showed a picture. They're like, it pulls up in different programs, but in Luminar Neo, it looks like this. And it was basically just like, it had blue crackly stuff all over it you couldn't see the picture.
And someone from Skylum Support reached out and said, that camera is not supported. You convert it to a DNG file so that you can utilize it.
Speaker 2 (10:06)
Important point here is that if you are struggling and you're missing some of the profiles, first thing you should do is to download application from Adobe, which is completely free, and it's DNG converter. You can actually Google it. It's from Adobe. It's a little app you download and you install. And you never have to use it again. You don't have to transfer your images into DNG format. But what happens when you download it and install it on your computer, it automatically access this magic folder with profiles.
and updated it and it updates it with the latest profiles. So even the one which Luminar Neo doesn't have, it will install them there. So when you open Luminar Neo after that, it will have access to more camera profiles this way. So this is little work around. It doesn't have all the profiles. It will not fix everything. But first step, if you're missing some camera profiles and first thing to try is this DMG converter. It can really do the magic. Did you have anything else to add to the camera profiles?
Holly (11:01)
Hmm, okay.
Speaker 2 (11:06)
No. In that way, in that case, it's time to take a quick break. We will put on the ad, but don't go anywhere because we will be back in a moment talking about even more interesting myths, which one of them is, is Luminar Neo still slow and buggy? So don't go anywhere. We'll speak to you soon.
DJ (11:26)
If you're listening to the LumaCast Podcast, then we share something in common. We love editing photos and we love Luminar. It's almost breathtaking what this amazing tech can do for you. On our website, you'll find countless different things to help you be more creative than you ever thought imaginable. From our photo manipulation master class to our power bundle with 986 elements, our essential preset bundle, editing software and
extensions to our tutorials harness the power at the website at www.cleverphotographer.com Luminare again, that's clever photographer comm slash luminar now back to luma cast
Speaker 2 (12:14)
And just like that, we are back for the second half where we have two more myths to debug. Did I say it right? Yes. Great. And then we have a quick fire myth round where I will be asking Holly eight or nine different myths and she will help us to debug them at the end. But first of all, we moving to the myth number four, which is Luminar Neo is slow and buggy.
And this is the biggest one out there. And I probably have to be a little bit careful about answering this one. As many users I meet and they tell me they never had a single issue with Luminar Neo, there will be another user and number of users who will tell me that they really struggled with it. And it's usually combination of different things together. I have to say that I was struggling a little bit with Luminar Neo on my older computer, but recently, talking about like September, I have updated both my Mac as well as my laptop.
and I really haven't had much issues at all since. So that itself show me that the hardware is probably one of those indicators. Another thing is about how you use Luminar Neo. So I actually like to use lots of different catalogs. I have a catalog for teaching, I have a catalog for my landscape photography. I also have a catalog for my professional work when I do interior design and stuff like that. So I like to separate them. And in this way, by separating the catalogs, I always import
little less amount of images into the application. So that's another way which can really make the difference. And then also sometimes it's a simple user misunderstanding when it comes to using the application. We just talk about, for example, the camera profile, know, how simple it is just to convert the image into DNG and then everything works. So I think all together, and I can definitely say on my experiences that since the application was released three years ago,
because it just celebrated the three years anniversary. The difference is night and day. I remember recording some of the first tutorials. So it was released in January or February and I started to record lots of these tutorials in April and May, three years ago. And some of the tutorials, I was almost unable to record them. Like it was so bad, it kept crashing and I would have to do lots of cuts and it was really difficult. Where in two days, like three years later, I think the performance is so much better and I think it does much better.
That's pretty much my take. cannot stand here and say that it's not true, it can be difficult and it will depend on many different points, but I can also stand here and say, or sit here actually, and say that it improved tremendously from where it started three years ago, which nicely brings Holly and to her point on this.
Holly (14:59)
I don't know if we can debunk the myth completely, but it's good that I can give my perspective on this because I'd say I'm a user that now I never complain about anything, but I definitely have issues with Luminar Neo at times. I'm on an Intel 5 processor still. It's a 2020 iMac. Kind like you said, is there someone who has the M3 chip or isn't there M4 chip now?
Do they have better performance than those of us? I wouldn't consider my computer old, but I guess it is at this point. But I literally just got this computer five years ago when I started editing. I didn't know enough back then about computer technology as to what to buy. So I watched a few videos to, know, what's the best photo editing, you know, specs. So I think what you're saying is people should at least first look at the specs for what, you know, your minimum requirements are.
and use the product, make sure that your equipment is up to par, because maybe that could be part of the problem. So there's a lot of people, I think, are still kind of technically challenged, even though they're photo editing and are photographers, doesn't mean that they know how to use their computer, which is, you know, I don't want to like not being mean or anything. But so user error could be part of it.
And not in my case, of course, but I have like the twirling Mac ball. My Neo freezes on me and crashes when I'm doing layers sometimes. And recently I've had other weird anomalies we'll call them, but you just reach out to support, you know, try to solve the problem or, you know, with the next update, things get better. So as you said, every update, things are improving and it's only going to get better. So it's just important if you do have problems, reach out to support.
and just try to do all the troubleshooting that you can. So nothing's perfect, but I would agree that, I mean, we can debunk it 95%. There's people out there who you can see on the forums that complain all the time about all the problems they're having, whereas others say, I've never had a problem at all.
Speaker 2 (17:13)
Good. So let's leave the buggy and slow Luminar Neo myth behind us and move to the myth number five, where we're to talk about Luminar Neo doesn't fit into professional workflow. So I will open up with this one, probably by just kind of looking from the high perspective on how lots of professionals use the application. It's true that lots of professionals use the application more as a plugin for either Lightroom.
or Photoshop. And in general, the way it's done for lots of photographers, interior design, landscape, portrait, they would start in Lightroom where they would keep their catalog and they would do the basic development there. know, exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, stuff like that. Then in general, file or the image is sent to Photoshop. That's where you do the heavy lifting, the removal, adjustments, you know, stuff like that. And then from there, the image will go to Luminar Neon.
Now there is a smart way to do this and smart way. The smart way is that you actually turn it into smart object and by turning it into smart object, when you go into Luminar Neo and apply some additional edits and that can be anything from sky replacement, from portrait enhancement, from quick enhancing using the enhanced AI or enhancing the street lights like Holly was saying with the street light AI. You know, you can do all of that there very quickly. And then you click on a save. It brings you back to Photoshop.
where you can just review the edits back to Lightroom and that's where you export it. Now coming back to my smart object, if when you come back from Lightroom, not Lightroom, if when you come back from Luminar Neo into Photoshop and you have made a mistake or something went wrong, when you double click on a smart object, you go back to Luminar Neo and you can actually adjust the adjustments. So they are not baked in, it's almost like a virtual copy where you just keep the adjustments together. So that's the advantage of working with the smart object in Photoshop.
While maybe professionals will not use just Luminar Neo, there will be a lot and lot who will use it as a part of their workflow, especially for the more creative or sometimes fast projects. So yeah, that's my view on that and that's my experience also probably because I use it exactly the same way. But what does Holly think about the workflow?
Holly (19:27)
Well, as you know, I'm not a professional, so I'm not sure I'm qualified to answer this question, debunk this myth. But no, you've already debunked the myth. So again, I've already said I'm a Neo-only user. Now, let's pretend I was a professional and I wanted to start my own portrait business or something. With what I've learned about Luminar Neo so far, I feel like I could successfully, you know,
Be a portrait photographer and just use Luminar Neo.
Speaker 2 (20:00)
Definitely, I definitely agree with you. Now we will have to move on to the next part, which is time for the quickfire myth round. So we have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, quick myths I have collected in the last year over different shows. And I'm going to ask Holly what she thinks about them. So first one is Luminar Neo works only on Apple devices. No. It's a historical myth actually, because originally Luminar Neo was only for Mac.
And so was the company it used to be called. Now it's kind of Mac fun, I think was the original name of the company. So they would focus only on Apple devices, but now it works on both. question is Lumina Mio is just a mobile app.
Holly (20:43)
There is a mobile app, but that's separate. It's not Luminar Neo, it's Luminar Mobile. So the app we're talking about is the actual software.
Speaker 2 (20:52)
Exactly. So Luminar Neo as the name Luminar Neo is just a name for the desktop app. Luminar Mobile is name of the mobile application. Third question. It only uses AI tools.
Holly (21:03)
No, you have already pointed out that it has, well, standard tools. Is that the word you would use? It has regular tools and AI tools.
Speaker 2 (21:13)
Exactly. Lumina Neo is subscription only.
Holly (21:16)
should
be at this point. But no, you can get a subscription or a lifetime and then add extensions and all sorts of things as subscriptions for certain things end and then you have to rebuy certain things. So it tends to get a little confusing out there in the community when you have a lifetime.
Speaker 2 (21:33)
So, it's subscription only, no, you can do both lifetime and subscription plans or options. It only works as a plugin, so only Photoshop and Lightroom plugin.
Holly (21:44)
I'm a standalone person.
Speaker 2 (21:46)
So it does have a full catalog, presets and editing module which you can use on its own. It doesn't have a catalog.
Holly (21:55)
It has as many catalogs as you'd like to have.
Speaker 2 (21:59)
Exactly. Seventh one, doesn't support layer editing. It does support layer editing. And for those who would like to test it, we have a really nice photo manipulation class at Clever Photographer and that will definitely test your layer editing skills. Eighth question was, Luminarnio is too hard to use.
Holly (22:02)
It does support Laird.
Am I allowed to make a dumb blonde joke? No, if I could use it, anyone can use it. And the best way to learn is by following Clever Photographer, and watching all his videos, doing his master class.
Speaker 2 (22:21)
Do you care? Go for it.
Exactly. That's a great way to end the episodes. Anyway, we are definitely running towards the end of our time today. So we have went through five different myths when it comes to editing in Luminar Neo. I think we have done about 98 % well. Is it about right? Yeah. Except the one, but it was really exciting. What we're going to do, we're going to wrap up now and we're going to be back again next week with our favorite tools and techniques when it comes to Easter.
or more spring editing in Lumina Neo. So look out for the next episode coming in seven days. That was me, Jakub Bors and Holly. Thank you for joining us.
Holly (23:14)
Thank you, bye everyone.
Speaker 2 (23:16)
Bye everyone!
DJ (23:18)
And that's a wrap now, there's only three things left to do subscribe to this podcast so you never miss a future episode Visit our website at clever photographer comm slash luma cast to see what we have in store next and Stay creative and keep editing your photos. No matter what anyone says
