Other photographers should take a deep dive into the features Luminar is offering and give it serious consideration. Those who invested in Neo with the earlier partially complete versions will get their reward with this free update. It's competitive with other raw editors, and many of the big names have been scrambling to catch up with features like sky replacement. Luminar is one powerful piece of software with the addition of sophisticated manual and AI-driven masking tools. That's not to say it's really, slow, but I'd just like to see it faster. It's even slower on Intel Macs and Windows. ![]() It does run natively on my M1 Mac Studio, but it's sluggish in places. Neo is not as fast as I think it should be.I'd like an option to skip it completely by turning it off. I think the catalog is still pretty primitive and hasn't made much progress over the last couple of years.The new masking tools work as advertised and still allow you to refine the masks.The AI features are the best I've seen in any software.Luminar Neo is now an excellent and competitive raw editor for amateur and professional photographers.The fact that the Neo team is doing this work in the Ukraine in the middle of the Russian invasion is all the more remarkable. Now, with both manual and AI masking, I'm an enthusiastic user and can finally set Luminar AI aside. I regretted not using Neo because it had many excellent tools, like power line and automatic dust removal. Now, with the AI tools, you can auto-mask the mountain, apply the Relight tool, and not touch the sky. You could, for example, darken a distant mountain, but the sky would also darken. I was disappointed in the Neo Relight tool when it was first released. And again, it can all be done manually if you wish. You can select, for example, a mountain, and tweak the color without having to manually mask it out and without having those colors change the rest of the image. The AI masking also lets you selectively use the DeNoise tool, structure, or sharpness. ![]() The masking feature appears in many of the menus on the editor, like the color controls. You can see an example of this in the image at the top of the page. I also selected Flora, and the masking got the trees, although it missed some other vegetation. I could then apply some structure to just the mountains. With the auto-masking turned on, I selected mountains, and with a click, it did a good job. It takes around 20 seconds to identify what's in your image. When you turn on the MaskingAI feature, you get an animation that lets you follow the process visually. I'm just back from a photo shoot at Canyon de Chelly in Northern Arizona, so I was anxious to see how this new version worked. I gave this new version (1.0.6) a spin before its official release. This leaves full control over the image to creatives. MaskAI works alongside the manual Paint, Radial, and Gradient Masks that are already present in Luminar Neo, so in case of imperfections or unexpected results, it is possible to edit the mask selection manually. Additionally, in the Mask Actions tab you can show, fill, clear, copy, paste or invert the detected mask. Then, you can effortlessly apply the mask by simply pressing the button with the name of the element that you want to mask. When you press MaskAI, Luminar Neo automatically detects all the elements that are present in your photo. With MaskAI, there is no time-consuming brushing involved. As the AI learns, more elements will be added in the future. The neural network behind Luminar Neo’s MaskAI not only recognizes the main subject but automatically detects separate elements in a photo: people, skies, architecture, transportation, flora, water, mountains, natural ground, and artificial ground. ![]() But those features are back, and an editor can work in the traditional way or now can let AI do the masking. I'd been holding off using Neo because of the lack of any masking - no gradient masks, no radial masks.
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