Beginner Luminar Neo for $69: Worth it?

Sony Corleone

Sony Corleone

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Edit My Images
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Excire sent me an offer: Luminar Neo perpetual desktop for $69. I already have Photolab 9 (use all the time), Lightroom Classic (useful fairly often), and Topaz AI (once in a blue moon).

I checked it out, and apparently, Neo is able to remove and insert objects, which, I guess, could be useful. Seems like it is hard to go wrong for $69.

So...what do people here think of this program?
 
I was smelling that delicious bait when I finally found the hook.

If you buy for $69, you only get the AI functions for one year! They're the whole reason for buying the software. So it's a subscription, like just about everything else.
 
I decided to give it a whack, since it was not expensive. It seems like it is geared toward professional people who are cranking out stuff like ads and calendars. All sorts of presets, and they upsell you with a huge number of gimmicks you can add. There is probably a big market for it, but I'm not sure I'm in it. I have a year to make up my mind.
 
I found out it can do at least one amazing thing. I photographed something outdoors on a day when the sky was grey and cloudy, and with a click or two, Neo completely replaced the sky with a blue one with fluffy white clouds, and it did this in spite of a very fiddly bunch of trees in the foreground. Very impressive, although the result is a massive fraud. I have not been able to fix a fiddly sky in Lightroom, but Neo did it instantly.
 
That’s a tempting price, but personally, I’ve found Luminar a bit too 'heavy-handed' for my taste.
$69 is cheap, but if you value a clean, realistic finish over AI sky replacements, you might find Neo a bit gimmicky.
 
Sony Corleone said:
Excire sent me an offer: Luminar Neo perpetual desktop for $69. I already have Photolab 9 (use all the time), Lightroom Classic (useful fairly often), and Topaz AI (once in a blue moon).

I checked it out, and apparently, Neo is able to remove and insert objects, which, I guess, could be useful. Seems like it is hard to go wrong for $69.

So...what do people here think of this program?
Click to expand...

You already have 2 of the best photo developing tools available. The sky swap feature is interesting, and you may be able to add your own skies like you can with On1 for the integrity of knowing the picture is yours.
 
ancient_mariner said:
You already have 2 of the best photo developing tools available. The sky swap feature is interesting, and you may be able to add your own skies like you can with On1 for the integrity of knowing the picture is yours.
Click to expand...
You can import photos of sky's that you took yourself, Neo is the only photo software I use these days
 
I am a total novice at editing, also I feel my style of photography is leaning towards less editing and more trying to compose a better shot to begin with.
Yes I crop and edit, exposure, brightness and a few other things.
I also do most of my photographs in Black and white now.
I have NX Studio as my main tool and I have an old laptop with a version of (FREE) Adobe that I use only to put frames on the photographs, and its quite basic to say the least.
In the past I have found that over editing is so easy to do and therefore actually has a negative effect on the outcome of the photograph.
I see sky in photographs with edits done that I have never seen in real life, some look like Rock LP covers from the 70s and 80s, amazing but in reality a total fantasy.
Now I am tight fisted and cant imaging paying subscription for program after program, one perhaps would not be too much, but at the moment I have no need for such a thing, and I could not justify the cost anyway.
So I have to work with what I have and do the best I can.
Now we all know it is the easiest thing in the world to find a fault with any one or any thing.
Faults are reality unfortunately and we have to live with that the best we can.
So I try to capture emotions on people and drama with landscapes etc.
Not perfect and its never going to be, but the concept of what my photographs are about hopefully will override the other imperfections that exist within that photograph.
 
Luminar has a very sour taste of pump and dump, bait and switch and all sorts of nasty play.

The software is ok, but nothing special. If you have access to lightroom, you have no need for this other than satisfying curiosity
 
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