Luminar Neo for an enthusiastic amateur ?

Crotal Bell

Crotal Bell

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Keith
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I feel I'm more than a beginner now, but still with much to learn, so as an "enthusiastic amateur" I'm considering Luminar Neo.

I'm not a person who likes things complicated, however, I feel I want to go a bit further than the free app I've been using and Neo looks to have all my usual fav features plus some really good additional levels of editing. You can get the main editing package for £8 per month which suits my pocket perfectly. I've seen the thread on here about Lightroom alternatives and Neo seems well respected.

Any thoughts or feedback gratefully received.
 
So now they want £8pm which is about the same as a deal price for Adobe LR + PS. There is no comparison. None. You can get by with Luminar for basics raw adjustments; some things work OK, some are horrible gimmicks that are best avoided (sky replacement, light rays, the really horrible presets that are such a throwback from early days of instagram and much much worse). I wouldn't pay £8/pm for that no chance. I paid like £10 (in total) for the previous version (the so called AI) just to have a play and the only useful thing I got out of it was some quick portrait treatment in batch mode. So not much...
 
I actually really like Neo. I previously purchased Luminar AI, and Neo was announced very shortly afterwards, so I got Neo for free. You can buy the lifetime license for Neo and do not have to go for the Subscription model. Yes, there are some gimmicks, and yes there are some questionable presets, but you can make your own presets, or purchase some very good ones from the Skylum marketplace. I do find that there is a lot of snobbery aimed at Luminar, but it depends what kind of editing you do. It is easy of course to go completely overboard with all of the tools available, but this is the same with any editing program. If you are a hobbyist as I am, Neo will do everything and a lot more than you will ever need. If you learn the program properly, you can get some really great results. No one has ever looked at a shot I’ve posted anywhere on line and said…”Hmmm, looks like you edited that in Luminar Neo”.
 
ecoleman said:
Until they ditch Neo, call it something else and expect you to pay again.

Luminar 3
Luminar 4
Luminar AI
Luminar Neo
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Ok, we get it, you don’t like it. Luckily, you don’t have to buy it ;)
 
Nikon_Nick said:
Ok, we get it, you don’t like it. Luckily, you don’t have to buy it ;)
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No I don’t but that’s besides the point.
The OP asked for thoughts and feedback so I’ve given some including the fact that lifetime does not mean lifetime in the world of Skylum. Is that okay with you?
 
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ecoleman said:
Until they ditch Neo, call it something else and expect you to pay again.

Luminar 3
Luminar 4
Luminar AI
Luminar Neo
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Now that it's a subscription model they can just continue milking it as neo. They will just make sure that somehow original/ lifetime purchases don't get latest and greatest untill you pay up again for another year a bit like topaz model
 
Crotal Bell said:
I feel I'm more than a beginner now, but still with much to learn, so as an "enthusiastic amateur" I'm considering Luminar Neo.

I'm not a person who likes things complicated, however, I feel I want to go a bit further than the free app I've been using and Neo looks to have all my usual fav features plus some really good additional levels of editing. You can get the main editing package for £8 per month which suits my pocket perfectly. I've seen the thread on here about Lightroom alternatives and Neo seems well respected.

Any thoughts or feedback gratefully received.
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As with everything else in photography there is no right or wrong, it is all about personal preference. As you can see you have already received positive and negative comments about Luminar Neo, so who is right? Download the free trial and see if you like it. I would also suggest the you download the free trials of other software as well to see if you prefer one over the other.
 
I was using CS5 but bit the bullet and stumped up for PS2022 and I have to say that it's either better or easier to get better results with the new stuff but it is possibly that I just didn't try hard enough with CS5.

There's also the free version of Nik filters, you can do quite a bit with that but you need a raw converter.
 
L320Rio said:
As with everything else in photography there is no right or wrong, it is all about personal preference. As you can see you have already received positive and negative comments about Luminar Neo, so who is right? Download the free trial and see if you like it. I would also suggest the you download the free trials of other software as well to see if you prefer one over the other.
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Struggling to find a free trial for Luminar Neo, but Lightroom is offering 7 days free trial. I must admit I had no idea LR monthly fee would be so low.
If you cancel after 14 days you get early cancellation penalties, so I guess you need to mess around with it for a few days and then if you want to get out, ump before the payments start.
 
Crotal Bell said:
I must admit I had no idea LR monthly fee would be so low.
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We are in a way quite lucky that Adobe doesn't just force LR+PS users to get the 'Everything' package at ~ £50pm, which you will need if you want to use their illustrator or video software.

Just so you get a good headstart and don't waste any time I highly recommend watching these semi-official youtube tutorials from J Kost https://jkost.com/blog/lightroom-training-videos
And there is a lot more to it with photoshop but I would suggest to take one step at a time
 
I bought it, and got a refund.
Gimmicks are nice, but once you have tried them, not wanted.
Seemed that most other things needed more purchases, the "buttons" are there, but do nothing unless you pay more.

Affinity does all I need, and very rarely use RawTherapee, and since buying Affinity 1 I rarely use Gimp now.
 
I got caught up in all the hype and ended up buying NEO
Tried it a few times and found it easy enough with reasonable results.
Don't suppose I'll use much in the future.
Its Adobe all the way for me along with the TK8 plugin ;)
 
To be honest I would either go with Adobe if you’re happy with paying monthly but its excellent or go with Affinity which is a one off payment which is what I went for
For the things that I want to do affinity does it better than photoshop but its all individual preference the only thing I found lacking with Affinity is raw processing , I use DXO photolab for that
 
LCPete said:
To be honest I would either go with Adobe if you’re happy with paying monthly but its excellent or go with Affinity which is a one off payment which is what I went for
For the things that I want to do affinity does it better than photoshop but its all individual preference the only thing I found lacking with Affinity is raw processing , I use DXO photolab for that
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Fully agree, far more logical and intuitive to use.
I do most RAWs with Affinity, occasionally I use RawTherapee (free) if I really can't get the result I want with Affinity, which most of the time I do and it is quicker and easier.
 
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