Regular readers know that I am a fanboy of Luminar Neo. I was pleased and surprised with some of the program’s additions released at a 1.xx update on April 25, 2024. Version 1.19 features several enhancements, and as I write this, I am sharing some of the results of the enhancements. I start with the Twilight Enhancer tool. This addition provides a toolbar with several enhancement options that turn a daylight sky into twilight. I may have overemphasized its use here. A percentage slider can be adjusted from 0 to 100 percent to reduce or magnify your final settings.

Except for the opening image, I’ve selected photos that I haven’t published before. I used them to see if the new tools could “rescue” rejected images. I’ll leave it to you, dear reader, to decide if the new tools were helpful in the rescue, or if the image should have continued to be unpublished. >grin<

One of the reasons I’ve kept Adobe Lightroom Classic in my arsenal is its ability to process bracketed images into HDR (High Dynamic Range). For quite some time, I’ve grouped the brackets into sets and used Lightroom’s HDR Merge function to blend an entire collection into separate HDR files. Neo includes an HDR tool as an extra-cost option but I haven’t used it much due to my opinion that it’s a bit heavy-handed in its output. Version 1.19 adds batch processing ability to merge up to 1,000 bracketed images into the requisite number of final HDR images.

The image above is a bracket merge before final processing. Since the batch function uses the same merge tool, the resulting output needs to be “toned down,” in my opinion. The image below is an example of the same scene batch merged from Adobe Lightroom Classic.

As you can see, both images need to be tweaked. I prefer to start from the Lightroom version as it needs fewer tweaks to finish processing, so I will continue to use Lightroom’s merge function.

While on our Panama Canal cruise in 2023, one of our excursions included photographing us with a scarlet macaw. The photo was never published for two reasons: first, I don’t often share photos that I haven’t taken myself, and second, the background was somewhat distracting.

Luminar Neo has had a background removal tool in its portrait module for some time, but using its masking function has been a bit tricky. With the new Object Select mask, the program is much better at determining a subject. I expected that the mask wouldn’t include the parrot, but you can see a screenshot of the Object Select mask below.

The Object Select mask generated wasn’t quite perfect, but fixing it by adding and subtracting areas of the image was much easier than with the previous version of the background removal tool. The specific areas I tweaked were adding back that “shark bite” out of my side below my arm and restoring the curve at the bottom of Lynn’s hat. A brick wall behind her wasn’t completely removed from the mask, and the area just above my extended shoulder didn’t get completely removed. A few strokes from the brush tool resulted in a clean mask.

To complete the image, I added a background layer featuring a colorful background with light flares. The edges of the mask had some minor haloing in a couple of spots, so I brushed those areas with a 50-percent darken from the dodge and burn tool to remove the edge highlight.

This image was rejected due to the very bright background and dark subject. After using the new Luminosity tool to knock down the highlights in the background, I wasn’t satisfied with the results, so I deleted that edit and started over with the Object Select tool. That worked out much better. To mask the subject, I clicked the body of the duck and the mask generated is shown below.

The mask stopped at the duck’s neck, probably because of the stark change in shade from the body color to the mostly white neck. The tool also missed a tiny area of the body by the branch in the foreground and the edge of the body on the right side of the photo.

I clicked on the duck’s head, and the mask tool filled out the rest of the duck. It missed the tip of the beak and had some shading in the area between the neck and the head feathers. Switching to the brush tool, I cleaned up the area behind the neck and added those areas on the body that were not selected. I then inverted the mask and lowered the exposure of the background and other objects around the duck.

I’m not sure I can say that I “rescued” this image. Attempts to increase the exposure on the duck above what I was able to achieve with this edit resulted in an over-processed look. Still, the final image is definitely an improvement over the original.

Version 1.19 added a luminosity mask to the toolkit. I tried it with the duck image, but though it picked out the highlights and reduced them, my lack of skill with the tool led me to use object masking on that image, instead.

For this image, though, the luminosity mask was helpful in reducing the bright white areas of the mountain lion’s fur. After cropping the image to a square format, I set the range of the luminosity mask to highlight only the brightest fur. The overexposure washed out the detail leaving a white mass that wasn’t recognizable as fur. Bringing down the highlights brought out the detail, something I could have done without using the luminosity mask. What was most useful is that the mask was also applied in using the Structure tool. Applying structure only to the whitest areas of the cat’s fur helped to restore the detail on the chest to match the detail in the animal’s properly exposed fur.

The final tool I am showcasing in this post is the new Water Enhancer tool. This view of the Red River of the North near our home in Fargo was rejected due to the brown water on that day. The enhancer tool did a decent job of recoloring the water to a more appealing shade.

The tool is quite versatile with several sub-options to manipulate the shades of blue or green. As this location on the river is only a few miles from our house, I chose to return later in the spring when the water was running blue again. Those were the shots I published in an article about the park that borders this part of the river. If I couldn’t have returned, and this day was my only opportunity to photograph the river, I’d have been happy with the images I captured after using this tool… well most of them, anyway.

This image was captured a few days before the previous photograph when the water was even more brown. Using all of the options, there didn’t seem to be any combination of settings that didn’t make this image look over-processed. Any attempt to reduce the effect of the Water Enhancer tool resulted in a return to the look of the brown water.

In fairness to the tool, maybe I haven’t yet learned how to use Water Enhancer to full effect, but based upon my first attempts, I think the tool can be helpful in many situations. I’ve seen some YouTube videos where other photographers have demonstrated how the tool was used to rescue their rejected water photos. As I gain expertise, like the Twilight tool, I may find some applications that will help bring out an artistic view of a less-than-idyllic image.

Overall, I plan to use several of these tools regularly. The Object Select will probably be my most useful addition, and when I get more experienced with it, I can see that the Luminosity Mask will be very helpful. For those who like to pixel-peep, you can view all of these images on my Flickr site here.

John Steiner