Ok, Piet here and in this video, I want to share a some good news regarding
the newly announced Luminar Neo that might persuade some of you
who were still on the fence. Some of the long-term Luminar users,
quite rightly so, I think, complained about the fact that Luminar Neo introduced yet another
catalog format that was not compatible with the catalog of Luminar 4
or Luminar AI. Now, if you're using Luminar as a plugin,
the catalog format doesn't really matter to you, but if you use Luminar as
a standalone application, like a lot of you do,
then it's annoying to say the least, that with every new product, you either
have to start from scratch or resort to convoluted workarounds like exporting
all of your edited images from the old version and importing
them into the new one. So the good news is that Skylum has
announced that they will provide a migration tool to migrate Luminar 4
and Luminar AI catalogs to Luminar Neo. It's important to underline, though, that it won't be available
right from the get go, but it's been officially added to the roadmap for a future
update of Luminar Neo. And I think that's excellent news, and it's also proof that Skylum
listens to their customers. Now, the other good news is that Skylum released some more insight on what
Luminar Neo will be able to do. I was also invited to an online meeting
with the Skylum management last Friday. And we got to see some of the features that are going to be included either
right from the start or in one of the early updates. And I have
to say, I was quite impressed. I can't reveal everything yet, but here are a couple
of things that we can share already. First of all, I'm very excited
that layers will be back. I loved the layers in Luminar 4 and although Luminar AI's masking brush does allow you some kind of way of working
with layers, it was more limited than the options Luminar 4 provided,
so it's good to hear that layers will be coming back to Luminar Neo,
including the option to use raw images and the fact that you will have
control over blending modes, masking and opacity to create things
like collages or double exposure effects. Now, Luminar Neo will also
come with a library of overlay contents and objects that you
can play around with. Another feature that I am maybe even more
enthusiastic about is Relight AI. Relight AI uses the concept of 3D depth mapping that Luminar AI already uses
in Atmosphere AI and Portrait Bokeh AI. 3D depth mapping identifies the different planes
in an image like the foreground, the middle ground,
and the background and on top of that also identifies objects
like people or skies. All that information can then be used
to realistically add mist or haze, in the case of Atmosphere AI
or shallow depth of field in the case of Portrait Bokeh AI. And now in Relight AI, that 3D depth map
will give you separate control over the foreground and the background lighting
of an image. Without making a selection, it will be a possible to brighten up the subject or tone down
the background, or even both. I think this will be a tremendous time
saver in my own photography because although I already use flash to balance
my foreground and my background as much as possible in camera,
I sometimes find I need to brighten my subject even more in post because
my flash wasn't powerful enough. And although I can already do that to some
degree in Luminar AI with the Face Light slider, Relight AI will
give me a lot more control. Now in one of my latest webinars,
I said that it wouldn't surprise me that Skylum would use the masks
its software is able to create on other tools besides Portrait Bokeh AI and this
next feature proves me right. With Portrait Background
Removal AI, you will be able to eliminate the most tedious step in making
composites, which is masking your subject. Portrait Background Removal AI will,
as its name implies, initially focus on portraiture, but other uses of the
technology are also being considered. As you can see, a lot of Luminar Neo's
core functionality revolves around the complex masks
that the software builds under the hood. What a I really love is that as a user, we will now get to use
those masks even more in the new Mask AI. Mask AI will include masks
for portraits, skies, water, mountains, vegetation, and manmade
objects such as architecture. And it will work brilliantly in
conjunction with Luminar Neo's other tools. Suppose you have an image with a mountain range that you want to add
some more golden light to. Well, you would just apply the desired tool to your image and then restrict its
effects by choosing, in this case, the mountains mask. Mask AI will allow you
to add effects to your images locally without having to worry about
making complex masks. Now, a lot of you have asked why
couldn't Skylum simply include these new features as an update to Luminar AI
instead of releasing a new product? Well, first of all, I think a big part of the update versus
a new product debate has become a kind of moot because of the catalog
translation tool that I talked about at the beginning of this video. But secondly, during the meeting that I was in, it was emphasized that these technologies are so advanced
and resource-intensive that they simply could not be integrated
into the Luminar AI engine. It's like expecting a nice family
car to run a Formula One race. It just can't do it with the engine it has and the same goes for Luminar. We have to bear in mind that we are on the cutting edge of AI-driven image
editing here and that frankly, Skylum has already made possible some pretty
advanced things like Sky Replacement, even in water reflections, that no
one else is doing right now. So if Skylum's cofounder and Chief
Technical Officer tells me that they simply couldn't
include all the cool features that I was just talking about in Luminar AI,
then who am I to know better? I'm not a programmer. I'm a photographer and an image editor, but I'm sure happy that there are
programmers out there who are going out of their way to make my editing
life more fun and less repetitive and tedious. And also, let's not forget
that Luminar AI is continuing to be sold as it and Luminar Neo are aimed
at different types of photographers. So, just like family members, they share
some DNA, but they are still different and
they coexist, very much as we see with other developers of image editing
software, where advanced and more easy to use versions
of products exist. Luminar Neo's new engine will include a smart edit history that will provide
unlimited levels of undo for every image and will allow users to selectively remove and reorder the application
of tools and effects. On the other hand, by already rendering
changes as the edits progress, the final export of your
edited image will be faster. So when can we expect
all this goodness and will everything be delivered all at once?
And... What will it cost? Well, Luminar Neo will ship this winter
in December with Layers and Relight AI included. Portrait Background Removal AI and Mask AI are scheduled to be
included in the first free update, which should be released
in the first quarter of 2022. If you're interested, you can still
participate in the pre-order campaign and get Luminar Neo
at the following prices: you can use the links below or in the top right corner to order
using my affiliate link. It doesn't cost you anything extra and it helps me to keep this
channel up and running. If you're a existing Luminar user, Skylum offers a loyalty discount and you
can preorder for a limited time at these prices. Don't forget that Luminar Neo comes with a 30 day no
questions asked a money back guarantee that only starts
to count from the moment it is effectively shipped. That was it for this information update about Luminar Neo. Thanks for watching
and I'll see you next time. Bye bye!
