Skylum launch Luminar Neo 1.2.1 as a bug release

Skylum launch Luminar Neo 1.2.1 as a bug release.

This latest update brings nothing new to the party for Skylum but don’t underestimate Luminar Neo, it’s a seriously good editor which can really polish any photo. Here’s what’s new in this latest release:

So, What’s New?

So, nothing of huge relevance here other than of course, hopefully improved stabilty and perhaps some speed improvements in usage. Not that I’ve noticed anything specific in particular, Luminar Neo 1.2.1 is still very laggy in operation, especially when applying presets which I have to say are very good for the most part, as well as when using the various sliders both under Tools and Edit.

Still missing is the all important histogram under Edits which really needs to be resolved as it’s integral to the editing process as well as the much requested Clone & Heal tool. How Skylum can continue to omit this is beyond me but there you have it, it’s still not available after what must be now, seven or eight releases since launch. Go figure!

Luminar Neo is a good place to start your editing journey

On a plus point, Luminar Neo is a fantastic place to start your editing journey if you are new to photography.

True, it’s not the cheap option it promised to be, it will now cost you close to £70 for the basic application, £110 if you opt for the HDR add-on. That’s putting it squarly up against Adobe Lightroom / Photoshop (Lr/Ps) as well as close to On1 PhotoRAW with its various standalone plugins eg Resize Ai, NoNoise Ai etc.

And, as I have said many times before, both provide very competent Digital Asset Management (DAM) systems which most likely you will need longer term.

That being said, the quality of the edits in Neo, especially if using some of the more competent Presets are excellent, especially in the portrait arena. The best tool for portraiture in my view remains Anthropics PortraitPro although Affinity Photo and Photoshop are no slouches when it comes to manual portrait editing.

Combining Affinity Photo with Luminar Neo (as a plugin) gives you some serious firepower when it comes to creating top quality portraits from scratch.

Some Examples

So let’s look at some recent photos froma family get-together that I have edited with Luminar Neo 1.2.1. For the most part I have simply applied a portrait preset “Closeups > Featured Face” with some minor manual enhancements to the various tools to make the subjects pop.