A quick flick through the comments tells me that some people think I've made a sponsored video about the joys of AI. Maybe I should watch the video back, but I tried to explain what the software became known for before going on to talk about how I like to use the product, which is a long way from sky replacements and generative fill etc. Anyway points taken onboard, new video next week!
I don't think you were promoting AI as such, but it doesn't feel much like a James Popsys video. You're known for being authentic and embracing imperfection, yet this video seems to be promoting something that doesn't seem to quite fit with all of that.
@europlatus I was going to say something similar but didn't really know how to put it, so thank you. Yea, the video comes off as weird for me. I'm fine with a sponsorship, but everyone knows sponsorships are ads. But this is like a mix between a sponsorship and a regular video James would make. It's hard to tell if he would actually genuinely endorse it or not, so it comes off as disingenuous. I love James and I don't wanna rag on him, it just left a bad feeling in my stomach.
@@europlatus well put, my feelings too. And I have to say, I'm heartened by the comments section that I'm not alone. Sorry James, looking forward to the next video.
I mean, it's up to us whether we want to hear the sponsor and then use it. The main thing is that it helps you to keep the channel going and doing extra creative things
Bluntly @james the software became known for being beta at best, underperforming, and being generally awful, while conning piles of people into purchase who had machines that literally wouldn’t run it. It may be they have solved many issues, have better quality control, and have improved the level of release, but they burned a tonne of goodwill in version 1-5 at least, if not more, by misrepresenting system requirements, capabilities, and stability.
I do like the ability to do so for certain situations. I did a shoot with some drag queens last year where the New Mexico desert sky was flat gray. Since they had dressed up rather fancy, I put in fancy skies for them. They loved it. But for landscape photos? I leave my skies alone.
@@23davidian96 Add stuff that didn't exist and its no longer a picture but digital art - nothing wrong with doing that but can you say "I took this picture" after adding stuff that didn't exist?
I may be the odd one here, but I happen to think this video was an honest assessment of Luminar's capabilities. I moved from Photoshop to Luminar last year and, while I don't care for the gimmicky features, I agree with James that basic editing functions are faster in Luminar. I still have Photoshop for about 10% of what I edit, but for 90% of what I do, Luminar just does it faster. There is definitely a danger with over processing in Luminar, which I think James demonstrated, but to me that is a user issue, not a software issue.
I have been using this for over a year as a cheaper alternative to lightroom, I struggled with lightroom but have learned to edit with neo really fast. Also I have been amazed on how many updates neo has put out since I started to use it. Very impressive program and highly recommended for an amateur photographer.
I think the issues with AI depend on how it’s used. Luminar (like most other software nowadays) uses AI tech to speed up some tasks such as masking and adding localised contrast etc and I happily use those tools. I can do the same edits more quickly in Neo than I could have done with Photoshop for example, as James has demonstrated in this video. There’s nothing wrong with speeding up the creative process when the end result is the same as we would have produced a decade ago with our Photoshop skills. People were arguing 20+ years ago whether any digital manipulation was “photography”. However, I’m not in favour of the generative AI tools that have been added more recently. I don’t agree with adding components (skies, fake lighting etc) that then create a new composition. Erasing is a fine line. Removing small details akin to spot healing seems acceptable. However, erasing people/large areas where the background has to be AI generated seems wrong to me. On the whole, I think Luminar Neo is a great piece of software, but like all photo editing, it depends how far you go with it as to whether your image loses its authenticity. Luminar Neo offers a lot more than just its generative AI tools, it’s a shame that the marketing seems to promote that side so strongly.
To be fair to James, his comments concerning embracing imperfections were, I thought, self-reflective comments about a shift in his own photography. As best I can recall, he never suggested that anyone else ought to do likewise. His point (paraphrasing from memory) was that he had noticed that he embraces "imperfections" more than he used to, because he feels that it reflects reality more faithfully, and I don't recall him saying that anyone else should follow suit. Similarly, he is showing us some of the things that can be done with Luminat Neo. Nothing suggested that he would remove power lines, for example, or even that we should. Simply, that with this software we can.
@@AmorLucisPhotography you are on a platform (RU-vid) expressing your opinions to a group of people (viewers). That is the very definition of preaching.
Neo has all the features I would find useful in Lightroom, and was a breeze to learn. You don't have to replace your skies or use generative functions of course. I have used the AI features which deal with noise and sharpness to good results. The nuts and bolts are all there too. One of the most useful features for me has been the Supercontrast panel, allowing highlights, midtones, and shadows contrast to be adjusted independently.
Key phrase: "for most photographers". Many photographers are perfectly happy to automate the processing, hence the many preset packs that are scooped up to simplify the process. It comes down to personal preference. Enjoy the emerald isle. Carry on. 👍🥂
@@HardwareG33k Maybe you're thinking of his other videos. This is the one where he shills for AI software and shows how there are multiple methods for changing out the sky, and how you can move mystery sliders that don't tell you what they're doing, but make the photo look better.
Although not the topic of the video, the discussion about how much it’s OK to edit a photo (using AI or not) is relevant and interesting in my opinion. I personally hope C2PA will become a standard certification method for photographers to share with their audience exactly how a photo has been altered since it was captured. The transparency that this offers will be helpful, I think.
How are people so upset about him talking about a tool… you can literally do sky replacement in photoshop too… doesn’t mean you have to, just means you can do that in neo and it can do that better and faster than other TOOLS… It’s a Tool you can use if you want to… Also if you use a Software you don’t have to use every single feature of it. You can choose what you integrate in your workflow and what not…
Luminar has the most aggressive sponsoring of photographers on youtube. I have seen every photographer I follow go from hardcore Adobe users to .... (paraphrasing) Luminar is such a great and easy tool to use. It is what it is, and hopefully it helps some people to edit images. I have to say three things about Luminar a) it is super easy to overprocess images 2) it is easy to fall into their gimicky features 3) it always runs like a dog on my computer. I just have a super hard time taking these sponsored videos seriously, we all have to make a living I guess.
That's helpful feedback, especially about how well it runs, I've been looking for a Lightroom alternative ever since Adobe doubled my month-to-month payment and tried to lock me into a 12 month contract with a 50% cancellation fee. Adobe can go to hell tbh. Anyway, if those are the main negatives you've noticed I think on balance I'll still give it a go, especially considering the price difference. As far as Luminar being more aggressive with advertising, I suspect it's because they have a smaller market share and are competing against a well-entrenched product. Everyone knows Adobe, it's the default editing suite for most people, so they don't have to work as hard for customers. Honestly I hope these alternatives take enough of the market share that Adobe stops being such greedy a**hats and actually starts delivering quality service at reasonable prices again.
I now feel the challenge to run it on my PC, particularly since Adobe have changed their ToS to say that they are entitled to look at everybody's work and train their AI with it, or decide if the work is 'abusive'... Thankfully I have a few months of renting LrC etc, to learn new software. (I think my PC would have no issues at all, so am more than half-interested)
I am a pro photographer and use 5 brackets for most photos and merge in LR... you can automate it sort of. Select your entire shoot, chose 'stack by capture time' 4 seconds seems to work for me. It will them make each bracket into a separate stack, then select the whole shoot again, right click and choose photo merge, merge to HDR, and go for lunch... the pixies batch process it all while you are away.
The thing I can see this being most beneficial for is people who get it right in camera. They can largely ditch raw files and let ai figure it out. Most of what I'm using raw files for is data recovery in highlights or shadows. This seems like the ideal jpeg editor.
For me, I love the process of taking photos. The editing part? Not so much. I prefer quick and easy edits. Luminar seems a perfect fit. But somehow I feel it takes the joy and the art out of photography. It seems to me like the days in which photography was invented and people said it couldn’t possibly be an art. Taking pictures of scenes without the skill and hard work of the painter wasn’t art, they said. Is letting AI take over the majority of edits still art, I wonder…
But does it really take away your joy of going out to take photos? Sure, we could all just go to midjourney to type in prompts, but I will always love going out somewhere with the camera to see whatever I see. The tools I use when I get home hopefully will just enhance the results.
I'm pretty sure what Luminar is using to identify bursts is the EXIF data. On at least some cameras, if you take a burst, the EXIF gets annotated with "1 of 3", "2 of 3", etc.
Don’t see any issue with suggestions like these… many people don’t have the time or skill for photoshop or Lightroom. Even more people just use phone editing software or insta editing… Maybe this is a good in-between thing to use? Never used it but looks ok.
I picked up Neo a few years ago on your recommendation of the Mystical tool. It's only gotten so much better with updates like the HDR, Relight, and Erase tools since then. I can't recommend it enough. One other thing that Neo has that Lightroom is missing is the ability to do layered overlays. Adding a slight overlay of light rays, swirling mist, or subtle lens flare or bokeh can yield some lovely results. I'm not a huge fan of the fad of putting things like flower wreaths around pregnant mom photos or adding fake falling leaves and sparkles to autumn portraits, but I have to admit, the layers function in Neo makes stuff like that super easy and very powerful.
Luminar moved history into edits because it works in layers now. For example let's say you take a portrait of someone and use A.i. bokeh it will move that to edits. And you can slide it again to add in even more bokeh. Its weird as first but once you understand what its doing it makes sense. But it would be nice if you could go back to that took and there was a edit tab right there.
Maybe Luminar is "best for most photographers" when it comes to quickly getting results, but I'm not sure it's a useful tool for beginners looking to learn skills. I still think there's value in learning more traditional methods first before moving on to something like this that automates time-consuming work. I think this takes "I'll fix it in post" to the next level where you can actually say "I'll do it in post", making you a lazy photographer that doesn't get it right in-camera or doesn't even go to a certain location at a certain time to get the shot.
Yeah that's a fair point. Ideally new photographers first develop their craft with their camera before even touching editing. Cameras generate pretty nice jpegs these days, so editing shouldn't be needed while you're developing your eye and your skills. As a side note, I think everyone should get the opportunity to try darkroom developing/editing. I was lucky enough to have access to a fully supplied darkroom at my uni (in 2020) and that was a really enjoyable experience. It taught me to slow down and take time to consider each action, and also to appreciate all the fancy new tech we get access to now.
@@hoodie3810 Wasn't that long ago when 'editing' wasn't really separated for a photographer: you took a photo, processed the film and fired up your enlarger. (And quite likely dabbled in all sorts of magical things to get a decent print)
I was so hyped for having some editing advice (i love your style) but ending with some promo of smth i dont really see as editing but as a photomontage
Everyone seems to be stuck up on the sky replacement, but you really don't need to use it if you don't like it. The rest of the tools is an easy and accesible version of common manual edits achievable with Lightroom or Photoshop. If you don't consider Lightroom a "photomontage" this doesn't have to be either.
Luminar also came to prominence (along with Affinity Photo) because it was subscription free. Both were seen as a great one time purchase alternative to PS and LR. Shame that's no longer the case.
Huh? Mine is subscription free. There are some web based AI gen things (add ons/extensions) that need a subscription but nobody there seems to want them anyway.
It still is the case. You can choose a 12 months subscription, or a lifetime license. If choosing the latter, it's still very much a one-time purchase/payment, which right now is roughly £100 with all discounts applied.
The main thing I dislike about this software is how there seemingly isn’t any performance difference between my old MacBook Air m1 and my 64gb ram MacBook Pro m1 MAX. I feel the lack of utilization of powerful computers, would drive professionals towards Lightroom. I’ll stick with luminar since I hate subscription services.
Great vid and demonstration - love comment section going off 🍿. Has anybody used the latest mac desktop version of Apple Photos app? I had Lightroom for 20 minutes, then canceled my free trial lol. Apple Photos has a lot! It handles my RAW canon files 👌🏻. I touch a few sliders, pull out certain colors and I can’t see wanting more. Best part is it only costs about $5k / year (to keep up with latest Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch) lol
For years now I've had Luminar AI, and since the mystical slider was really the only thing I ever did, I've never felt the need to move to Neo. Even now, I'm still not sure it's worth paying a subscription (or paying the lifetime price) for what Neo has that AI doesn't. Sure, cheaper than Adobe, but I wouldn't replace it.
Thank you. Being relatively new to Neo, I have just run through the vid for a second time to get your take on some of the features. I have used PS and the Topaz trio (with a very light touch) and find neo to be a nice addition, but not necessarily a replacement in the editing process. I agree though that for most of my edits, it does speed things along quite nicely. After taking a quick look at a few of the comments below; please forgive me for wanting to make a couple of points. Firstly, the information in the video is very helpful. The program is complicated and the more hints as to how to best use it are appreciated. Secondly, there is no small amount of time and effort exerted to learn the nuances of a beast such as this and I for one am not only OK with but very happy that you are compensated for gathering so much information and passing it along. I have never had cause to doubt that the observations you make are anything other than your honest opinion. Finally, when it comes to our new found ability to over process the work; with the advent of the digital age, the degree to which editing is applied is completely the judgement of the editor. The purest form of photography remains film, and even that has a darkroom between the subject and the final viewer. Thanks again.
The application of the same tool multiple times is Neo's version of adjustment layers. It takes some getting used to just because it's different but once you get it, it's great! (The nearest equivalent IME is Nik ColorEfex and the way you can apply the same filter multiple times) Neo also has "layers" but they are really for compositing not editing. My biggest dislike with Neo is that many of the AI tools are nearly great, but not quite. Noise reduction is heavy-handed, sharpening can be too strong, HDR gets to HDRish , Face enhancement can be downright weird(it adds other people's eyes etc!) If they could improve the quality rather than just adding more features it could be truly great. As it is, I mostly use it for sky replacement and motion blur enhancement. But the latest upgrade with Luminosity masks and object selection is a huge step up so I remain optimistic...
James, from the video it seemed you may have been unaware of Lightroom's ability to stack by proximity in time. I use it all the time to keep bracketed photos together.
Can’t understand why so many are getting upset. I’m not a lover of Squarespace but don’t care if James makes a few quid promoting it. If you don’t want to change skies, then don’t! RU-vidrs like James depend on sponsorship like this to keep doing what they do. They don’t have the luxury of a day job to pay the bills.
Had this program a few years ago till I realized how poorly it was optimized to run on anything. Honestly, it turns your computer into an easy bake oven. I would rather keep my Adobe subscription and have cross platform use with editing on the go.
Would love to see you at work with an entirely free alternative like Darktable or RawTherapee. I've left Lightroom for Darktable and haven't looked back since. I think your approach, especially with regards to subtle skies would be a nice variation on a guide like the Darktable "Scene Referred Workflow" guide by Avid Andrew (not sure if I'm allowed to paste links here) who runs you through it on a blogpost.
I'm willing to give it a go. Adobe charge an extortionate amount of money for Adobe cc now. This is £50 a year and significantly undercuts lightroom. Worth a go - if it gets me back to some actually photo editing and taking it might just be worth it!
If that HDR-merge-tool doesn't arrive in LRC very very very soon, I'd be really down. It's what it needs. It's good LRC have the sorting where you can automatically jada jada jada if you do bracketing. But it stops working if you DON'T bracket in between. I'd might be getting that luminar neo soon.
That looks like a really cool software, that I haven't heard about before. I can see a lot of people liking this. Thanks for sharing, and thanks to luminar neo for sponsoring you. Ironically the easier stuff like this gets, the less interested I am. Then again these days I'm a true and true analogue nerd, with the end goal of doing all editing in my darkroom instead of the computer. But that's just me, I'm probably in the minority.
James look into stacking groups in LR, that'll group your exposure bracketed shots. I use it for my focus bracketed shots which coukd have up to 80 shots in a run. As for the video, it has kind of piqued my interest in Neo, so may have to give it a whirl.
I'd consider Neo if it didn't have generative AI. Since they aren't clear on how their generative AI was trained (i.e. did they use a bunch of artists' work without permission and compensation, or using medical record photos without patient knowledge or consent like the LAION-5B dataset), it's a hard no from me. I'm not big on art theft, considering how badly gen ai is affecting my artist friends. If someone from Luminar wants to hop in on the comments and clarify what dataset the AI was trained on, however, I'm happy to change my tune.
I have a weird issue with Luminar Neo. Whenever I adjust a slider, the image becomes temporarily blurry, like it’s rendering or something. It goes back to normal as soon as I release the slider. It’s super annoying. Any fix? It’s not my machine as I’m on a MacBook Pro M2 Max.
An ethical point: sky replacement that is not clearly acknowledged is a form of deceit. This is because the portion of the image that consists of the replaced sky is not your image - it's a portion of someone else's image that has replaced that portion of your image. Your image consists entirely of what was captured by you at the scene at that time.
It's a useful app for stuff like real estate photography when photographic integrity is irrelevant, but not for landscape photography where the intent is to honestly capture a real scene. The AI stuff is clever, no doubt about it, but the Lightroom equivalent stuff - the RAW development sliders - they're pants.
I felt really burned by Luminar. In 2021 I purchased Luminar AI at full price. Just 5 months later they came out with Luminar Neo and essentially gave people like me the middle finger. No new feautures, no real support. Simply a barage of emails telling me I should buy Luminar Neo. Yeah, once burned I don't return for more. Pixelmator Pro and Photomator, both on a lifetime option, that's the way to go.
Fight me, but when you pause at 0:01, James is looking like an aged disney prince with that cheeky smile. Or a slightly dumb, but kind hearted truck driver.
Computer storage and costs are the issue here - perhaps not a problem for pro Photographers like yourself - I would opt for 'one off' payment editing software instead (No names mentioned, wouldn't like to upset your sponsors who genuinely provide a good product)
Biggest issue I have with any plugin, is the lack of a plugin feature in lightroom cc... I hate having to go via photoshop, which is so unwieldy, and it returns tiff files which are space hogs... The workflow I generally use is I don't save back through photoshop, I export a tiff into a folder with an auto action that converts to heif (they may have improved things but it wasn't great with heif a while back), and i then import that back into lightroom...
I’ve not used Luminar, but heard a common complaint, (which is what’s putting me off purchasing it), that it’s very “laggy”, or slow to show the changes as you do them, so it takes the system too long to catch up with the sliders, is this something you’ve noticed?
I’ve never used it either, but I wonder if a good GPU can help, or if Luminar runs better on Mac or PC. I’d switch to editing on my PC if my gaming GPU could make it this app run fast. Thinking about just selling out and going full Luminar because I photography is already unfulfilling for me. Nothing matters in art anymore.
@SpruceUp612 it does seem VERY draining on even my high end and brand new CPU and graphics card. Also colour don't show correctly all of the time - its very odd.
@@JamesKerwin I wonder if it’s actually utilizing some cloud server processing for some tools like how phone gallery apps are doing their AI edits. Could try editing with the computer on airplane mode and see what happens.
Luminar was developed initially on Apple computers. The Windows versions came along a few years later. I use it on an M1 Mac Studio with 32GB RAM and really don’t notice any particular lag in performance. I can easily imagine it being less efficient on Windows machines, just because it was not initially written for that OS, and optimizing for different platforms while retaining feature parity is (and has always been) difficult. The other issue Luminar faces is that it is developed in Ukraine. Given that tidbit, it is absolutely amazing to me that they have continued to develop and release updates while their country is at war. Pretty remarkable, really.
at the same price of 83% off its still more expensive compared to adobes photography bundle, along with the HUGE pain in the backside it is when trying to edit multiple photos one after the other, I own luminar 3 , 4 and AI after luminar 4 when they moved away from multiple layers things got bad to the point where even with a high end system you cannot edit more than lets say 15 photos consecutively since it just crashes ether the application or your entire computer, not to mention that it does not support high resolution RAW photos meaning your having to convert to DNG via lightroom first anyway before editing in neo , no thank you comes to mind sadly
Interesting video James. Faster isn't always better but I like to take my time with editing. Perhaps I'm too ingrained in the world of Adobe too (PS user since v3/late 90s).
The idea that luminar neo is 80% off + 10% off makes me think they must have a new version ready to go and yet again like luminar 3 and 4, I'll buy it and they'll obsolete it within a month 😂
I think Neo is here to stay and they are using this as a platform going forward, trying to get everyone on the subscription path, which makes it unnecessary to release new versions to generate revenue.
The key phrase is ‘discounts up to 80%’ meaning you can buy presets and more sky options for 80% off what was already an 80% spiked price. And10% off the software itself.
Every other software does this. On1, yearly updates. ACDSee, yearly updates. Exposure hasn't had an update in almost 2 years. Luminar has added new features for free and some for cost, all as extensions and now generative AI for almost 3 years now. Capture One is you get what you buy, no new feature updates and still no histogram. Lightroom is only subscription. A lot of new features are AI driven. I use Neo because it is easy to use and I use the normal tools everyone else uses. James' point of the reset does annoy me, and on Windows it runs a little slow (but much better than their previous software). I also find their library to be a little lackluster, even compared to Luminar 4. I am looking at a software for running faster and better photo management. So far ACDSee, On1, DxO Photolab, and PhotoDiector seem to be my options.
Me even as a weekend photographer i don't change the light of the photo or remove stuff from it, but i love my film simulation filters which work only in ps, so this software won't do it. I tried it for free and i couldn't decide how i want my final photo to look like
Yep, well expressed. Have been using Neo for a couple of years and fully appreciate the speed with which I can achieve acceptable results. Agree with the negg regarding the "un-do-ability" of the functions; to body-swerve this, I always copy a file and work on this first, if it's a blow-out, I can delete and copy again.
I'm probably missing something, as I'm not sure what is meant by the "un-do-ability" . The latest version has a simple ctrl-Z to undo last change, and the 'Edits' history of you want to change, or remove, any previous edit. The advantage of this is that once you apply an edit and move on, you can use the same tool again to create a new edit on your current "image" OR go to 'Edits' and change one of the earlier edits made with the same (or other) tools. All edits are non-destructive, the original is always safe - if you want to affect the original you would need to export and actively overwrite it. Of course there is no way to change an original RAW file. A feature I do think is missing, Is the ability to create a "virtual" copy of a file so that you could have two completely separate workflows and edits on (or rather from) the same original
I dont believe as a pro that you dont look at your histogram or have highlight protection on etc... Plus cant a sony 60mp camera capture all that you need shot underexposed and you just raise the exposure in post?
@@rosvw3517 If the photo isn’t good in the first place no amount of editing will make it great. It’s subjective and always down to the photographer how they edit it. Really, all you are doing is taking it a bit further than the camera already has. A linear profile, ie, straight out of camera is dull and flat.
Thanks James for exploring the uses of Neo. Would I use it, I'm not sure. We've all cloned an item out of a photo, made skies & clouds brighter so I don't see am issue with some of this AI shizzle. I think it all depends on your audience. If you photos for fun and personal pleasure, then it's fine. If you used AI to fake photos then sold them or passed them off as genuine, then it's not right.
Nice does this mean there is going to be a luminar version of your presets to buy?😜 I used the previous version of Luminar and liked it a lot. But it kept crashing when Neon came out.
Luminar is a shitty piece of software and they follow questionable business practices. Customer support is hopeless and should not be endorsed. Never again
I have been considering Luminar. One question do you do the monthly subscription or did you buy the lifetime? I’m my research it seems like them made changes to what the lifetime gets and it’s not necessarily for the better, on the consumers side. Great video as always.
This is something to watch out for. Skylum have a terrible habit of dropping software. Neo is the latest iteration in a run of about five packages that were promised to be subscription free and yes they were but the all hit end of life after only a year or two. You then had to buy into the new version. With Neo you only get the fancy AI options on the subscription plan.
@@paulbarnard5267 This ^^ Skylum have a notorious reputation of releasing software then sunsetting them in 12 months to release a new version. Its become a clear pattern that software gets discounted massively just before they pull the trigger on a new version.
@@paulbarnard5267exactly, I bought Luminar 3 and 4, but lots of features they promised kept getting pushed to future paid versions.. basically if you wanted the latest version all the time you might as well have just paid the LR subscription. I know that is old history now, but I bet as soon as I buy a version they will bring out Neo 2…
As much as I love your videos, photos and the rest of your work James. There is one thing that I don't agree with in this video. When your talking about bracketing and how it can be difficult to sus out which photos belong together, you could just take a blank black photo between each set.
James, I'm a long time fan of your channel, but this video feels forced and obviously sponsored. I mean c'mon James, removing power lines?? Ya love powerlines for goodness sake! Anyway, thanks for letting me know not to get Luminar - can't stand all that one click stuff 😅
Well, he removed the powerlines as an example of what the program can do, doesn't mean he'll necessarily do it himself. Same for the replacing skies for instance, it's a review after all.
Is there any point in taking the original photo if you allow AI to change it so drastically? Why not just stay at home and generate the whole image? I don't get the appeal.
