Luminar Neo 1.0.1 - Quite a disappointment - or is much more yet to come next month?
Answered
Hello all
I am writing this with all due respects to the developers without offending or wounding any one's feelings. I am just expressing myself here on my own disappointment with this Luminar Neo 1.0.1. Maybe it satisfies many users. Maybe it is just my own personal disappointment. But still I thought better to write it and get clarifications.
I thought Luminar Neo 1.0 itself would be close to final excepting the two features they had described that they would be available in very near future.
They had advertised or mentioned in their website or somewhere (I don't remember) that Luminar Neo would combine the features of Luminar 4 and Luminar AI plus additional AI features. OR am I wrong or had I misinterpreted or misinfered myself on their saying it ? I am so much disappointed with the Layers. When they had said they would "combine Luminar 4 & Luminar AI features", I expected the layers to be the same as in Luminar 4. But it is just an image layer. To me, it is useless, unless it is like how it was in Luminar 4. I see that this has been already discussed here. But no positive answer from Skylum for this has been made whether the Layer feature would be updated to what it was in Luminar 4.
Where are the basic tools? Gradient masks, linear & radial etc.? These are not advanced tools and are most essential IMHO. Even for this there has not been an answer from Skylum if it would be included in the next update.
Without these features, I am still stuck with editing in Luminar AI even though I had purchased Luminar Neo - I was one of the earliest birds to do advance purchase. And, I can't stick on to Luminar AI because it will not recognize Sony A7IV - the latest Sony addition - to which I may be upgrading from my Sony A7 III camera. I was so enthusiastic about Luminar Neo, but I am greatly disappointed now. May be it is just me.
Again let me reiterate that I mean no offense to any one. And kindly excuse me in case anyone felt so. Just expressing my feelings. Sincerely hoping to get the features of Luminar 4 layers and Gradient masks linear & radial, in the upcoming updates.
Thanking you.
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Hello SIVAKUMAR,
Thanks for your honest feedback! It's greatly appreciated.
Our developers are aware of the need for advanced layers and will take them into consideration.
The Gradient and Linear mask will be added in the update 1.1.0!
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OMG ! I just found out ! Another 2 important basic tools missing. Clone & Stamp tool and Dodge & Burn tool.
Very sincerely hope these two tools be added in the upcoming updates.
I switched over from Adobe Lightroom & Adobe Photoshop Elements to Luminar 3 and Affinity Photo. I have been using Luminar 3 since the time it first launched. And that was the time I switched over from Adobe to Luminar & Affinity Photo and changed my workflow to suit these.. Photography is my Passion & Hobby and I don't make any money out of it. So to save money, every month or year, I switched over from Adobe.
If such basic tools which I had mentioned in my earlier post and in today's post and the layers, if they are not provided in the upcoming updates, I will be forced to go back to Lightroom & Adobe Photoshop subscription, even though it is going to set me back on my money every month or every year, if I went for annual subscription, which I would really hate to do, because that would be a lot of money spent for a hobbyist like me. However, I am not prepared to stay put with a software that is missing out on essential and most used tools, either. Sorry for saying this because I'm feeling pretty upset on these missing tools.
They already have the codes for all the missing tools or features, from their earlier releases. Why not just include them in Luminar Neo ?
Once again, very sorry for my ranting. I just let out my feelings. Hoping for the best. Thanking you.
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Hello all,
Hope someone in this forum would help me out on the following:
This is just in case it took a long time for Skylum to provide the updates for the missing tools:
1) Have anyone of you found some work around for the missing tools ?
2) I could use Affinity Photo for the missing tools but it would have to be on a raster file, say, a 16 bit TIFF file. But, it wouldn't be the same as RAW file.
3) If I had to still stick with Luminar AI (I'm sort of managing without layers, using the mask feature), and if I bought the new Sony A7 IV camera, I could wait for Adobe to come up with DNG converter which included Sony A7 IV RAW format, I could convert my Sony A7 IV file to earlier version of DNG, and edit with Luminar AI. But I do not know if DNG edited file would have the same quality in Luminar AI as the original Sony ARW edits.
4) Another work around to use Luminar 4 , Luminar AI and Luminar Neo, all one after the other for the same file, convert my current Sony A7 iii to DNG and edit in Luminar 4 first, then export it as 16 bit Tiff file and then again do further edits in Luminar AI and again export as 16 bit Tiff and once more edit with Luminar Neo for its advanced AI features alone.
5) I am requesting the senior and advanced users in this forum, if this would work out and give me a final high quality image. Has anyone tried this ? I could keep experimenting myself, but if anyone else has successfully done it, it saves my time on experiments and I'd be so very thankful for the person who had already spent time on this.
If I have answered my own queries, please do say so ! That would mean the workflow is already working for someone !
Thanking you all in advance.
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Hello Sivakumar,
I'm very sorry for the frustrating experience you are having with Luminar Neo due to the lack of mentioned features.
Our team is currently working on a Luminar Neo update, which will include the following features:
- Mask AI — smart AI-based masking that detects specific elements in your image
- Portrait Background Removal AI — smart AI-based removal of the background behind a portrait without manual masking
- Histogram
- Clone & Stamp
- Dodge & Burn
- Undo and Redo
- More Hotkeys
- More functionality when using Masking (Copy/Paste, Pen Pressure for Radius/Opacity, and Linear/Radial gradient)
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Hello SIVAKUMAR PRS.
It was comforting to read ALL of your comments above because, I honestly thought that I was the only one who was disappointed with Luminar Neo.
Apart from missing a lot of features I find the program very sluggish and slow. I have it on my PC (16GB of RAM) and on my iMac (also) 16GB of RAM) and it is so frustrating to work with!
For instance today, I loaded the same photo in Neo on both my PC and Mac and in the develop tab I pushed the Exposure to about 20% and in both machines it just hangs there for about 3 or 4 seconds before it makes the adjustment!!
I have Luminar 4, Luminar AI and Aurora HD (which in my opinion is a great piece of software) and I was SO looking forward to Neo but as it stands right now.....I just don't use it!!
I was happy to read Alina Skylum's update....that is definitely positive news.
I sincerely hope that it gets better otherwise, it will just sit there and not be used!!
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