Luminar Neo: Light Depth and Bokeh AI tutorial

This Luminar Neo tutorial follows an edit of a portrait framed by repeating arches. The speaker wants to brighten the subject in the midground, reduce the bright foreground and soften a distracting person behind him. He explains that AI estimates distance within the photo through a depth map, then uses that estimate to control light and focus.

After straightening the crop and adjusting RAW contrast and tonal endpoints, he applies Light Depth. Its controls move the illuminated area through the scene and adjust near and far brightness. He also demonstrates color balance changes at different depths before resetting them for this edit.

Bokeh AI adds background blur with adjustable focus distance and bokeh shapes. The speaker stacks another application to increase the blur and explains how a brush or other masking controls can restrict the extra effect. He finishes with the Dramatic filter, reduced saturation and a Mood lookup table, then adds another Light Depth adjustment to refine foreground and background brightness.

The speaker dates Light Depth to late 2025 and the Bokeh AI update to spring 2026. He reports that foreground blur needs a workaround because the tool does not provide it natively. Moving focus too close to the subject can produce abrupt masking around hair, while background smoothing can remove noise and leave a mismatch with a grainy subject. He refers viewers to a separate video for those fixes.