Luminar Neo tutorial: blend horizons and blur clouds

This Luminar Neo tutorial follows a fine art edit of a Moeraki Boulders seascape in New Zealand. The speaker starts with a 30-second exposure whose water looks soft but whose clouds retain more detail than he wants. He develops the RAW file manually, sets black and white points with curves, and checks clipping warnings.

Two approaches soften the horizon. One stretches a duplicate layer downward and blends it with a linear gradient. The other applies vertical motion blur through a soft brush mask. The speaker explains why the stretched layers need merging before further whole-image adjustments, and shows how to erase blur that spills onto the boulders.

After a 16:9 crop, he uses Object Select AI to restrict Structure AI to the rocks. Feather and Shift Edge controls refine the mask. Separate motion blur adjustments follow the clouds' direction, while Light Depth brightens the middle ground and darkens surrounding areas.

The black and white workflow compares the dedicated conversion tool with desaturation through Dramatic. Curves and brush masks then shape local brightness. Finishing examples include Soft Focus, Mystical and selective Matte adjustments. A final correction demonstrates the speaker's advice to leave color toning until after tonal edits, since later exposure changes can disrupt the tint.