Luminar Neo tutorial: brighten dark street photos

This Luminar Neo tutorial follows an edit of a dark photograph taken on Carnaby Street in London. The speaker shot handheld with a 28 mm prime lens and exposed for the highlights, leaving much of the scene in shadow. The starting image already has distortion correction, straightened verticals, a crop and a small amount of noise reduction.

The edit begins in Develop RAW. The J key displays blue and red clipping overlays so the speaker can monitor dark areas and blown highlights while raising exposure. He then lowers highlights and sets shadows to 22, accepting small remaining areas of clipping in the street scene.

Light Depth brightens and warms the people near the center while cooling and darkening surrounding areas. Super Contrast refines the tonal balance. For color, the speaker uses Color Harmony with a luminosity mask to keep the adjustment subtle. Accent AI, applied through a radial gradient at about 30, adds another localized lift around the subjects.

The masking examples include practical limitations. Object selection captures sky between parts of a sign, so the speaker demonstrates partial cleanup with a brush eraser before brightening it. On the selected ground, lowering exposure produces halos around the people in this example. He increases contrast instead to darken the foreground, then finishes with a vignette centered slightly below the middle of the frame.