Luminar Neo tutorial: three wildlife photo edits

Chiara edits the same puffin photo three ways in Luminar Neo, moving from natural corrections to a more artistic result. She argues that creative editing and overediting are separate choices: either a natural or a creative treatment can go too far. Luminar Neo sponsors the tutorial.

The natural edit starts with a crop and the AI-based Noiseless tool at its suggested low setting. Chiara then adjusts blacks and highlights, uses the white balance eyedropper and corrects the resulting tint by hand. The intermediate edit adds Enhance AI and Structure AI, with masking to keep detail adjustments on the bird. HSL controls target the orange and red in its bill, followed by a restrained vignette.

For the creative version, she demonstrates Light Depth to adjust brightness and temperature by distance. She briefly raises its amount to 100 to explain the effect, then reduces it. After demonstrating color grading, she chooses selective desaturation, preserving the bird's facial colors through an inverted mask and adding a stronger vignette.

Chiara praises the speed of the creative tools but says she misses finer control and found AI masking unreliable in her tests. She uses object selection and brushing as workarounds. She also describes Luminar Neo as standalone software or a plugin that can complement a Lightroom Classic workflow.