# Skylum announces Luminar NEO, a new creative image editor



## Canon Rumors Guy (Sep 9, 2021)

> *NEW YORK, NY – September 9, 2021* —Skylum revealed *Luminar Neo*, a new creative image editor which empowers visual storytellers to bring their boldest ideas to life. Luminar Neo builds upon the unique, purpose-driven, AI editing technologies for which Skylum is well-known. Driven by our tradition of innovation, Luminar Neo further reimagines the image editing experience which enables creators to be more expressive with fewer boundaries and rediscover the joy in their creative work.
> “As the latest member of the Luminar family, we designed Luminar Neo to allow artists to take on more challenging image creation work and achieve results which often seem unattainable,” said *Dima Sytnik, Co-founder & CPO of Skylum*.
> 
> Innovative technologies
> Skylum continues to lead the market with innovative approaches and advanced technologies designed to improve the image editing process. Luminar Neo continues Skylum’s...



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## neurorx (Sep 9, 2021)

Is this replacing Luminar AI and or Luminar 4? I don't really understand how these products differ from one another.


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## [email protected] (Sep 9, 2021)

I really feel sorry for the PR person who was given the brief to write the copy of that press release. I imagine it went like this... "We have a new version of the software coming out, which may or may not be a replacement or update for one of our existing products... except we're late in releasing it, so even though we promised an announcement on the 9th, it's now going to be a pre-announcement for something a couple months later. Oh, and the new product is going to be inspirational and help creativity, but you're not allowed to say why of how. There will be an integrated mobile version of the thing that might have most or all of the same functionality. Don't include anything about the functionality."

Has all the hallmarks of a communications project run on a schedule that is divorced from the actual product development delays. Been there.


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## Tremotino (Sep 9, 2021)

Wtf?! I bought Luminar AI and now no more functional updates since a new kind of twin software will be released?!


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## dirtyvu (Sep 9, 2021)

Until they prove that it works in Windows well, I will never ever spend a penny on them again. Luminar AI has been a disaster on my Ryzen 3900X system with Nvidia GTX 1080 and my Ryzen 5900X. You can't tinker with sliders if it takes seconds for the effect to take place.


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## Sorosuub (Sep 9, 2021)

I recently purchased Luminar AI and received an email today saying that I can get Luminar NEO for free in view of my recent purchase. That's a nice gesture!


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## Hector1970 (Sep 9, 2021)

I did the Luminar 1-4 and AI (which was more or less the same thing). I found it just a platform to sell skies and presets. Now Neo - what’s it replacing, what are you are calling is next year Morpheus?
I’ll stick with Adobe. Far superior even if it takes longer to be good at.


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## kten (Sep 10, 2021)

Seems like a good way to screw repeat customer base and hurt long term retention for a quick buck. I purchased luminar4 (albeit at discount for owning L3) only for it to be made obsolete and stop receiving updates and the improvements it needed not long after release due to AI replacing it. That left a sour taste thus I avoided AI now they're doing it again. Admittedly it wasn't in my workflow much and far from irreplaceable and I exclusively used it as photoshop plugin, however it is handy for doing some things quickly with similar/same results doing it the manual way which is handy when I need the speed trade off over precision of fully manually doing it.

From what I've seen from users of both L4 and AI both do some things better than each other but worse in other ways so the updated versions are not always improved over predecessors. Also there are many bugs and performance issues they just don't address when they abandon it in favour of the next suite. IMHO they should try building on the functionality of existing suite, then improve stability and performance, before they just scrap it and start the next one as long term I can't see anyone trusting them. Perhaps improve compatibility with 3rd party suites other than Adobe [ photoshop] too, especially since the UI and stability of stand alone application is far from great.


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## DonS (Sep 10, 2021)

They say LuminarAI will still be supported, but I do not believe them. Skylum and Macphun before them have a long history of abandoning products. They also seem to have a revolving door for CEOs and each dumps the products of the previous.

From their twitter: Luminar needed a remodified architecture for better speed and faster processing of new tools, thus we've created a new core engine that will allow the app to grow in complexity with time without performance loss. As for Luminar AI, it'll keep being supported.


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## kten (Sep 10, 2021)

DonS said:


> They say LuminarAI will still be supported, but I do not believe them. Skylum and Macphun before them have a long history of abandoning products. They also seem to have a revolving door for CEOs and each dumps the products of the previous.
> 
> From their twitter: Luminar needed a remodified architecture for better speed and faster processing of new tools, thus we've created a new core engine that will allow the app to grow in complexity with time without performance loss. As for Luminar AI, it'll keep being supported.


Yeah they said that last time about support too but didn't stand by their word. Honestly I suspect they are just milking it and it didn't need a re-write but even if so why not just push a new build of existing app like most devs. As for grow in complexity with time, what like previous Luminar versions? Every time there is features added or some time has passed they abandon it and move onto next version. Not just luminar but they abandoned AuroraHDR too and I think people would be silly to trust them when they have a history of saying things like this and doing something else. Only so much good will you can burn before it bites you.


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## DonS (Sep 10, 2021)

kten said:


> Yeah they said that last time about support too but didn't stand by their word. Honestly I suspect they are just milking it and it didn't need a re-write but even if so why not just push a new build of existing app like most devs. As for grow in complexity with time, what like previous Luminar versions? Every time there is features added or some time has passed they abandon it and move onto next version. Not just luminar but they abandoned AuroraHDR too and I think people would be silly to trust them when they have a history of saying things like this and doing something else. Only so much good will you can burn before it bites you.


I got a reply from their current CEO: What do you mean - abandoned?


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## DonS (Sep 10, 2021)

I have another reply from the CEO:

Aurora has issues with cameras support that will be fixed. Next AI update will be this month  Hope you will love it.

I mentioned how Aurora was pretty much abandoned as well, no updates since January.


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## kten (Sep 10, 2021)

DonS said:


> I got a reply from their current CEO: What do you mean - abandoned?


made me chuckle, would have thought it clear to him exactly what it meant. Case in point I'm on 2019 build of Aurora and that hasn't had updates for long time despite some known bugs that they said they'd patch but never did. Looking it up it seems there is a newer build under exact same name and functionality but you need to buy new licence for that. Seems like they don't patch their software but release the same software with bug fixes and charge for that under new licence rinse repeat.

TBH doesn't affect me so much now since I decided in 2020 not to support them again and can live without their products since they are not essential or well polished, just a shame as done right they'd be fine as there are other plugins that are equally none polished that I still support the devs on even when I only use every blue moon. I mean I know some companies like Adobe can milk it too but at least they are class leading, do fix stability and performance issues in release you owned when it was the buy version model, and since they swapped to CC they support the product you rent (eg. buy LR or PS they don't make a 3rd app in the suite to cover functionality and performance update to one of those and those with the original package can can go swivel). Just seems a s****y way of doing business IMHO and imagine it'll not do them any favours in the long run as only so long you can pull the same stunt and it is pretty much their SOP at this point.


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## trent (Sep 13, 2021)

neurorx said:


> Is this replacing Luminar AI and or Luminar 4? I don't really understand how these products differ from one another.


Apparently it isn't replacing any of their previous programs. It's going to be similar to how adobe seperate their products (Lightroom, Photoshop etc).

This new program is going to work more similarly to photoshop as it'll utilise layers, allowing you to turn effects on and off more easily but also allowing you to add multiple objects instead of just the one.


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## Maru (Sep 17, 2021)

Sorosuub said:


> I recently purchased Luminar AI and received an email today saying that I can get Luminar NEO for free in view of my recent purchase. That's a nice gesture!


Same here


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## Maru (Sep 17, 2021)

_$34 is a decent deal_


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