In response to comments on PetaPixel’s coverage of Luminar Neo, Skylum’s Chief Product Evangelist Richard Harrington says that users can expect a whole new render engine for speed, a mobile companion app for sharing and photo exchange, the ability to clean up power lines in images and remove sensor dust with artificial intelligence, a 3D relighting tool, layers, AI masking, and more. Where Luminar AI is a simple “preset” editor with customization available after the fact, Luminar NEO is “designed to allow artists to take on more challenging image creation work and achieve results which often seem unattainable.” They have no respect for their customers and I’ve lost all respect for them.”Īccording to Skylum, Luminar AI and Luminar Neo will be separate apps and are described as “part of a family,” much akin to how the early apps from Macphun were part of a larger suite. I’ve gone from recommending Luminar to friends to warning them away. I’m willing to bet that we’ll see Neo-AI a year from now and they will let Neo wilt as they have with 4 and AI.

They’ve done this basically every year or two with no end in sight.

“As others note… their business model is to have us buy their product, not update it for anything except bug fixes, then add a couple of features and release a newly-named, almost identical product a year later and have us buy THAT,” a PetaPixel reader wrote in response to the launch of Luminar Neo.

Many believe that at this point, it is safe to assume that Luminar 4 will go the way of Aurora HDR and that there will be no further updates provided or available to purchase. Frustration has been mounting, already evident on the company’s own support and affiliate pages where several users have posted their confusion and frustration, some going so far as to ask for refunds.

Luminar ai aurora hdr