Australian photographer Simon Theuma has won the highly competitive Underwater category in the fifth annual Close-up Photographer of the Year (CUPOTY 5) competition, with his work Dreamtime.

CUPOTY was started in 2018 by UK-based Tracey and Dan Calder, with the aim of revealing hidden wonders of the world through close-up, macro and micro photography, though the Underwater category is a more recent addition. The couple say that the 2023 competition attracted almost 12,000 entries from 67 countries. 

The 11 category winners and Top 100 close-up photographs were selected by a jury of 23 photographers, scientists, naturalists, journalists and picture editors through 20 collective hours of deliberations on Zoom, with underwater photographers Angel Fitor and Scott Portelli among the judges.

“Like an intricate tapestry of the marine ecosystem, this image captures the relationship between a commensal shrimp and a mosaic sea star,” said Theuma, describing his winning shot. “Dreamtime Aboriginal art reminds us of the delicate balance that exists in the grand tapestry of our natural world – this ancient wisdom serves as an important reminder to preserve what we have. 

“To capture this image, I needed to use a snooted strobe, which was set at an acute angle to the subject. This set-up accentuated the depth and beautiful texture of the two organisms. Additionally, I enhanced magnification by using a +15 wet lens dioptre.” 

(Dreamtime was taken using a Nikon D850 + 85mm f2.8G lens, Sea&Sea housing, YS-250 Pro strobes, Inon UCL67 +15 Wet Dioptre and snoot, 1/200th, f/14, ISO 64)

Underwater runners-up

Second place in the Underwater category went to Heart Of The Sea, an image captured on a blackwater night dive in Romblon in the Philippines by Chinese photographer Liang Fu, who explained how it had come about. 

“I saw something shining under my searchlight at 28m deep. As I swam closer to investigate, I found a lava moray eel curled into a heart shape. I was extremely fortunate to capture this moment with my camera.

“The eel remained at that depth for less than 10 seconds before swimming down and disappearing into the darkness.” (Taken with a Canon EOS R5 + Canon RF 35mm F2.8L MACRO IS USM, two strobes, 1/200th, f/13, ISO 400)

Third place was awarded to US diver Chris Gug for Pinkaboo, taken in Misool in Indonesia’s West Papua. “For years, I had been wanting to make a relatively simple image of a golden damselfish set against a background of red sea whip coral,” said Gug. 

“But on multiple trips to various South Pacific diving locations, there was always some problem with the sea whips – one branch would be broken, lack of current caused the polyps to be retracted, the damselfish was too rough… just always something to make me cringe with OCD! 

“So when I found this little gem living in what are clearly not red sea whips, I had to twist my mind out of its rigidity, and realise that the gorgonian coral background I was searching for was indeed a different species, and was right in front of me! 

“As a traditional fisheye-lens shooter, water-contact optics have been a game-changer in underwater wide-angle photography. While not quite as wide as a fisheye lens, they still cover a large field of vision, while maintaining far superior corner sharpness, and don’t introduce the extreme barrel distortion of a fisheye lens. 

“Using Nauticam’s revolutionary WACP-1 lens/port allowed me to use a medium zoom, and create a close-focus wide-angle view from just a few inches away that, unlike a fisheye lens, appears flat and maintains focus on the entire coral environment.” (Taken with a Nikon D850 + AF Nikkor 28-70mm f/3.5-4.5D, Nauticam housing, WACP-1 lens / port, dual Ikelite DS-161 strobes, 1/50th, f/14, ISO 320)

Other Top 100 Underwater images

Other images entered in the Underwater category to make the CUPOTY 5 Top 100 included:

Hungarian Csaba Daróczi’s Pisces Constellation showed freshwater fish gathered in a pond on a moonlit night in Soltvadkert, Hungary. Daróczi was in fact awarded the title Close-up Photographer of the Year 5, but for a topside bird picture, showing a Eurasian nuthatch in flight. (Taken with a Nikon Z6 + Laowa 15mm f/4 Wide Angle Macro lens, self-made stand, two strobes, 30sec, f/4-22, ISO 4000)

UK diver Henley Spiers’ Gimme Shelter showed a juvenile fish sheltering in the open eastern Pacific beneath a blue button hydroid. (Taken with a Nikon D850 + 28-70mm f/2.8 AF-S, Nauticam housing, 1/500th, f/13, ISO 800)

A reef manta ray with an entourage of juvenile golden trevally at Ningaloo Reef was the subject of Australian photographer Jake Wilton’s composition Entourage. (Taken with a Nikon D810 + Nikkor AF-S Fisheye 8-15mm f/3.5-4.5E ED, 1/250th, f/9, ISO 640)

Koji Shinke from Japan captured this Juvenile Anglerfish at Osezaki in Numazu Shizuoka. (Taken with a Nikon D810 + 105mm f/2.8 Sea&Sea housing, two Retra Flash Pro strobes, 1/250th, f/16, ISO 160)

Laura Storm from the UK took Cloud Nine, showing a ghost goby in Lembeh Strait, Indonesia, hiding among the undulating textures and swirls of its pink sponge daybed. (Taken with a Canon EOS 800D + EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro USM, two INON s2000 strobes with filters, Sea&Sea RDX750 housing with DX Macro Port 52, Light & Motion Sola 1200 focus light, 1/80th, f/14, ISO 200)

Belgian Luc Rooman’s Alpine Water Salamander rests on a water lily prior to surfacing, in a freshwater lake at De Melle, Antwerp. (Taken with a Nikon D500 + 16-35mm f/4, two Subtronic strobes, 1/160th, f/22, ISO 100

Fairy Shrimp Showing Colourful Eggs, taken in Germany, is the self-explanatory title of this photograph by Netherlands biologist René Krekels. (Taken with a Canon R5 + MP-E 65mm f/2.8 1-5x Macro lens, strobes, 1/250th, f/8, ISO 250)

Finally In the Moonlight, by a third British photographer, Sandra Stalker, shows a stalked jellyfish clinging to seaweed in turbulent waters at Kimmeridge Bay in Dorset. (Taken with a Sony A7R IV + Meyer Optic Trioplan 50 vintage lens, Nauticam housing, two Backscatter miniflashes and two strobes, one with a blue filter, one with a snoot, 1/320th, f/2.8, ISO 50)

‘Best yet’

These and other shortlisted Underwater CUPOTY entries can be seen in an online gallery, along with the Top 100 entries in all the other categories, which are: Animals, Insects, Butterflies & Dragonflies, Invertebrate Portrait, Plants, Fungi & Slime Moulds, Intimate Landscape, Human Made, Micro (images created using a microscope) and Young Close-up Photographer of the Year (17 or under).

“Thanks to these creative and original pictures, I now know that tadpoles can eat birds, ants fire acid like water-pistols and bees sometimes hold each other’s legs while they sleep,” says Tracey Calder.

“Personally, I think this is our best collection of winning images yet, and I’m so grateful to those who entered, as it allows us to see and learn from their work, and to recognise how incredible and surprising the world is.”

The competition is supported by Affinity Photo 2, Nikon, Zerene Stacker, Datacolor, NiSi, Greenwings Wildlife Holidays and Sigma UK. Category winners receive a universal licence for all three Affinity apps (Photo, Designer + Publisher) for macOS, Windows & iPadOS. 

Entries for CUPOTY 6 open in May. Divers wishing to enter can receive details by signing up to the newsletter.

Also on Divernet: 10 underwater close-ups that seduced judges

Xiaomi is expected to launch the Xiaomi 14 Ultra soon as a successor to last year’s Xiaomi 13 Ultra. A few details about the upcoming handset have already leaked on the Web in the past weeks. Most recently, an alleged designated camera kit of the Xiaomi 14 Ultra with the model number 2402CPS69C has purportedly appeared on the China Compulsory Certification (3C) website. Xiaomi 13 Ultra was launched with a camera accessory kit that includes accessories like a camera grip and a protective case. The Xiaomi 14 Ultra is expected to come with a quad rear camera unit.

Tipster Digital Chat Station (translated from Chinese) on Weibo posted screenshots of the alleged 3C listing of Xiaomi wireless professional camera kit. The listing suggests model number 2402CPS69C with a maximum output of 1,500mAh at 5V. The kit could also work as an external battery. The first digits of the model number indicate a February 2024 launch.

The Xiaomi 13 Ultra was released with a designated camera kit priced at CNY 999 (roughly Rs. 11,500) to convert the handset into a full-fledged camera. The kit is exclusive to the Chinese market and includes a case, a camera grip, a lens cover, and a 67mm adapter ring.

Xiaomi 14 Ultra is expected to feature a 6.7-inch AMOLED screen with 2K resolution and 120Hz refresh rate. The phone is tipped to include a quad rear camera setup comprising four 50-megapixel cameras. The camera unit might carry a Sony LYT900 as the primary sensor with an f/1.63 aperture. 

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC is expected to power the Xiaomi 14 Ultra. It is said to have slightly curved screens and an ultrasonic in-display fingerprint scanner for authentication. The phone is tipped to get a 5,180mAh battery with 90W wired charging support and 50W wireless charging support.

Samsung has just revealed its newest Galaxy S24 series, and it’s turning heads, particularly with its remarkable photography capabilities. It’s not just about the impressive camera setup on the Galaxy S24 Ultra, which now boasts a 50MP 5x telephoto camera; it’s also about the array of new photography AI features that are stealing the spotlight.The photography features get a boost with the introduction of the new ProVisual Engine. It is touted to enhance various aspects, including night photography, noise performance, zoom quality, color reproduction, and HDR (High Dynamic Range) imaging.

The ProVisual Engine of the Galaxy S24 series stands out as a comprehensive suite of AI-powered tools. These tools not only elevate image-capturing capabilities but also enhance creative freedom throughout the entire process, from setting up a shot to sharing it on social media.

The upgraded Nightography capabilities of the Galaxy S24 series ensure that photos and videos captured with Space Zoom shine in any lighting condition, even when zoomed in. The Galaxy S24 Ultra, in particular, features a larger pixel size compared to the Galaxy S23 Ultra, now at 1.4 μm, which is 60% bigger. This improvement allows for capturing more light in dim conditions, enhancing overall low-light performance.

The Galaxy S24 Ultra tackles blur with a broader optical image stabilizer (OIS) range and improved hand-shake compensation. Video recording sees enhancements as both front and rear cameras feature a Dedicated ISP Block for noise reduction.

The Galaxy S24 employs gyro information analysis to differentiate between the filmmaker’s movement and the subject’s, enabling more efficient noise removal. This results in clearer videos even in low-light conditions and from a considerable distance.

The ProVisual Engine not only assists in capturing the perfect shot but also streamlines the photo editing process. With the Galaxy S24 series, Galaxy AI automatically suggests editing options for photos in your gallery. For example, you can eliminate reflections from the image with a single button press.

Image Credit–Samsung

Additionally, you have the option to fill out a photo. If the photo is tilted, the AI will automatically fill in the borders. It’s also possible to move a person or object within the frame and have the background seamlessly filled in.

The Edit Suggestion feature leverages Galaxy AI to recommend appropriate adjustments for each photo. To provide transparency, whenever the Galaxy S24 employs generative AI to enhance an image, a watermark will appear on the image and in the metadata. This ensures you’re aware that AI has been used, promoting transparency in the editing process.

Moving on. If you have a fast-paced video that needs to be slowed down, the new Instant Slow-mo feature can generate additional frames based on movements. This results in a smoother slowdown of action-packed moments, providing a more detailed and visually engaging look.

HDR shooting has seen significant improvements, too, and the SuperHDR feature now comes with an HDR preview. This allows you to preview how the photo will look before you actually capture it. Additionally, there is support for HDR shooting in third-party apps like Instagram and Snapchat, as well as enhancements to the HDR gallery for a better viewing experience.

Clearly, AI takes center stage in the new photography features of the Galaxy S24 series. Whether it is through on-device capabilities or cloud-based features, these smartphones are heavily infused with AI in multiple aspects.

Raymond “Ray” Weaver returned to Kalispell from World War I in 1919 with permanent lung damage from a mustard gas attack in the trenches of France.

On returning home, he picked up a camera and seemingly never put it down. Capturing photos of everyday life in a midcentury American town —  swimmers at Woodland Park, shoppers bustling along Main Street, a downtown auto accident — Weaver’s sharp eye and strong sense of composition come through each image.

Weaver was born in 1892 and died in 1964. 

A dozen of Weaver’s images will be on display through the winter months at the Northwest Montana History Museum, 124 Second Ave. E., Kalispell, thanks to Rand and Linda Robbin and museum volunteer Jane Renfrow. 

The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays. 

For more information visit nwmthistory.org or call 756-8381.

Acclaimed Whitefish photographer Chuck Haney will present his annual benefit show on Friday, Jan. 26 at 7 p.m. at the O’Shaughnessy Center in downtown Whitefish. 

The multimedia show will feature still photography and time-lapse cinematography in several presentations. Subjects include ocean coasts, Iceland, Portugal and the past year of travel across Montana and the U.S. 

Haney is well known for his spectacular landscape work, but also captures interesting people, the local music scene, wildlife, birds, cityscapes and outdoor sports images. 

Haneys’ work has been published in 16 coffee-table books (many solo) and numerous calendars and magazines including over 300 cover images in a 30-year career as a professional photographer.

The price of admission will be a cash donation. All proceeds go to benefit the local North Valley Food Bank and Whitefish Theater Company.

Zhang Yu, a physical education (PE) teacher at an elementary school in Kecheng district, Quzhou city, east China’s Zhejiang Province, doubles as an unofficial photographer, capturing and preserving his students’ childhood memories.

(Photo/Voice of China)

His journey as a photographer began in October 2014, shortly after he started working at the school. He captured a spontaneous moment of six children playing with sycamore leaves in front of a mottled wall on a sunny day. He has been photographing his students for nearly a decade, creating a vast archive.

The first picture of the six children, some using sycamore leaves to shield themselves from the sun while others peer through the leaves at the sky, received widespread praise. This encouraged Zhang to continue capturing everyday moments of his students’ school life, using his mobile phone.

(Photo/Voice of China)

So far, Zhang has amassed a collection of over 100,000 photos, documenting the unguarded moments of his students — their joy, messiness during meals, moments of shyness or upset, and concentration on schoolwork.

Zhang’s images have become a cherished part of the students’ experiences, often referenced in their diaries and writing assignments.

“We were all lying in the grass with dappled sunlight across our faces,” recalled Mei Zijie, a student, about his favorite photo.

“I was crouching under a maple tree when my teacher took the picture. The light was bright, and the maple leaves were beautifully yellow and green. The picture is so lovely. It makes me feel like someone was recording my childhood,” said Zheng Jiale, now an eighth-grader.

(Photo/Voice of China)

According to Zhang, photography has helped him connect with the children. Initially, students found him a bit intimidating due to his serious demeanor. However, as the students saw themselves captured in cute and humorous moments, they warmed up to Zhang and became more enthusiastic in PE classes, the teacher noted.

Zhang’s photos have also caught his colleagues’ attention, motivating them to capture memorable moments of children during festivals, sports, and other major events.

“What left the deepest impression on me was a group photo of children with their arms around each other’s shoulders. In Zhang’s pictures, I saw a different side of the kids,” said Chen Meiling, a colleague of Zhang.

(Photo/Voice of China)

Zhang often shares photography tips and discusses the concept of “happy education” with his colleagues. He believes that childhood should be fun, happy, and innocent.

“I hope to publish a photo album someday or hold a photography exhibition. I want the photos to remind students who have graduated from our school of the happy moments from their childhoods and to help more people recall their own golden years as children,” Zhang said.

(Photo/Voice of China)

(Web editor: Hongyu, Liang Jun)

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Generative artificial intelligence is a highly contested topic in the art world. On the one hand, there’s the technology that saves hours of editing on changes they would have been making manually anyway. On the other hand, many AI programs are based on images scraped from the internet without regard to copyright. Despite the controversy, many major software companies are integrating new features based on GAI. Luminar Neo is one of those programs. 

Neo is a newer program that is built around several AI tools with the goal of allowing photographers to spend more time behind the camera than behind the computer. This includes portrait edits like skin smoothing and teeth whitening with automatic masking, but it also includes special effects and even things like AI-suggested crops. I spent some time working with Luminar Neo to see precisely what the software can do — and if any ethical boundaries are crossed.

The Big Picture

Luminar Neo is AI-streamlined editing software. The program puts time-consuming special effects and local edits at a level accessible for beginners and busy professionals on a time crunch. Its wide range of AI masking tools can be integrated into presets themselves, so one tap on the preset can add anything from teeth whitening in portraits to light rays on landscapes. And that’s all in addition to things like color and contrast adjustments. While the software includes basic tools like exposure, eraser, and color editing, its biggest draw is the special effects that are easy to apply, mask, and customize.

While the AI tools streamline many tasks, others are less so. Any portrait effects are applied to everyone in a group photo, for example, and manual masking is needed to individualize them. The AI-based skin defect removal didn’t work consistently across different skin tones. Some of the built-in presets also include body shape adjustments that not everyone wants or needs. It lacks the camera-specific RAW color profiles that come ready with other programs.

Luminar Neo has several excellent special effects and quick AI tools wrapped in a beginner-friendly platform. I would recommend it for beginners who don’t want to mess with time-consuming edits and as an add-on for quickly applying special effects. However, there are a few missing features and ethical gray areas that would prevent me personally from switching over. I’m giving Luminar Neo three out of five stars.

Pros

• Easy to use
• AI speeds up several types of edits
• Create your own presets that include local adjustments like teeth whitening and creative effects like sun rays
• Built-in creative effects like light leaks and bokeh sparkles
• Ability to customize with masks
• Uncrop with GenExpand and smart erasing with GenErase

Cons

• Portrait edits are applied to everyone in groups or couples’ photography
• Skin defect removal doesn’t work on darker skin
• GenSwap was seldom photorealistic
• Several presets have built-in body adjustments (and not everyone wants or needs to be skinnier)
• Raw photos are automatically developed when applying a non-RAW edit
• GenSwap was difficult to get realistic results with
• Export doesn’t have as many options, such as renaming or adding watermarks

Gear Used

I tested version 1.17.0 of Luminar Neo on a 2021 MacBook Pro with an M1 processor. The laptop is my own; the software was provided by Skylum for review purposes.

Innovations

There are a number of different image editing programs out there. Many of them now include some sort of AI-based technology. But Luminar AI leans heavily into AI with the goal of allowing photographers to spend less time on edits and allowing beginners to tackle traditionally challenging adjustments. The newest additions to Luminar Neo’s arsenal of tools are generative AI tools: GenErase, GenSwap, and GenExpand.

The new generative tools use Stable Diffusion but also incorporate other databases as well. “We’re using different diffusion models organized in a single pipeline that yields the best results achievable with today’s technologies,” said Dmytro Mykhalchuk, VP of Engineering & Product. “This means we are not limited to the use of Stable Diffusion alone, but SD possesses several very important attributes. First of all, the quality of the results is better compared to many other models. Second, it has a rapidly growing community, which is particularly important. This is because vendors such as Nvidia invest in optimizing their hardware and software specifically for the family of these models. This investment has made it possible for Skylum to collaborate with Nvidia and improve our performance by up to 25%.”

Stable Diffusion is one of the AI databases at the center of copyright lawsuits, as this database uses images scraped from the internet. Earlier this year, Getty brought a lawsuit against the AI model after it generated recognizable watermarks. While many visual artists feel that using copyrighted images to train software doesn’t fall under fair use, Stable Diffusion is a popular model used by other image editors, including Adobe Photoshop.

All three features are aided by in-software tips, such as trying to erase just one thing at a time. These generative tools also typically take a few minutes to run whereas other adjustments are better measured in seconds. It also requires an internet connection to run.

GenErase

The GenErase tool is arguably the most usable option in the new feature list. It does a fairly good job of cleaning up an image. For example, it removed a jacket and light stand from a drone photo and acne from a portrait. However, it does work best when removing only one object at a time. That means for simple fixes like acne, a healing brush is typically faster since the GenErase takes a few minutes to run. The GenErase is the better option when you need to match a surrounding pattern or don’t have an exact replica to clone from somewhere else on the image.

GenExpand

GenExpand essentially allows you to re-crop an image. Many photographers know the pain of wanting to print a specific size, only to realize the image doesn’t work with that aspect ratio. The tool is fairly simple — drag the sides to enlarge the image, then type in a prompt or leave it blank to generate based on the surroundings. 

It worked very well on a portrait with a natural background of a field of flowers. However, it didn’t recreate man-made objects well. For example, the results of attempting to expand on a photo of a boat and another of a dock produced poor results. Like the GenErase, it works best if you do one side of the image at a time rather than trying to add multiple sides at once.

GenSwap

GenSwap replaces an object in a photo with an entirely different one. I was unable to get good results with the images that I tried. The replacement objects were rarely photorealistic. When I attempted to replace a frog with one of a different color, the newly generated amphibian looked like clip art. (It also added a 6th finger, though AI is still notoriously bad at hands). I tried to swap out a dog with a cat, and the system repeatedly generated two cats instead of one with eyes that could induce nightmares. Swapping out a diamond engagement ring for a men’s band was more photorealistic, but the size was off. The only acceptable result I was able to generate was swapping out a small quarter moon for a full moon.

Ease of Use

Luminar Neo is organized into three main sections: catalog, preset, and edit. The organization works pretty well, though the generative tools are in the catalog section when you would expect them to be in the edit section.

Catalog

The catalog tab is a straightforward way to organize your images. You can add an entire folder of images from the hard drive at once, and it will appear under the folder section. If you want to create an organizational structure that differs from the hard drive folders, you can instead use albums.

On the right, you’ll see metadata plus buttons for each generative AI tool, which open in a pop-up window. Generative images are saved separately, so you don’t overwrite the original file, and they are also automatically added to a folder called Generative Creations.

Preset

The second main part of Luminar Neo is the presets tab. Here, you can find image editing formulas to automatically apply to new images. Along with adjustments for things like color and contrast, these presets can also include AI-supported edits from the Edit tab, including things like teeth whitening and skin softening. This can be a huge time-saver and is different from other platforms. Lightroom, for example, creates presets from all the sliders, but if you want to apply things like teeth whitening to multiple images, you have to use the AI masking on one image, make the changes, and then sync the remaining images. Luminar Neo builds all of that into the preset itself. Photographers can edit images to their style, save it as a preset, and then apply it to every new image, which is a big time-saver.

However, there is a downside to that methodology. Some of the presets with Luminar Neo include the software’s body AI. Altering the shape of someone’s body isn’t among every photographer’s ethical guidelines, including mine. Even then, when photographing an athlete, the thinning edit has the opposite effect, creating a less flattering portrait when muscle mass is desired.

Edit

The edit tab contains a sidebar full of all the different editing options. Some are fairly standard, like exposure, contrast, and sharpening. Sadly, the RAW Develop tab doesn’t have the camera’s built-in profiles, so I lost the Fujifilm color profile option. You can upload custom DCPs, but the camera profiles aren’t integrated automatically like with Lightroom and Capture One. The other downside to working with RAW files is that the image “develops” once you leave the Develop RAW tool. If you apply other edits, you can still go back, but you won’t see the other adjustments in the Develop RAW tool.

Once an edit is applied, it moves to the Edits sub-tab. If you want to increase or decrease the strength of an edit, for example, you’ll need to go find it in the Edits tab. This is also how you undo part of the edit. 

Images can be exported from the file menu. The option to resize is available, but it lacks features like adding a watermark and renaming the files. (I re-imported the watermarked samples here into Lightroom.)

Image Quality

While Luminar Neo contains a lot of the usual tools photographers can find from pretty much any program, the software has a long list of special effects. Yes, those special effects could also be done with Photoshop, but they’re a bit faster and simpler inside Neo. The Essentials sub-category contains all the usual culprits, like exposure adjustments and color editing, along with an AI-based structure tool to adjust detail and clarity. There’s also an erase tool. This worked fairly well to remove a flyaway hair across the face, but it worked best done in sections.

The Creative sub-category is where much of the fun resides. Some of the key tools include:

• ReLight AI is a tool to adjust the lighting of the image. This uses depth mapping to adjust the close brightness and the far brightness. For example, you can increase the near brightness and reduce the far brightness to look like flash was used, though it won’t do things like add catchlights and shadows on the face.
• Atmosphere AI allows you to add fog and haze to a photograph. I had a bit of a hard time getting it to look like real fog, but it can work for certain images.
• Sun rays is one of my favorites, allowing you to add light rays to any photo by dragging and dropping a sun onto the image and using sliders to adjust things like the warmth and number of rays. This works best if you have an image that already has a bit of sun in it; it just needs more rays.
• Blur: allows editors to add motion, Gaussian, twisted, or tilt-shift blur using masking, including AI-powered masking.
• Film grain is self-explanatory, but it is still one of my favorites.

The portrait sub-category has tools designed for images of people. Again though, these effects will automatically apply to every person in the photo without manually adjusting the masking, so it’s not quite as quick working with group photos.

• Studio light is another tool to adjust the lighting in portraits. This one I found wasn’t super intuitive and was difficult to get started with without a tutorial. There is the option to add patterned light here, like blinds or lace.
• Portrait Bokeh AI adds more background blur using AI masking.
• Face AI can slim the face, enhance the eyes, add color to the lips, or whiten the teeth. The AI masking seemed to work fairly well and makes quick work of tasks like whitening teeth across multiple images.
• Skin AI is AI-based skin softening and shine removal. There’s also a checkmark to remove skin defects, but this only works with red spots. That’s great for leaving freckles and moles intact, but means it doesn’t work well on darker skin where acne can be more brown than red.
• Body AI has two sliders. The shape slider narrows the entire body. Ethics aside, this works when used sparingly, but if you have a headshot where part of the shoulder is cropped off, the software replicates the shoulder at the edge.  The abdomen slider is like taking a Photoshop pucker or contract Perspective Warp tool over the stomach. Sometimes, that works, but it also messes with patterned shirts and sometimes skews the surrounding areas a bit.

The final sub-category is Professional, where a few more advanced tools reside. Here, you’ll find Color Harmony with things like warmth and split color. There are also tools for super-contrast and local adjustments sit here as well, including dodge and burn and clone.

On the left side of the software sits the layers button. These aren’t really the same things as Photoshop layers. The layers here are special effects, which fall into four categories: flares, light leaks, sparklers, and stardust bokeh. When done right they can appear realistic, but you’ll need the correct type of photo — a lens flare won’t look realistic on a photo taken on an overcast day, and sparklers look best in a photo taken in the dark. These can be customized with masking, and there’s the option to download more as well.

Who Should Buy It?

There are three main reasons that Luminar Neo stands out from other software. The first is the ability to create presets that include special effects like sun rays as well as AI masking such as teeth whitening. Those can then be applied to other photos with just a few clicks. The second reason is the special effects that are typically faster than creating a similar look in Photoshop. The third reason is simply that the program makes complex edits easier for beginners.

However, there are several reasons that I personally won’t be switching over. The first is that the software lacks built-in RAW profiles — using Fujifilm’s color profiles saves me too much time in color editing to use software that doesn’t have that option. (There are custom profiles you can import, but who has time for that?). The second is that it’s difficult to use those AI-portrait editing tools for images of couples and groups. While Lightroom’s AI masking has a few more steps involved, I can pick and choose which person to apply the teeth whitening to. The final reason is more personal. My editing philosophy is to correct temporary flaws like acne. I will also correct things that are exaggerated in photos that didn’t come across that way in person, such as whitening teeth after warming up the rest of the photo. That philosophy means I wouldn’t use many of Luminar NEO’s most time-saving tools.

I would recommend Luminar Neo more as a tool for applying special effects after starting all the color edits in Lightroom or Capture One. I would also recommend it to beginners, but with some hesitation, as beginners tend to overdo their edits, and that’s easy to do when Neo makes editing easy. Beginners are going to have to be able to take a step back and determine if they took the edit too far — most sliders should be used with smaller adjustments.

Tech Specs and Main Features

Skylum lists these new features for Luminar Neo 1.17.0:

• GenErase: A next-generation Erase tool that not only removes unwanted distractions from your images, but also intelligently replaces those areas using content-aware AI tools, providing a focused and distraction-free composition. This feature preserves the integrity of your photos by filling in the gaps with textures and other elements using AI to match the surrounding area. GenErase can seamlessly remove objects such as trash, street signs, utility poles, vehicles, graffiti, crowds, and more to preserve the beauty of the composition. 
• GenExpand: A revolutionary tool that empowers users to break free from traditional aspect ratios and add a new dimension to their original compositions. With GenExpand, you can effortlessly extend the boundaries of your photos, whether you’re creating panoramic landscapes for vast mountain ranges, serene lakes, etc. or want to give your favorite images more breathing room to stand out against a beautifully balanced background.
• GenSwap: This technology allows photographers to change the image composition by replacing or swapping objects or seamlessly adding new details generated by AI according to the user’s prompt. GenSwap allows you to also enhance images by adding elements such as trees, animals, and more, transforming your photos into mesmerizing visuals. For example, change an unpleasant tree for a better looking one, add a bird to the sky, or drop a stone in the desert to make the photo complete.    

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