Luminar Neo Fall Edition – Come for the Hype, Stay for the Regret

When I thawed my dormant YouTube channel out of cryogenic sleep three years ago and decided to give the whole content-creator thing a proper go, it coincided with the release of a brand new app called Luminar Neo by the Ukrainian developers Skylum. I say ‘brand new’ but Neo was of course basically an updated and slightly redesigned version of Luminar AI … that we all had to pay for again. And after an aggressive update process that’s seen an abundance of primarily AI tools added between 2022 and now, Skylum are embracing cross-device editing with the new Luminar Ecosystem in an attempt, perhaps, to reset the public perception of this app.

But has Luminar really changed, or is this just a new coat of paint on a flawed foundation? Is it a proper Lightroom alternative now, or a half-arsed knock-off with more gimmicks than a $600 Dyson brand toilet brush? Little bit of column A, little bit of column B.