Thanks Jim for this, I am with you on Hdr being my fave too, I have Aurora Hdr with all the whistles but if I want a quick edit this one is very useful
Since we have sharpen and noise edit tools are these Ai extensions just an alternative method of getting to the same end point? Sure it might require less skill and time but that is not my question.
Good question and yes, same goal, but you get there with better results. And technically the sharpen extension fixes blur moreso than just adding some basic sharpening.
The background removal tool made a Christmas scene postcard to send out easy. So while some of the tools are of limited use when you need them they work pretty well. The upscale tool works well for old images we all have that are small
Very helpful Jim. Especially your performance score which I take as read and wouldn't necessarily repeat your experiment. As far as usage go I would also consider what other software does those functions, do I have it, what is it's relative performance and cost. I'm not too keen on maintaining a Luminar subscription and would prefer one off purchases. However on that basis the extensions are relatively expensive additions and other vendor's software may indeed be price competitive.
Thanks Jeff and yep I agree, worth considering what other products do these things, whether you already have them, etc. This was just sharing my thoughts on these in terms of performance and usefulness for my specific photo needs. Certainly it varies for everyone, and probably quite a bit. Thanks for watching.
Admittedly, from all of these extensions, the only one I have is HDR which I feel no one has matched yet. Apart from HDR and MagicLight, functionality of all other Neo extensions are available in basic license on other tools (i.e. ON1 Photo RAW). I still haven't digested Skylum new business model and fear they might make it worst in the future so I'm holding up on further investing in their tools until I get a better view of where they are heading. Don't get me wrong, I love their software and use Neo and their HDR extension a lot. But I drive everything from ON1 at the moment. Until then, if you have some more comparison between Neo extensions and the ON1/Topaz counterpart, I might reconsider once I find peace. Thank you so much for sharing. As usual, these are very enlightening. Most of all, Happy New Year :).
thanks much Frederic and Happy New Year to you as well, and the entire Nov/Dec period was so busy for me that I haven't had time to do full comparisons between all these apps
I love the new extensions. But I was both a bit surprised and disappointed when I looked at Anthony Moriganti's last video from yesterday. In this he points out that the last update of Supersharp and Upscale and the addition of Face Enhancer AI was not doing what I thought it should do. When using this it totally modifies a face, looking nothing like it did from the beginning. It is sharper, but not the same face. Have you also seen this? I will most probably not use this, and do not understand why this have been added?
@@JimNix Yes, you definitely need to investigate and see for yourself what it does Jim. I’m almost certain it’s not intended to do that, it even changed eye color when I used it. 😳
I agree with HDR Merge being the most used and great performance - however, it would lose some score as it doesn't allow you to dial it back from 100%. Yes, I can use a layer mask and brush/dial what I want but, to me, the lack of slider in the tool deserves less than a 5.
Totally get that, and fair point. I'm talking here about how it works for me, and I just haven't needed to dial it back etc bc the results have been pleasant to my eye. But I get that isn't the same for everyone. Still, I agree and would love for them to add that to Neo in the future. Thanks.
As far as usefulness goes Merge and Focus Stacking would be the only 2 I would use enough to justify a purchase. I had Aurora so I got merge and may add focus stacking at some point. I have Topaz Gigapixel, Sharpen and DeNoise which I only use if I’m going to print a photo. For social media, which is mostly what I do the basic Neo program is fine for me. Will see what they add in ‘23 but for now I’ll stand pat. Hoping for a Panorama addition. Thanks for the video. It has helped me confirm what I need.
HDR Merge is for sure my favorite, but I do shoot a lot of real estate so kind of goes to show there. My order would be the same except focus stacking is on the bottom for me. I think to tool is amazing but I just don’t shoot those multiple shots unless I am doing real estate brackets
Hey Jim, Great info. Can you do a video on some of the structure of how and where the catalog is stored, as well as the Backup Process for Neo Catalogs. I have about 36,000 photos in a catalog and when I did a backup, it displayed 'creating backup' for about 30 hours until I killed the app. Thanks
thanks for vid great looks from your prospective as a side bar i am currently using neo from most of my pictures but using topaz photo ai in conjunction
thanks for watching Terry and yeah I like Topaz Photo AI as well, it's a good product so if you are happy with that you wouldn't need some of these extensions
I need to use HDR more! And focus stacking. I think I will see some better images going forward if I do that. And my favorite thing too is the all in one application of these. Thanks Jim!
Thankfully I got HDR for free as an Aurora user. None of the others really excite me. I use DxO Photolab for my initial raw to DNG conversion which has their DeepPrime noise reduction. And I use Affinity Photo for focus stacking. The resizing extension is really the only one I might spend money on because it's cheaper than the Topaz alternative. But the others I just don't need. Good to hear your assessment of the full pack though.
Thanks for this, Jim. I just bought the SuperSharp AI extension during this Spring sale. It's super slow and takes about 3 minutes for it to sharpen a single photo. Have you seen this? I have a 2019 MacBook Pro with I7 and 16GB ram. Topaz Sharpen is way faster.
Thank you for the great video, Jim; I purched two extension at $30 each, do you know how many computers you can use each on? Or do you need to buy a new one for each computer? Thank you, always
Thanks Ray and I that depends on what you purchased. When you checkout for Luminar, there is an option to buy 1 or 2 seats (computers). I *think* that extensions are the same, but honestly am not sure. You can also look in your Skylum account on their website and see if anything is indicated there. Thanks.
@@JimNix It seems that the extensions do not come in 1 seat or 2 seats. They come one seat per purchase. So I Need to buy the same extension 3 times for three laptops. Becomes expensive. The trip you will be going to Iceland looks AWESOME! And you guys will be teaching Luminar not Adobe like every other workshop anywhere. That is a good thing 😊😊
@@raylander6329 ok I guess it makes sense that you buy them one at a time. 3 times is a lot though for 3 laptops. Yes the Iceland trip should be magical. I teach Luminar 1x1 there as well as in group settings. It's a lot of fun!
Hi Jim, happy ne year to you and your family. Like how your new hair looks :-) Some words to the extensions. I‘m working exclusive with Luminar Neo, howeever, I would love if they spend their time to improove performance instead of finding always ways to make more money. I agree that HDR merge is good, must be good because of their experiance with Aurora. I like supersharp ai to some extend, but it also could be a normal tool in the details folder, I like fokus stacking, that in deed works good, I don‘t need upscale ai but as an early bird I had no chance to see what comes next. I do like denoise ai, I don‘t need magic light, I think the new face enhancer in upscale ai and in supersharp ai simply create new faces, terrible. Background removal works better on an iphone! I will stay with Luminar because I do like the App in generel but it still don‘t performs good on my 2017 iMac with 48GB RAM, that I would like and score it with a ten… Like your editing videos. All the best in 2023 Volker
Hi Jim, interesting take on the extensions so far. Did you say you have 246,000 photos in Luminar Neo? I just ask because I probably have about 50,000 photos and when I let Luminar Neo open a catalogue on them in my opinion it crashed. My question is, Jim, is there a particular way of making a catalogue for large collections please? If so, please consider doing a video on this aspect of Luminar Neo. Many Thanks and Regards Joe
Hi Joe and yes I have that many pics in Luminar, but it does not crash on me. Perhaps there is a corrupted image in there somewhere. I would check the last image you edited and see if you remove it from the catalog, if that helps. Also check with support as they will have a better idea how to help with this stuff. Thanks.
If you paid for it and don't have it, please contact their support team. Extensions had to be added via the jigsaw puzzle piece icon and downloaded into the app that way. Thanks.
If you use portrait upscale and tick the face enhancer box, it actually replaces the eyes, nose and mouth. Now if you do portrait photography off family or as a professional, this could be a problem, fine if you are ok with it.
I have not purchased any of the modules from skylum neo, so decided to invest in on1 2023, most things can be accomplished with on1 but need to be improved but I am sure on1 will not start trying to charge me for improvements etc.
1- Upscaling. Precious for lower pixel account (R6) especially cropping ..say - wild life, distant objets, moon etc. 2 - light enhancement. those glaring stars are ok (though fake) instead i'd ad on glare removal (greasy cell phone lenses).
Boa tarde Jim, o seu vídeo não tem tradução, sou português e para mim é fundamental. Não sei o que se passa, acompanho outros vídeos e têm Tradução, obrigado, um abraço.
This is the best explanation on the extras. Luminar needs to punish a written manual!!
thanks and yes a written manual would be good!
Thanks you for this review of extensions. You do a great job.
thank you for watching Michel!
Love your thinking on this, ye my ranking would be different as I am more wildlife, but your logic is sound. As one would expect from you.
thanks so much for watching Ron!
Getting into birding, noiseless ai, sharpening ai & upscale is probably going to be desired by me
Thanks
@@PhilipDSouza yes that makes a lot of sense, enjoy!
Thanks Jim for this, I am with you on Hdr being my fave too, I have Aurora Hdr with all the whistles but if I want a quick edit this one is very useful
thanks Irene!
Thank Jim, great video. Usefulness 5.0 🙂
thanks so much!
Thanks for ranking the Extensions, and I agree that it all depends on how much use you will get out of a certain extension. Happy New Year Jim.
thanks for watching Ron!
Since we have sharpen and noise edit tools are these Ai extensions just an alternative method of getting to the same end point? Sure it might require less skill and time but that is not my question.
Good question and yes, same goal, but you get there with better results. And technically the sharpen extension fixes blur moreso than just adding some basic sharpening.
@@JimNix thanks. Good point about the blur sharpening.
@@AdamTV you're welcome
The background removal tool made a Christmas scene postcard to send out easy. So while some of the tools are of limited use when you need them they work pretty well. The upscale tool works well for old images we all have that are small
Glad you are getting good results and yeah Xmas card is a great idea! Thanks.
Very helpful Jim. Especially your performance score which I take as read and wouldn't necessarily repeat your experiment. As far as usage go I would also consider what other software does those functions, do I have it, what is it's relative performance and cost. I'm not too keen on maintaining a Luminar subscription and would prefer one off purchases. However on that basis the extensions are relatively expensive additions and other vendor's software may indeed be price competitive.
Thanks Jeff and yep I agree, worth considering what other products do these things, whether you already have them, etc. This was just sharing my thoughts on these in terms of performance and usefulness for my specific photo needs. Certainly it varies for everyone, and probably quite a bit. Thanks for watching.
Admittedly, from all of these extensions, the only one I have is HDR which I feel no one has matched yet. Apart from HDR and MagicLight, functionality of all other Neo extensions are available in basic license on other tools (i.e. ON1 Photo RAW). I still haven't digested Skylum new business model and fear they might make it worst in the future so I'm holding up on further investing in their tools until I get a better view of where they are heading. Don't get me wrong, I love their software and use Neo and their HDR extension a lot. But I drive everything from ON1 at the moment. Until then, if you have some more comparison between Neo extensions and the ON1/Topaz counterpart, I might reconsider once I find peace. Thank you so much for sharing. As usual, these are very enlightening. Most of all, Happy New Year :).
thanks much Frederic and Happy New Year to you as well, and the entire Nov/Dec period was so busy for me that I haven't had time to do full comparisons between all these apps
Thanks
thanks for watching
I love the new extensions. But I was both a bit surprised and disappointed when I looked at Anthony Moriganti's last video from yesterday. In this he points out that the last update of Supersharp and Upscale and the addition of Face Enhancer AI was not doing what I thought it should do. When using this it totally modifies a face, looking nothing like it did from the beginning. It is sharper, but not the same face. Have you also seen this? I will most probably not use this, and do not understand why this have been added?
Hi Lennie and I have not seen that video, and also haven't had much time over the holidays for photo work. I will check that out though, thanks.
@@JimNix Happy New Year, also just wanted to say that I love your videos. Even if I do mostly sport photo editing, I learn a lot!
@@tollarplennie thank you for watching and glad they help!
@@JimNix Yes, you definitely need to investigate and see for yourself what it does Jim. I’m almost certain it’s not intended to do that, it even changed eye color when I used it. 😳
Lennie, just watched that. WOW! Actually replaces features? What the heck?
I agree with HDR Merge being the most used and great performance - however, it would lose some score as it doesn't allow you to dial it back from 100%. Yes, I can use a layer mask and brush/dial what I want but, to me, the lack of slider in the tool deserves less than a 5.
Totally get that, and fair point. I'm talking here about how it works for me, and I just haven't needed to dial it back etc bc the results have been pleasant to my eye. But I get that isn't the same for everyone. Still, I agree and would love for them to add that to Neo in the future. Thanks.
As far as usefulness goes Merge and Focus Stacking would be the only 2 I would use enough to justify a purchase. I had Aurora so I got merge and may add focus stacking at some point. I have Topaz Gigapixel, Sharpen and DeNoise which I only use if I’m going to print a photo. For social media, which is mostly what I do the basic Neo program is fine for me. Will see what they add in ‘23 but for now I’ll stand pat. Hoping for a Panorama addition. Thanks for the video. It has helped me confirm what I need.
thanks Bruce and yes I suspect Pano will get added at some point
HDR Merge is for sure my favorite, but I do shoot a lot of real estate so kind of goes to show there. My order would be the same except focus stacking is on the bottom for me. I think to tool is amazing but I just don’t shoot those multiple shots unless I am doing real estate brackets
makes a lot of sense for you to use HDR Merge for RE shots
Hey Jim, Great info. Can you do a video on some of the structure of how and where the catalog is stored, as well as the Backup Process for Neo Catalogs. I have about 36,000 photos in a catalog and when I did a backup, it displayed 'creating backup' for about 30 hours until I killed the app. Thanks
thanks for vid great looks from your prospective as a side bar i am currently using neo from most of my pictures but using topaz photo ai in conjunction
thanks for watching Terry and yeah I like Topaz Photo AI as well, it's a good product so if you are happy with that you wouldn't need some of these extensions
already have the extension and waiting for the rest
@@brotell1950 ah ok thanks
I need to use HDR more! And focus stacking. I think I will see some better images going forward if I do that. And my favorite thing too is the all in one application of these. Thanks Jim!
thank you for watching Rebecca!
Thankfully I got HDR for free as an Aurora user. None of the others really excite me. I use DxO Photolab for my initial raw to DNG conversion which has their DeepPrime noise reduction. And I use Affinity Photo for focus stacking. The resizing extension is really the only one I might spend money on because it's cheaper than the Topaz alternative. But the others I just don't need. Good to hear your assessment of the full pack though.
thanks for watching and it's great to have choices these days right? 😀
Thanks for this, Jim. I just bought the SuperSharp AI extension during this Spring sale. It's super slow and takes about 3 minutes for it to sharpen a single photo. Have you seen this? I have a 2019 MacBook Pro with I7 and 16GB ram. Topaz Sharpen is way faster.
Hi Geoff and I agree it is not that fast, but it's not that slow for me. But I have 64GB RAM so that surely helps.
Thank you for the great video, Jim; I purched two extension at $30 each, do you know how many computers you can use each on? Or do you need to buy a new one for each computer? Thank you, always
Thanks Ray and I that depends on what you purchased. When you checkout for Luminar, there is an option to buy 1 or 2 seats (computers). I *think* that extensions are the same, but honestly am not sure. You can also look in your Skylum account on their website and see if anything is indicated there. Thanks.
@@JimNix Thank you so much, Jim; I will look again and check; most kind of you to answer
@@raylander6329 no worries
@@JimNix It seems that the extensions do not come in 1 seat or 2 seats. They come one seat per purchase. So I Need to buy the same extension 3 times for three laptops. Becomes expensive. The trip you will be going to Iceland looks AWESOME! And you guys will be teaching Luminar not Adobe like every other workshop anywhere. That is a good thing 😊😊
@@raylander6329 ok I guess it makes sense that you buy them one at a time. 3 times is a lot though for 3 laptops. Yes the Iceland trip should be magical. I teach Luminar 1x1 there as well as in group settings. It's a lot of fun!
Hi Jim, happy ne year to you and your family. Like how your new hair looks :-) Some words to the extensions. I‘m working exclusive with Luminar Neo, howeever, I would love if they spend their time to improove performance instead of finding always ways to make more money. I agree that HDR merge is good, must be good because of their experiance with Aurora. I like supersharp ai to some extend, but it also could be a normal tool in the details folder, I like fokus stacking, that in deed works good, I don‘t need upscale ai but as an early bird I had no chance to see what comes next. I do like denoise ai, I don‘t need magic light, I think the new face enhancer in upscale ai and in supersharp ai simply create new faces, terrible. Background removal works better on an iphone! I will stay with Luminar because I do like the App in generel but it still don‘t performs good on my 2017 iMac with 48GB RAM, that I would like and score it with a ten… Like your editing videos. All the best in 2023 Volker
thanks much for sharing your views Volker and of course thanks for watching too, and Happy New Year to you and yours!
Hi Jim, interesting take on the extensions so far. Did you say you have 246,000 photos in Luminar Neo? I just ask because I probably have about 50,000 photos and when I let Luminar Neo open a catalogue on them in my opinion it crashed. My question is, Jim, is there a particular way of making a catalogue for large collections please? If so, please consider doing a video on this aspect of Luminar Neo. Many Thanks and Regards Joe
Hi Joe and yes I have that many pics in Luminar, but it does not crash on me. Perhaps there is a corrupted image in there somewhere. I would check the last image you edited and see if you remove it from the catalog, if that helps. Also check with support as they will have a better idea how to help with this stuff. Thanks.
@@JimNix thanks Jim, I'll have a look. Regards Joe
I purchased a few extensions but I failed to locate them.
If you paid for it and don't have it, please contact their support team. Extensions had to be added via the jigsaw puzzle piece icon and downloaded into the app that way. Thanks.
Thanks, I got all of them now.
@@VincentW.S ok that's great, have fun!
If you use portrait upscale and tick the face enhancer box, it actually replaces the eyes, nose and mouth. Now if you do portrait photography off family or as a professional, this could be a problem, fine if you are ok with it.
Yep others mentioned that, I just hadn't tried it yet, but certainly will.
Each of these are an additional purchase from our core Neo rt Jim?$
Yes these are optional, paid add-ons to Luminar Neo. Thanks.
I have not purchased any of the modules from skylum neo, so decided to invest in on1 2023, most things can be accomplished with on1 but need to be improved but I am sure on1 will not start trying to charge me for improvements etc.
@@kennethcomben5453 On1 is a good product, and I have covered it in a lot of vids. It's solid.
1- Upscaling. Precious for lower pixel account (R6) especially cropping ..say - wild life, distant objets, moon etc.
2 - light enhancement. those glaring stars are ok (though fake) instead i'd ad on glare removal (greasy cell phone lenses).
I predicted HDR Merge and Focus Stacking would be your top two. 😎 Let us know what you see when you use Upscale AI with Face Enhancer checked.
haha I'm predictable I guess
Boa tarde Jim, o seu vídeo não tem tradução, sou português e para mim é fundamental. Não sei o que se passa, acompanho outros vídeos e têm Tradução, obrigado, um abraço.
I have only hdr merge given to me by default and I have never thought to buy any of the rest. The video made me think I am right 🤓
haha