---
title: Luminar Neo Reviews
meta_title: 'Luminar Neo Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2'
meta_description: Filter 115 reviews by the users' company size, role or industry
  to find out how Luminar Neo works for a business like yours.
aggregate_rating:
  rating_value: 4.4
  review_count: 115
  scale: '5'
date_modified: '2026-07-24'
parent_category:
  name: Photography
  url: https://www.g2.com/categories/photography
---

# Luminar Neo Reviews
**Vendor:** Skylum  
**Category:** [Photo Editing Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/photo-editing)  
**Average Rating:** 4.4/5.0  
**Total Reviews:** 115
## About Luminar Neo
Luminar Neo is an easy-to-use photo editing software for photography lovers that empowers them to express the beauty they imagined thanks to innovative AI-driven tools. Now everyone could see photos as you imagined them.



## Luminar Neo Pros & Cons
**What users like:**

- Users value the **user-friendly interface** of Luminar Neo, making photo editing effortless and efficient for everyone. (4 reviews)
- Users love the **efficiency** of Luminar Neo, benefiting from quick processing and seamless editing capabilities. (4 reviews)
- Users rave about Luminar Neo&#39;s **intelligent AI processing** , enhancing image quality with context-aware corrections and tools. (3 reviews)
- Users love the **AI-driven background remover** in Luminar Neo for its professional-level results and ease of use. (3 reviews)
- Users commend the **professional-level AI capabilities** of Luminar Neo, enhancing their photo editing experience effortlessly. (3 reviews)
- Users value the **excellent customer support** from Luminar Neo, providing quick assistance for any editing issues. (2 reviews)
- Users love the **easy integrations** of Luminar Neo, appreciating its seamless compatibility and efficient performance with Lightroom. (2 reviews)
- Users love the **intuitive interface** of Luminar Neo, enhancing accessibility for both beginners and professionals alike. (2 reviews)
- Users love the **intuitive interface** of Luminar Neo, making photo editing accessible for all skill levels. (2 reviews)
- Speed (2 reviews)

**What users dislike:**

- Users find the **limited photo editing tools** in Luminar Neo restrict their creative flexibility and efficiency. (2 reviews)
- Users often experience **slow performance** with Luminar Neo, impacting efficiency and accuracy in their editing tasks. (2 reviews)
- Users report **inaccurate results** from Luminar Neo, leading to frustration with its overall performance. (1 reviews)
- Users often find the **learning curve steep** , with slow performance and unintuitive masking and layer tools on Luminar Neo. (1 reviews)
- Users find **layer blending options limited** in Luminar Neo, alongside issues with batch renaming and folder sync. (1 reviews)
- Limited Editing Capabilities (1 reviews)
- Users find **limited layer blending options** in Luminar Neo compared to Photoshop, affecting their editing experience. (1 reviews)

## Luminar Neo Reviews
  ### 1. My Luminar Experience

**Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** justin c. | Electrical and Instrumentation Planner, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** May 18, 2021

**What do you like best about Luminar Neo?**

It’s very easy to use a simple interface and it starts quickly on your machine

**What do you dislike about Luminar Neo?**

I don’t have much downsides. It’s beautiful for what it’s designed for.

**What problems is Luminar Neo solving and how is that benefiting you?**

It’s has sped up my workflow greatly and made my landscape editing quite smooth

  ### 2. Beautiful results, *if* you can run it on your PC.

**Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Colin M. | Limited Spectrum Design, Entertainment, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** August 31, 2020

**What do you like best about Luminar Neo?**

Easy interface and great editing tools for almost any type of photography, in addition to a one-time payment instead of a subscription plan.

**What do you dislike about Luminar Neo?**

Awful performance on Windows PCs, and no "undo" when in the "erase" tool. With Intel i5, Nvidia 1050ti 4gb, 500gb m.2, and 32gb RAM, the application would take several seconds for any effect to render after touching any slider. The erase tool is it's own module inside Luminar 4, opening it's own dialog box to work in. Entering the erase tool takes my PC about a minute, and panning the image causes pixelation and lag, forcing you to stop and wait for the image to load so you can see what you're doing. After all your erasing (basically spot healing tool with a content aware fill function), saving the results will take at least a minute before the module closes and brings you back to the main Luminar interface, creating it's own layer. But there is no "undo" ability in the erase tool, so if that content aware algorithm messes up a spot, you have to cancel and start over.

**Recommendations to others considering Luminar Neo:**

Powerful Windows PC required due to poor optimization. Definitely use the trial offered if you're interested to determine if your PC is capable of running Luminar 4. Macintosh users seem to have no issues with this application.

**What problems is Luminar Neo solving and how is that benefiting you?**

Excellent raw processor/photo editor with a clean, modern interface, helps put that extra polish on all your photography. Especially useful for portraits and landscapes, there's a variety of adjustments that easily add that extra pop to your images. Simple sliders can manipulate effects to your liking, including some that would take multiple steps in Photoshop, such as eye/teeth whitening, skin smoothing, eye enlarging, orton effect, and sky replacement.

  ### 3. Great add on for Photoshop.

**Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Verified User in Financial Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** April 27, 2021

**What do you like best about Luminar Neo?**

We liked the AI Sliders, the all-in-one solution with easy format selection and adaptive filters.

**What do you dislike about Luminar Neo?**

Price and supportability. It would be nice to get phone support faster

**What problems is Luminar Neo solving and how is that benefiting you?**

We are an Apple shop, and having Photoshop and Luminar gives us all the applications we need in two apps. No more jumping between other software to crop, tone, shade, etc.

  ### 4. Luminar Review

**Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Verified User in Arts and Crafts | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** April 27, 2021

**What do you like best about Luminar Neo?**

The editing tools are so easy to use and understand.

**What do you dislike about Luminar Neo?**

I would prefer to have these applications and editing tools to be cheaper or free to use.

**Recommendations to others considering Luminar Neo:**

Test it out and see how it works!

**What problems is Luminar Neo solving and how is that benefiting you?**

Luminar is helping my photography or graphics become brighter, clearer, and more suited to my business.

  ### 5. Great alternative to Lightroom

**Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Alex  P. | Help desk , Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** July 21, 2020

**What do you like best about Luminar Neo?**

Quick presets for product and food photos, very intuitive auto-adjustments

**What do you dislike about Luminar Neo?**

It's almost perfect for its purpose, I wish it had a dedicated feature for working with white background

**Recommendations to others considering Luminar Neo:**

Ideal for e-commerce and everyday marketing needs especially if you don't have in-house designer team. This could be used directly by someone in marketing department to deliver good quick results.

**What problems is Luminar Neo solving and how is that benefiting you?**

Luminar is great for quick editing needs for everyday marketing purposes. If photos are taken properly, quick adjustment presets allow you to reach almost high-end photo looks

  ### 6. From zero to hero.

**Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Verified User in Marketing and Advertising | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** April 29, 2021

**What do you like best about Luminar Neo?**

The editing is just amazing and reaches beyond expectation.

**What do you dislike about Luminar Neo?**

The sky replacement is a bit buggy. But I can live with that.

**Recommendations to others considering Luminar Neo:**

Go for it....

**What problems is Luminar Neo solving and how is that benefiting you?**

Colour grading my photos and manipulation.

  ### 7. Some Exciting Features

**Rating:** 2.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Verified User in Higher Education | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** June 12, 2020

**What do you like best about Luminar Neo?**

Luminar has been around for a bit, and their newest release as of this writing, Luminar 4, has a pretty spectacular AI sky exchange engine that works really well. It let's you easily swap out your boring sky with a more exciting/dramatic sky to give your photos an extra oomph. Beyond that it also has the regular photo processing tools that will get you where you need to go. As a whole Luminar is a pretty good tool that has a lot to offer.

**What do you dislike about Luminar Neo?**

Luminar seems to draw heavily from your computer resources. When I was using Luminar 4, I noticed that just starting up the software made my computer fans kick on, and it pretty much stayed at top speed the whole time I was using it. The software is also rather slow and lacks responsiveness, so it takes a few seconds to respond every time you change anything. Definitely slows down the workflow.

**Recommendations to others considering Luminar Neo:**

Definitely take advantage of the free trial to really evaluate whether or not it meets your needs. I think in theory, it checks a lot of boxes that I was looking for, but in practices I found it to be lacking.

**What problems is Luminar Neo solving and how is that benefiting you?**

Photo processing. The sky exchange was pretty cool, but I didn't really realize any benefit beyond what I would get in Lightroom/Photoshop.

  ### 8. Best in workflow and cataloging

**Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** August 25, 2020

**What do you like best about Luminar Neo?**

1. luminar is very user friendly and has easy shortcut keys making it very easy and simple to use
2. editing photos comes with a number of different looks that can be applied while editing the photos

**What do you dislike about Luminar Neo?**

1. it does not have many filters to edit the photos
2. it's structure does not allow you to make corrections on the photo a lot faster
3.user interface is very different if we compare older versions with new version

**Recommendations to others considering Luminar Neo:**

1. very easy to use and photo processing is very quick after photo editing 
2. it is great for the beginners to use and have a none-destructive editing feature

**What problems is Luminar Neo solving and how is that benefiting you?**

1. using the brushes and radial mask/gradient mask which will allow the photos to have many different effects 
2. the shortcut keys is very effective and can  be used to highlight any photo

  ### 9. morocoo

**Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Verified User in Design | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** February 07, 2021

**What do you like best about Luminar Neo?**

* The best thing about Luminar4 is its ease of use, either for professionals or beginners

**What do you dislike about Luminar Neo?**

Everything is ok in luminar4 but there is only a small problem we want this app on phones

**Recommendations to others considering Luminar Neo:**

The best photo editing app

**What problems is Luminar Neo solving and how is that benefiting you?**

The problems that LUMINAR4 solved are the complicated icons in other programs in addition to the time gain

  ### 10. Amazing AI editing software

**Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Brett H. | Owner, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** July 09, 2020

**What do you like best about Luminar Neo?**

I love the ability to edit photos and create amazing sky background changes to landscape photos.

**What do you dislike about Luminar Neo?**

That some functions dont let you use them when a face or object that is needed to edit or make a change is not present.  I also find the Eraser tool and removal tool hard to use.

**Recommendations to others considering Luminar Neo:**

I recommend getting used to the Editing of wedding photos, this as helped my process 10 fold.

**What problems is Luminar Neo solving and how is that benefiting you?**

I am able to edit photos more efficiently because the built in tools are quick and using the artificial intelligence options it does the work for me.  This saves so much time when working with many file edits.

  ### 11. Fantastic editing interface

**Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Verified User in Higher Education | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** July 30, 2020

**What do you like best about Luminar Neo?**

The price is superb, the interface is streamlined and makes workflow smooth. I enjoy the ERASE feature and the portrait and sky editing modes.

**What do you dislike about Luminar Neo?**

The AI uses a lot of power and causes delays and site lags. A mobile version should be developed. When downloading and importing my photos, there is a glitch whereby I then have duplicates I don't need/want.

**What problems is Luminar Neo solving and how is that benefiting you?**

I am able to edit any image! I love the clone and stamp tools, and am able to produce high quality marketing images and flyers. The quality of Luminar software is superb, with minor fixes. All in all, I think that Luminar is pretty equivocal to photoshop or other editing softwares.

  ### 12. Luminar was not for me

**Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Naasirah M. | Ceo, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** July 30, 2020

**What do you like best about Luminar Neo?**

The overall aspects of the app was good, and other peoples results using this app looked well

**What do you dislike about Luminar Neo?**

when I tried using this app, it was very difficult to actually get the results that I wanted out of it.

**Recommendations to others considering Luminar Neo:**

Try their trial period to see if it is right for you

**What problems is Luminar Neo solving and how is that benefiting you?**

I couldn't really solve my photo editing issues with this product. Had to switch to Lightroom

  ### 13. Easy to use photo editing software at an affordable price for beginners and enthusiasts

**Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Ralf T. | Webdeveloper and Owner, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** November 21, 2019

**What do you like best about Luminar Neo?**

Luminar is very easy to use and within a few minutes you get great results. It offers ready made looks or presets that transform most photos instantly. With some easy slider changes you can change the result quickly. If you need more control it offer advanced setting that will satisfy even a experienced photo editor.

**What do you dislike about Luminar Neo?**

The worst bit is the slow library module. If you have folders with 100 or more photos the app comes to almost a total stand still. If you are a professional with large folders you can only use this as a plugin from either lightroom or photoshop. 

**Recommendations to others considering Luminar Neo:**

As long as you dont require a library or cataloguing system this software will help you to get the most out of your images.

**What problems is Luminar Neo solving and how is that benefiting you?**

I use the plugin function and manage my photos in Lightroom and export them for editing into Luminar. The editing is so much easier then in Lightroom. The portraits editing features in Luminar 4 are outstanding.

  ### 14. Keeps getting better and better

**Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Julia O. | Chief Button Pusher, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** November 25, 2019

**What do you like best about Luminar Neo?**

Luminar continues adding features that expand usability of the app. They have made it very easy to now do single image edits rather than setting up albums or folders, so the program is much less cumbersome than previously, while retaining the ability to save custom preset combinations for future use. The before/after slider is also useful. 

What I especially appreciate are the levels of enhancement in the panel options - essentials covers most everyday edits, but additional levels (creative, portrait, and pro) provide additional editing features.

**What do you dislike about Luminar Neo?**

Since my last review, Luminar have modified their panels and gone back to

**Recommendations to others considering Luminar Neo:**

What you get for the cost is extremely reasonable.

**What problems is Luminar Neo solving and how is that benefiting you?**

I do a significant amount of photo editing both for my small business and for personal use.  Luminar makes my workflow so much easier.

  ### 15. Luminar an photo editing tool which use Artificial Intelligence  

**Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** July 12, 2019

**What do you like best about Luminar Neo?**

Luminar is the best photo and image editing tool for the modern world as it use artificial intelligence algorithm which give a natural touch to the photograph in a effective manner. It is very useful who is the beginner in the photo or image editing as it doesn't required to much knowledge for the use of it. 

**What do you dislike about Luminar Neo?**

As the Luminar is a very good product in the market which uses the Artificial intelligence so the expectation from the product rises as there are lot of thing can be provided by AI technology, So far as concern the product is decent and effective.

**What problems is Luminar Neo solving and how is that benefiting you?**

We use Luminar for the photo and image editing which we can use in the presentation and seminar for the work.


## Luminar Neo Discussions
  - [Is it any way to improve performance on a high-end Windows machine?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/is-it-any-way-to-improve-performance-on-a-high-end-windows-machine) - 1 comment, 1 upvote
  - [Why do some PCs with lower end specs run Luminar 4 better than my fully loaded gaming PC?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/31181-why-do-some-pcs-with-lower-end-specs-run-luminar-4-better-than-my-fully-loaded-gaming-pc) - 1 comment, 1 upvote
  - [When will you integrate Luminar with Affinity and other products?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/when-will-you-integrate-luminar-with-affinity-and-other-products) - 1 comment, 1 upvote
  - [Is luminar a free software?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/is-luminar-a-free-software) - 1 comment
  - [How good is luminar?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/how-good-is-luminar) - 1 comment

- [View Luminar Neo pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/luminar-neo/reviews?page=3&qs=pros-and-cons&section=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-08-02+00%3A43%3A57+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=e47c6caf-04be-47c6-8ecf-ea1d38b36d44&secure%5Btoken%5D=e0148d6508ce7ef50db737bbddb27be1131d6d94623a516a0ac76ef549eb823d&format=llm_user)

## Luminar Neo Features
**Generative AI**
- AI Text-to-Image
- AI Text-to-3D

**Agentic AI - Photo Editing**
- Cross-system Integration

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