Luminar Neo HDR Merge - Is it worth a look? PROS and CONS

[@DigitalPhotoMentor]

Watch next: Luminar Neo Update 1.2.0 👉 kzbin.info/www/bejne/eXmaeGicpq2SgNE

[@WilliamWallaceRoss]

I was unaware about turning on the clipping. Thanks for that tip. Now I will try some bracketing to see how the HDR Merge looks.

[@DigitalPhotoMentor]

You're welcome. If you want more just get my free Luminar Neo keyboard shortcuts cheat sheet here. www.digitalphotomentor.com/freebies/luminar-neo-keyboard-shortcuts-cheat-sheet/

[@markmathews9818]

Thanks for the video. It was a bit helpful in my quest to understand Luminar neo. I use an earlier version of Luminar and Aurora. I sent you a note through your website. I use HDR by modifying and “bracketing” from capture one pro.

[@DigitalPhotoMentor]

Glad it helped! What do you mean you bracket by modifying? Like you create brackets from one image?

[@RonaldBrown59]

I’ve been into HDR photography ever since I met Trey Radcliffe many years ago. And I was using both Lightroom and Aurora to process my HDR images, but now I think I will switch to Neo with HDR Merge. Thanks for the great tutorial on the new software.

[@RobCooper]

She interviewed Trey 10 years ago. kzbin.info/www/bejne/kKW0iH-uhpp4rM0

[@DigitalPhotoMentor]

Totally agree! and I followed Trey as well in the early HDR years but his style is too much for me now

[@acneubauer]

Thank you for showing how Merge is coping with slight movement

[@DigitalPhotoMentor]

No problem

[@thelongarmmarine]

I’m dabbling with Neo & 360 photos & the Z1…if you blend before stitching, it’s a complete no-go, but stitching 1st, then blending/adjusting, it seems ok…

[@DigitalPhotoMentor]

Good to know

[@ziv2liv]

I use HDR bracketing a lot and it saves me time and enhance quality. One thing you haven't mentioned is that with Luminar Neo HDR you can also use a single image and improve the exposure balance a lot.

[@DigitalPhotoMentor]

Yes that's correct

[@emeregildo100]

HDR Photography for me is still a great tool to capture natural images with greater detail levels, which otherwise would not be possible to capture. I believe that caption feature is likely to be included as a built in camera feature in future technologies, however, in the meantime hdr blending is still being used.

[@DigitalPhotoMentor]

Many cameras do already have an HDR function. But I don't use it or recommend it, only for beginners. Letting the camera do it means you lose all control over how it is blended.

[@emeregildo100]

@@DigitalPhotoMentor Yes, that's true. Mine does have it also, but in reality I don't use it either since it does not produce the results I look for. I believe however, that due to the advent of new ai technologies, it's quite possible that feature could generate the results desired in camera. In the meantime though, hdr blending in softwares like Lum. Neo is pretty much what we can do.

[@DigitalPhotoMentor]

@@emeregildo100 Agreed.

[@johns7988]

Could you demonstrate using HDR Merge with just 1 image and explain what it actually does since there are no other images to merge with? Whatever it does, is it possible to achieve the same result just using Neo without HDR Merge?

[@DigitalPhotoMentor]

It would just attempt to blend the tones - I haven't tried it but I will do that and make a video, good idea. You will never get the same result from just a single image as you will from multiple bracketed images. One raw file carries data 2 stops either way (4 total) - when I bracket I do them at 2-stop intervals. In the example of the old door and wood stove, I took 4 shots - so those 4 images cover a range of 8 stops (12 with the range of them all combined). See the difference?

[@RobCooper]

Interesting idea. I'm curious to see what she comes up with when trying that. What would we call that? HDR Solo? While continuing to watch this video, I just realized the instructions say to drag 1 to 10 photos. It never occurred to me one could "Merge" a single image.

[@DigitalPhotoMentor]

@@RobCooper No it's usually just called "single image HDR" or sometimes "faux HDR"

[@ThePNWRiderWA]

It is a subset of the older Aurora. They should have included it with Neo as it is with on1 and lightroom.

[@DigitalPhotoMentor]

I can understand it as an extension. Topaz has individual products that just do one thing. And lightroom and ON1 are more expensive. So if they include it and just raise the price, people that don't do hdr get penalized.

[@PhotoSnapMedia]

Real estate photographer here. I shoot all my sessions using bracketed shots. Sometimes 30-50 photos. Is there a way to HDR merge numerous shots at the same time or do you have to highlight/drag/drop 5 brackets at a time? That's very time consuming.

[@DigitalPhotoMentor]

Different sets of images? Currently no

[@sue.Hoo123]

It looks like NEO does a great job of HDR, it is clearly very powerful. I haven’t bought it yet as I really want some easy to use editing s/w that can stitch panoramas too, I’m really surprised NEO doesn’t 🤔

[@DigitalPhotoMentor]

I'd say wait a while. They seem to be adding more stuff. Stay tuned!

[@sue.Hoo123]

@@DigitalPhotoMentor thank you, most helpful. Good tutorial too, I like your style 👌

[@DigitalPhotoMentor]

@@sue.Hoo123 Thanks so much! Please subscribe to the channel!

[@phlotographer]

Got to the part about the toggle to show the HDR merge panel and discovered that clicking on did not work but clicking just below it and the other options they would activate. I am rather used to simply clicking on the > (turned to the R 90 degrees so it points down) just in case someone else had the same issue. It would be interesting to see you do the edits including the one of Rob in Affinity Photo and see how their HDR and if necessary their toning would handle the issues you have found in LR compared to NEO. TIA

[@DigitalPhotoMentor]

Sorry I don't have Affinity to test that though.

[@venkataramanSantosh]

Does it work within Lightroom as a plugin. Currently i use Neo as a plugin since LR is my default workflow and catalog

[@DigitalPhotoMentor]

No it doesn't currently. I tried it and it just opened all the raw files individually and there was no plugin visible. I think I mentioned that in the video.

[@mikejenner5610]

I have upgraded my Neo to v1.2.0 I ave the icon you describe in the top right of my screen that toggles the side panel. When I select it and the side panel opens I don't have the HDR box where you are dropping your images to be merged.

[@RobCooper]

You already own Aurora HDR?

[@DigitalPhotoMentor]

You have to install the HDR extension separately. Click the puzzle icon next to the Luminar Neo logo upper left. Then install the extension. If you own Aurora HDR it is free for you. Just get the license code from your skylum account to activate it

[@mikejenner5610]

@@RobCooper no I realised that unless you already have Aurora it’s an extra £44.

[@mikejenner5610]

@@DigitalPhotoMentor I realised it’s going to cost me another £44 because I don’t have Aurora. Not sure it’s worth it for me at this stage.

[@DigitalPhotoMentor]

@@mikejenner5610 Only you can decide that. They do offer 30 day guarantee on all their products so you could buy it, try it, and then make your decision.

[@adamloughran]

Question: I have a Samsung S21 Ultra and want to do some HDR. Is there a way to automate the bracketing process to use with Neo HDR?

[@DigitalPhotoMentor]

Not sure sorry. You'd have to consult the manual for your phone. Also, you won't get the best results doing HDR from phone images - they are very small and less data that raw files from an actual camera.

[@larrypendergraft2696]

Not that I know of. I have an older S10+, and there's no way I know of to shoot bracket sets in one shot. I wish there were, though!

[@adamloughran]

After a bit of research and to answer my own question...Hedgecam 2 is an app that does bracketing on my Android camera. It does shoot RAW as well.

[@DigitalPhotoMentor]

@@adamloughran great, give it a go and report back to us!

[@CarlosSantos-oc1cz]

We have reached version 1.2 of Luminar Neo, a program that since version 1.05 has a huge bug. After cropping a photo proportionally with, for example, the original dimensions of 5184x3456, when we finish editing if we export indicating that we want the original dimensions, Neo simply ignores the instruction and keeps the dimensions after the crop. As I mentioned the problem only arises I think in version 1.05 (or 1.06 I'm not sure anymore). And no one at Skylum detects the bug. As long as it persists, the acquisition is not justified.

[@DigitalPhotoMentor]

Well I don't see that as a bug though. If you crop off some of the pixels, then the cropped size IS the original dimensions. If you want it larger then you're upsizing and enlarging the file. That's a whole different thing

[@wolfiemedia]

Thanks for the video. I use the fully-fledged Aurora HDR, this looks a bit like a watered down version of it? Is it worth getting this Neo HDR Merge? Also, has that defringe thing been updated since this video? Thanks :)

[@DigitalPhotoMentor]

Well you cam continue to use Aurora but it's not supported anymore. NEO and the HDR merge is the tool moving forward. Sorry which defringe issue? Been a while since I made this one

[@wolfiemedia]

...the chromatic aberration @@DigitalPhotoMentor you mention at 9:45 :)

[@DigitalPhotoMentor]

@@wolfiemedia Ah okay, I literally had to rewatch it. This video is from 18 months ago. Yes there is a check box to handle Chromatic Aberration when you do the merge and it does a pretty good job. If there is some left it's easy to fix with the Blur tool. I show that in this video kzbin.info/www/bejne/b3iUhat_iNCNpKc

[@ArminHirmer]

I tried the new HDR thing in Luminar NEO and at the same time with Capture One. Totally no comparison, I can use the Capture One files, but not the Neo.... just bad

[@DigitalPhotoMentor]

I'd love to see both results. Contact me and let's email www.digitalphotomentor.com/contact/

[@thegroove2000]

No prosecco? .

[@RobCooper]

not yet anyway. The day is young!

[@DigitalPhotoMentor]

Maybe later lol

[@thegroove2000]

@@DigitalPhotoMentor ha ha I bought a bottle of brandy earlier so it's going to be a relaxing evening.