It’s been a long time since Skylum has added any extensions to Luminar Neo, its complex image editor. However, now an important feature is coming.
Of course, panoramas are nothing new. They’re as old as movies, and we’ve had digital panorama generators built into Photoshop and Lightroom and a number of apps dedicated to panoramas for years. This New extension from Skylum has some unique features.
The first and expected is the usual pano stitch. Drag your RAW or JPEG files and you’ll get a seam-free panorama. Then there’s HDR Panorama. You can combine multiple exposures and brackets into a single HDR panorama.
Next, here’s the new and unique feature: panoramas from videos. The Collage Panorama extension allows you to add your video footage and seamlessly extract frames to stitch together into a panoramic image. Skylum says you can: “Re-imagine action sequences in a whole new way as your videos are transformed into stunning, sprawling shots.”
Finally, the extension provides an Object/Subject Component Panorama. It allows you to select specific objects in the video and convert them into panoramic images. The panorama collage utility separates and intelligently combines frames centered around your chosen element, creating a visually striking panorama.
Use the panorama extension
I tried taking standard panoramas with some drone shots I took recently. You import each frame individually, drag them into the expanded window, and then you’re given different projections to match what you’ve captured.
Before you assemble the frames, Neo will provide you with a panel that allows you to remove vignettes or distortions. In addition, you can eliminate any chromatic aberration.
You’ll quickly get a preview, which will look uneven, like all panoramas stitched together.
It will then automatically crop, giving you a seamless new image. You can manually adjust the crop if you want.
In my eyes, the processed images look as good as what I get out of Lightroom or Photoshop. The only missing part is that Adobe provides an autofill feature to reduce the amount of cropping. It uses Adobe’s Content-Aware technology and it works pretty well.
In my own work, I do the cropping manually with Photoshop anyway, so in my workflow the Neo and Adobe tools function essentially the same.
How did it work?
Normal. I think many people will be delighted to see this tool in Luminar Neo. Not only does it work well on panoramas, the video engine looks promising and creative. I don’t have any videos available to try, but I’m looking forward to testing. There are several examples of video tools in action on Skylum website.
How to get it
The software will be released on July 20 and will be available to monthly and yearly Pro and Ultimate plan subscribers, as well as all other Extensions.
Luminar Neo owners with a lifetime license can now pre-order the Panorama Collage Extension individually at an early discount, or switch to one of the subscription plans. Non-subscribers can get a lifetime license for $149 instead of the usual $199 from Skylum via webpage.
I think this is one of the most powerful extensions Skylum has to offer. I would also rate HDR and Focus Stack Extensions highly. It would be nice to not have to leave Luminar Neo to create these panoramas, and I think users of this software will be pleased.
