
Is Luminar Neo Upscale AI any good? And why would we wish it? We cowl this and extra!
What’s Luminar Neo Upscale AI?
Luminar Neo Upscale AI is an image-enlarging software program extension from Skylum for his or her Luminar Neo pictures enhancing software program. This helps your low-resolution pictures — which all of us have — by enlarging them whereas retaining the element in a bigger picture.
Skylum, the father or mother firm, describes Upscale AI like this: “Crop an attention-grabbing body from a panoramic panorama, get high-quality zoom-ins of wildlife, enhance macro pictures, improve previous images, put together your pictures for printing, and extra.”
How can Upscale AI assist me?
You’ll be able to primarily resuscitate smaller, low-resolution images. However greater than that, when you needed to crop in to a selected half of a bigger picture, Upscale AI might retain element there as nicely.
How nicely does Upscale AI work?
It really works fairly nicely and does precisely what it must do. In case you are trying to upscale one thing so you’ll be able to share it on social media or print it, then it does precisely what it ought to … with out shedding element. I examined Upscale AI on two images.
First picture: Enlarging a really detailed high-ISO picture
My first take a look at was an already high-resolution picture of our superb Milky Means. I needed to see what the upscaling would do to such a finely-detailed picture. I selected to pixel-peep as a result of, why not? All of us wish to see what’s occurring with such a finely-detailed picture, high-ISO noise and all.


Above: Unique and Upscale AI, comparability to point out how a lot extension would retain element when doubled in dimension (33% view).


Above: Unique and Upscale AI, comparability to point out how a lot extension would retain element when doubled in dimension (50% view).


Above: Unique and Upscale AI, comparability to point out how a lot extension would retain element when doubled in dimension (100% view).
You’ll be able to see that a few of the distinction and brightness has shifted barely. The enlargement positively seems to be good even once we are viewing it at 100%. Nevertheless, you would possibly wish to have have a look at adjusting the distinction or brightness barely if the texture of the enlargement was thrown off barely. However the particulars have been preserved properly even at two occasions the unique dimension. I couldn’t take a look at enlarging by 4x or 6x as a result of the restrict is 16000 pixels throughout.
Picture two: Enlarging a crop of a lowlight iPhone SE 2020 picture
My subsequent instance was taking a comparatively low-res iPhone SE 2020 picture of Sodaboxx acting at El Cid in Los Angeles, CA. I cropped in on Victor Gutierrez, the guitarist, then enlarged by 4x to 6004 pixels throughout on the highest edge to see what would occur. For comparability, I additionally enlarged it utilizing the standard Picture Dimension operate in Photoshop 2023 whereas deciding on “Protect Particulars 2.0.”



Above: 4x enlargement of cropped picture. Left picture was enlarged in Adobe Photoshop. Proper picture was enlarged in Luminar Neo Upscale AI. As you’ll be able to see, the images look just about an identical. From the seems to be of it, each purposes carried out nicely!
In each cases, Upscale AI did precisely what it claims to do: enlarge a photograph whereas retaining element and never exposing artifacts.
Methods to use Upscale AI

Upscaling is simple. First, merely open the catalog in Luminar Neo, then drag your picture into the Upscale AI Extension part on the correct aspect. After that, choose how a lot you want to enlarge it. It’s possible you’ll choose 2x, 4x, or 6x. In case your picture is over 16000 pixels on the lengthy aspect, that selection can be disabled. After a short time, Luminar Neo will show your newly-enlarged picture. In case you’re glad, export that to your laptop. It’ll already be robotically saved to your Upscale Folder in Luminar Neo as nicely.
Methods to receive Upscale AI or the whole Extension Pack
For extra info, go to Skylum’s “2022 Extensions Pack” webpage. You may get this as an extension, or add-on, to Luminar Neo. There are a number of plans, together with a lifetime license.