Sunset edits in Luminar Neo
Interested in getting photo tips every week or so? Join my newsletter and get this goodness sent straight to your email inbox. You also get a preset pack for Luminar Neo absolutely free when you join! Enjoy and thanks!
Ah, sunset - that lovely time of day when soft light and warm colors come together to create a little magic in the air. I just love photographing sunset, don’t you? 📸
However, I think you have to be careful with the colors, because if you “over-edit”, the intensity can overwhelm the rest of the scene. Here’s a couple of ideas:
First, do all the light adjustments you want to do (I always start with Develop Raw and then use Supercontrast second).
Do minimal color adjustments in Develop Raw (that is, be careful with Temperature, Tint, Saturation and Vibrance).
Although it is tempting to jump straight to the Golden Hour tool inside of Landscape (in the Essentials section), I recommend using it later/last. It can really bump up those warm tones and overwhelm the edit.
Try Toning. I generally leave the Hue pretty far to the left and just move up the Saturation slider until I like the look. This is just in the Highlights section. I rarely do much in the Shadows section.
Try Color Harmony. Brilliance/Warmth as well as Split Color Warmth are excellent, but my favorite is Color Balance. Again, in that tool I stay mostly in the Highlights section, where I experiment with the Cyan-Red (towards Red) and Magenta-Green (towards Magenta) sliders. Sometimes I will also go into the Shadows and test out the Yellow-Blue (towards Blue).
Don’t use too many color tools. Sunset shots often just need a little bump, so if you use several tools to enhance color, it can get out of control quickly.
Here’s an example photo. I started with Develop Raw and then Supercontrast. Then, I used only Color Harmony to get the colors looking how I wanted them to look (I used Brilliance/Warmth, Split Color Warmth, and Color Balance too - all in just slight amounts). It’s beautiful and colorful, without being overwhelming (at least to my eyes). If I added Golden Hour to the image, it would be oversaturated.
Cannon Beach, Oregon
