Aperty vs Luminar Neo—A Comprehensive Comparison for Photographers

Skylum’s brand new portrait editing software is here: Aperty! This exciting new software is packed with features designed to streamline the workflow for photographers and deliver exceptional natural results. 

Aperty is a specialised software programme tailored for portrait photography, offering tools that cater to detailed retouching and natural enhancements. If you’re currently using Luminar Neo for portrait edits and are considering which programme to move forward with, this article will walk you through the essential differences to help you decide. Let’s get to it! 

Overview of Aperty and Luminar Neo

First of all, let’s take a look over both pieces of software and understand what both offer photographers.

With Luminar Neo providing a wide range of tools suitable for photographers across different genres, Aperty is focused specifically on portrait photography. Aperty’s advanced retouching capabilities and emphasis on workflow speed make it an attractive option for portrait specialists.

In the following sections, we’ll explore the tools available in each software in detail, examining their specific functions and benefits for photographers.

User Interface and Workflow

Luminar Neo

Luminar Neo offers a versatile editing suite designed to support photographers across various genres. From beginners to professionals, Luminar Neo provides tools for multiple types of photography, including landscape-focused tools like the Landscape Enhancer, as well as portrait-specific retouching options.

One key advantage of Luminar Neo is its range of AI tools that enable content generation, sky replacement, and more—features that portrait photographers might not always need, but that provide creative flexibility for multi-genre photographers. 

Aperty

Aperty’s interface is built with one primary goal: speed. Portrait photographers know that retouching can consume a large part of their workflow, often involving intricate adjustments and detailed editing. Aperty’s design focuses on streamlining these processes, allowing photographers to spend more time shooting and less time behind the screen.

Before starting an edit in Aperty, you’ll need to create a project, which not only helps with organisation but also optimises the workflow. Once a project is set up, a film strip appears at the bottom of the screen, displaying all photos within that project. This feature allows you to apply settings across multiple images effortlessly. After editing one photo, you can quickly replicate those adjustments to selected images or the entire project, all within a single window. This setup eliminates the need to navigate through different screens or manage multiple tabs, speeding up project completion considerably.

Find out more: Editing Portrait Photos Like a Pro with Aperty: A Step-by-Step Guide

Core Editing Features

• Basic Photo Editing: Both Aperty and Luminar Neo provide essential editing controls like white balance, exposure, temperature, and tone curve adjustments. These adjustments are crucial for refining the overall look and feel of a portrait and help establish a balanced image before moving into more detailed edits.

• Colour Correction: Colour correction is another key feature available in both software options. Both Aperty and Luminar Neo offer a Colour tool with adjustments for hue, saturation, and luminance, enabling photographers to fine-tune colours for realistic or stylised results. However, Luminar Neo includes additional colour controls, such as Colour Harmony, which offers precise colour balancing options, and Toning, which allows for split-toning adjustments to control shadows and highlights. These additional tools in Luminar Neo offer more flexibility for photographers who want to achieve complex colour grades.

• Details: For enhancing image clarity, both Aperty and Luminar Neo provide tools like Details, Sharpen, and Structure to improve the definition of textures and edges within the image. Additionally, both programmes include noise reduction options to reduce graininess, especially helpful in low-light or high ISO portraits. Luminar Neo stands out with its Noiseless tool, a powerful noise reduction feature ideal for heavily noisy images. 

Both Aperty and Luminar Neo cover essential editing needs, but Luminar Neo’s additional colour and noise reduction tools make it a comprehensive option for a broader range of photographers, while Aperty’s streamlined features cater directly to portrait-specific editing workflows.

Specialised Portrait Editing Tools

Aperty’s specialised portrait tools provide a higher level of detail and control for portrait photographers, especially those seeking refined and realistic retouching options. For photographers who frequently work with portrait retouching, Aperty’s advanced features may prove invaluable.

When it comes to portrait-specific tools, Aperty and Luminar Neo both offer unique features to enhance portrait photography. For photographers familiar with Luminar Neo, understanding what Aperty adds to the mix can help in choosing the most suitable software for your portrait work. Let’s explore the specialised portrait tools available in each.

• Masking Technology: Both Aperty and Luminar Neo include AI-driven masking technology to detect faces and bodies, allowing for targeted adjustments such as face brightening. Luminar Neo provides basic segmentation, recognising standard facial features and body parts. Aperty, however, uses advanced AI technology capable of identifying up to 30 classes of facial and body parts, enabling more nuanced and precise adjustments. With Aperty, intricate corrections are more achievable, giving photographers control over even the smallest details.

• Facial Recognition & Reshaping: Facial recognition tools allow both programmes to detect specific facial features for enhancements like eye brightening and lip saturation. Luminar Neo’s AI recognises 32 facial landmarks, allowing for effective retouching. Aperty, on the other hand, incorporates 3D Face Mesh technology, detecting up to 4000 key points across the face. This added precision means Aperty can support complex facial edits such as detailed makeup application, blush, and contouring, as well as advanced reshaping options. This results in highly accurate, natural-looking enhancements that set Aperty apart for fine-tuned portrait editing.

• Makeup: A standout feature in Aperty, absent in Luminar Neo, is the ability to apply makeup effects during post-production. Aperty allows you to enhance or create makeup looks, including blush, contouring, highlights, eyeliner, and lip colour adjustments. Leveraging the 3D Face Mesh technology, these effects blend seamlessly with the model’s natural facial structure, delivering professional and realistic results.

Aperty’s specialised portrait tools provide a higher level of detail and control for portrait photographers, especially those seeking refined and realistic retouching options. For photographers who frequently work with portrait retouching, Aperty’s advanced features may prove invaluable.

The Bottom Line

If you’re a photographer working across various genres, Luminar Neo is likely the better fit, offering an expansive set of creative and AI-powered tools to meet diverse editing needs. With its versatility, Luminar Neo supports everything from landscapes to architecture, adapting well to different styles and requirements.

However, for photographers with a focus on portraiture, Aperty is a valuable addition to your toolkit. Specialised for portrait photography, Aperty is built to streamline retouching and deliver natural-looking results with ease. By reducing the time spent in front of the screen, Aperty allows you to get back to what you enjoy most: capturing fantastic portrait photographs.