Luminar Neo makes it easy to create photo composites using its Layers feature. With Layers, you can build an image from scratch and combine multiple objects and layer effects.

In this article, we'll show you how we created a three-layer composite using Luminar Neo's creative editing suite. Let's get started.

Where to Get Luminar Neo

You can buy Luminar Neo on Skylum's website for $90. If you already own other Skylum products, you're eligible for a discount. They offer a 30-day money-back guarantee.

How Do Layers Work in Luminar Neo?

Layers Intro

Layers are essentially editable images or effects that can be stacked on top of one another to achieve the user's overall vision. Luminar Neo makes it easy to set up, so it's just a matter of planning.

There are a few things to consider when you use two or more layers together:

  • Layers can't be moved once placed in the stack, only hidden and deleted.
  • All the Luminar Neo tools are available for editing each layer.
  • Masks can be added to each layer to remove specific parts of the image.
  • For image compositing, or combining multiple images together, it's important to place the main image at the bottom (more on this later).

For the purpose of photo compositing, the main image means the one that will retain most of its original pixels. It usually serves as the background or the larger image that people or objects will be placed over. A good example of a main image is the above picture of the sea. We will place a person in this scene in our example tutorial.

Creating a Basic Photo Composite of Two Layers

To start out, we're going to combine two layers in Luminar Neo to create the foundation for our composite. In the second part of the tutorial, we'll show you how to blend the layers together using Luminar Neo's editing suite. We explain how the edits work in our piece on everything you need to know about Luminar Neo.

Feel free to follow along with your own images. The concept and steps are basically the same for any two images with a background and main subject.

  1. Import your main image into Luminar Neo.
  2. Click on Edit next to Catalog at the top.
  3. The Layers panel is now visible on the left side. Click on the + icon to Add New Layer.
    Layers Options
  4. Click on the + icon to import another image into Luminar Neo or click on one of the images already available under My Images.
  5. Use the four points to resize.
    Use handles to resize
  6. Under Layer Properties, we're changing the Opacity slider to 100 so that we can see the image entirely.
  7. Now, let's remove everything in the image except for the woman. Under Layer Properties, click on the Mask tool.
    Mask tool
  8. Next to Paint Mask, click on the three dots to open the mask options. Choose Add Mask.
    Show Mask
  9. Now, let's prepare the image for masking. Click on the Erase tool. Use the Size slider to adjust the brush size.
    Prep for masking
  10. Brush off all the red except for that which covers the woman. If you go too far, you can toggle between the Paint and the Erase tools to make the perfect selection of the woman.
    Brush off the red

Helpful Tips

Use the mouse wheel to zoom in and out of the image. This is extremely useful when you're removing the mask close to your subject. You can also press and hold the spacebar to scroll around the image as needed.

Additionally, you can use the Softness and Strength sliders in Layer Properties to adjust the flow of your brush, which helps when you're fine-tuning the mask close to your subject.

Masking will likely be the most time-consuming part of image compositing, but the more time you put into making the best selection, the more realistic the results. Once most of the red is removed around the subject, it may prove helpful to take a small brush size and trace carefully around the subject to establish a border. Then erase the rest of the mask quickly without having to worry about erasing the wrong pixels.

Advanced Photo Composite Editing to Blend the Layers

Two Layers Complete

The above composite is a great example of a basic composite of two images; a background image with a subject added and masked. But there's still work to be done. The woman doesn't look like she belongs in this tropical setting due to the light and color differences between both layers.

Let's fix this by making edits to both the background layer and our subject layer and "blending" them to look good together.

  1. Click on the top layer to enable editing for our subject. We'll attempt to blend the woman into the background.
  2. In the Develop menu, we made the below changes to the sliders to brighten the woman slightly and add contrast.
    Develop Sliders
  3. Next, we adjusted the Color sliders and made changes in the HSL sliders to try to match the luminance values with the background layer.
    Match Luminance Values
  4. To work on the background image, click on the bottom layer to activate it.
  5. If you've been paying close attention, you probably noticed the halo around the woman's hair due to imperfect masking. No problem. We made the below adjustments in the very handy Relight AI menu to take care of most of the issues.
    Remove Halo
  6. To remove the rest of the halo, we added a sun from the Sunrays menu to the image behind the subject as pictured. This added more brightness behind her and effectively removed any haloing.
    Haloing Removed
  7. The Mood menu has a collection of LUTs that are great for completely changing the mood of your image. They're great for composites because they help bring harmony to the image. For this example, we selected Genius from the dropdown menu.
    Mood menu
  8. To add a dreamlike effect to the background, we used the Mystical sliders. Gradually, we're blending the two layers together.
    Mystical menu
  9. We can add another layer at this stage and make use of Luminar Neo's presets. We clicked on the + icon to create another layer. Then we selected one of the presets from the Light Streaks menu.
    Light Streaks layer
  10. With the third layer added, we can now adjust the Opacity slider in Layer Properties to fine-tune the effect.

How far you want to take the edits on each layer is up to you. But at the very least, the goal should be to have layers with different images blend together naturally, regardless of the genre.

The final result:

Final Image

Street photographers may also find Luminar Neo helpful to quickly edit their photos.

Luminar Neo Makes Compositing Fun

It wasn't always easy to make photo composites, especially if you didn't have access to expensive and complicated programs like Photoshop. But Luminar Neo takes both a high price and complexity out of the equation. With a little practice, anyone can make great photo composites using one of the most versatile creative photo editors available on the market.