Skylum Adds Lightroom Library Import to Luminar Neo With a Caveat

There's a lot of competition out there for photographers' attention with recent updates of editing software. The big target for competitors is Adobe's ecosystem of programs, and many of my pro photographer friends are pretty locked in on Adobe Lightroom.

Today, Skylum released an update to Luminar Neo that will certainly gain some attention. With version 1.27.1, Luminar Neo gains the ability to import pretty much everything from your Lightroom collections. Here's how Skylum describes it:

Lightroom Migration. Move your existing Lightroom Classic library into Luminar Neo without rebuilding it from scratch. Migration transfers your photos, folders, albums, ratings, and basic edits in just a few steps, so you can pick up right where you left off. Your original Lightroom catalog stays untouched, letting you switch to Luminar Neo without losing the work you've already done. Open File -> Catalog -> Import Lightroom Catalog to start migrating your catalog to Luminar Neo.

Skylum has a dedicated page on their website to walk you through the import, and it has the pluses and the minuses of the migration. 

For example, this migration only works with Lightroom Classic version 15 or higher. Skylum warns that the migration could take time and advises users to be patient. The speed of the migration will, of course, depend on the amount of images and data your Lightroom catalog contains. 

Skylum also warns that migrated photos may appear slightly different in Luminar Neo compared to Lightroom.

This is because Luminar Neo uses a different image rendering engine, which can result in variations in color, temperature, and overall appearance. At the moment, this is expected behavior.

Skylum says they are continuously working to improve color rendering and migration accuracy and hope to reduce these differences in future versions of Luminar Neo.

Skylum also notes that if your Lightroom catalog contains raw files from a camera that is currently not supported by Luminar Neo, those photos will still appear in the migrated catalog but may not open correctly in Luminar. 

I haven't tried a migration, but the color variations could well be a showstopper for some users.

There's more to the update, but the Lightroom Migration is the big news. Other new features include increased camera compatibility, and now users can edit photos taken with the Ricoh GR IV and Ricoh GR IV Monochrome cameras.

There are also the usual bug fixes that accompany most software releases. 

Existing users should see the update when they run Luminar Neo today or over the next couple of days. You can learn more at the Skylum website.

I'm not a Lightroom user, although I'm a heavy Photoshop user. It will be interesting to hear reactions from those who try a migration and just how significant some of the color variances are. Your comments are welcome.