Enhancing dramatic B&W portraits in Luminar

Looking to enhance your dramatic portraits in B&W? Look no further than Luminar Neo and Luminar^AI. I have used Neo for this example, but you will find things fairly similar in AI. Add a little cinematic drama to your images in a few steps.

Start with some basic edits

Import your image or folder of images. Then jump into the Edit tab and start with some basic edits in the Develop tool. Adjust your crop here or at the end.

Using Relight^AI & Portrait Bokeh^AI

My next stop was using the Relight^AI feature and Portrait Bokeh^AI. I shot this portrait with single dramatic rim light, which was to the right-hand-side and a little behind her. I wanted to make sure there was still plenty of light on her face while enhancing the dramatic side/rim lighting. The Portrait Bokeh^AI tool helped to soften the edge a little.

Skin smoothing

Next stop wass Face^AI and Skin^AI to remove some of the shine, soften and smooth out the skin tone. You cannot see the model’s eyes, so I did not need to worry about her eyes in this photo.

Finishing touches

I always beleive it’s the finishing touches that really pull a portrait together. I added some Matte, increased the contrast, reduced the Vividness.

Next was the Glow. I adore this filter. I opted for the Orton Effect, you can get different results and effects by the drop arrows. From Soft Focus, to Glow and the Orton Effect. But just remember not to go too far — I kept mine around 53.

The last step was converting to black and white. Once you select the Convert to B&W button, you can then adjust the color channels in their Luminance or Saturation (or both).

Before and after

Remember in Luminar Neo, if you need to adjust your edits you need to click over to the Edit panel, if you click on a panel in the Tools panel it will apply that tool again. This can be handy if you wish to apply in two separate areas. I kept this iamge fairly basic, I did not apply any real layer masks and just applied each filter globally to the overall image. Masks might be something you might like to play with.

Image captured on my Sony a7R III, Tamron 28-75mm at f/2.8, using my Godox AD200Pro speed light

Model – Emily Reinhard