They make decent photography software. No doubt. But what I don't like, increasingly so, is the business practices of dropping support for older versions after one year and purely focusing on the latest hot thing they’re pushing.

Which gets us to the problem: Upgrades happen once a year. Luminar AI has been replaced with Luminar Neo for months now and you should expect no further development on Luminar AI from here on. This is like buying a product after the best-before-date. Many of the apps I purchased over the years (even before they were called Skylum) ended up dead-on-arrival after purchase and became incompatible with later operating systems: Snapheal, Intensify, ColorStrokes, Tonality, Noiseless, Luminar, Aurora HDR, Focus, Creative Kit, and Photolemur. On the latter, I was even told they’d be working on an upgrade to fix bugs when I purchased the app… but in the end the AI tech got merged into Luminar and users had to shell out again.

Go on their website and see for yourself. You'll be hard-pressed to find any mention of Luminar AI there.

Luminar Neo isn’t bad, but I can’t use ANY of my filters from Luminar AI. They’re incompatible. The same happened when Luminar AI came along: Previous filters weren’t 100% compatible and you were CONSTANTLY pestered through email and in-app messages to buy more filters. Annoying,

I’m starting to appreciate more and more Pixelmator and Affinity Photo these days. It’s a different approach, but at least I know my investment is valued and I’m not just buying an old pony that’s shot after a year. Caveat emptor!