Side-by-side comparison of a Christmas tree with yellow lights on the left and white lights on the right, with a red arrow pointing from left to right.

Create Picture Lighting Effects in Luminar with Magic Light AI

Experiment with visual accents in your photography - highlight street lamps in the night city and add dramatic long-exposure rays to car headlights.

Luminar | Software | By Stephan Jukic

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Luminar Neo introduced Magic Light AI a while back, and I was itching to test it out and see how good it is and what it can do to my images.

I had a vague idea that it could transform my images and give them an interesting twist.

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This tool is designed to transform visible light sources in your images – streetlights, neon Christmas lights, candles, lamps – you name it, and Magic Light AI can handle it, rendering a magical look to your photos.

So download Luminar and follow along with this tutorial.

Table of Contents

How to Use Luminar Neo’s Magic Light AI

Choosing an Image

This tool works best when you’ve visible light sources in your image. One more thing – the whole purpose of this tool is to capture what we call sunbursts.

So, when you apply this effect, ensure the result looks realistic, or it will appear cheesy and over the top. So, no point in using this for compositions, e.g., the moon on a clear night.

Experimentation

This is the image I used to experiment with Luminar Neo’s Magic Light AI.

Row of small red candles burning with steady flames, positioned in a dimly lit setting against a dark background.

Credit: Pixabay

It’s a simple image, shot with no other light source in the room.

Preparations

I made two simple changes to this image before switching to Magic Light AI.

The first was a customary adjustment to the noise levels using the Noiseless AI tool, and the second was a Temperature adjustment. You will find this option under Develop > Color.

Over to Magic Light AI

Once those customary changes are out of the way, let’s head over to Magic Light AI.

Row of small red tea light candles burning in darkness, displayed on a computer screen with photo editing tools and adjustment sliders visible on the right side.

As you can see, there are a bunch of customization options under Magic Light AI. I intend to use the ones that make the most sense and add to the overall composition and aesthetics.

My first order of business is tweaking the Intensity slider.

A row of lit tealight candles in red holders is shown on a dark background, with editing adjustment settings visible on the right side of the screen.

Straightaway you can see that the light beams have formed, and the image looks more attractive.

Next up is the Size slider. As you can see, this is a significant change. It adds a nice glow around the light beams.

A row of lit tea light candles in red holders placed along a dark surface, with photo editing adjustment tools visible on the right side of the screen.

Next, I will adjust the Beam Width slider.

A row of lit red candles in glass holders, photographed in low light, with editing tools visible on the right side of the screen.

It adjusts the width of the beams and makes them more pronounced.

Next, I adjusted the Glow slider. This is a subtle change, as I didn’t want to go overboard with this effect.

A row of lit tea light candles in red holders lines up in a dimly lit setting; image editing tools are visible on the right side of the screen.

Next up is the Clearness. Tweaking this slider adjusts the glow around the light beams.

A row of lit red tealight candles in focus, with a blurred background, displayed in a photo editing software interface.

For every little change that you make with these adjustment sliders, you’ve to eyeball them. There is no right or wrong way of doing it, except it must be believable and natural.

Feel free to go back and change previous sliders if you feel it’s needed. After you’ve made the adjustments, I suggest taking a break for a few minutes.

Come back and then check the before and after images to take a final call.

Sometimes while editing an image, deciding whether the effect is looking too over the top can become difficult, because you are looking at the same image for a long time.

The next adjustment is the Brightness slider.

A row of small red tealight candles burning in the dark, shown on an image editing software interface with adjustment settings visible on the right.

This is yet again a subtle change.

The final adjustment will determine the number of light beams for the light sources. This you can adjust by tweaking the Number of Beams slider.

This is a very interesting sub-tool. Again, something that you’ve to handle with due diligence. Just because you can add up to 24 light beams doesn’t mean that’s a good thing.

For this image, I believe 7 to 8 light beams are enough. I did not use the Rotation slider for this image.

A row of small tealight candles in red holders are lit and placed in a line against a dark background, with photo editing controls visible on the right side of the screen.

There is one last thing, look closely at the edited image thus far. If you notice that there are two false beams from reflections, there is an easy solution built into the tool.

Go to Masking and click on Brush. Choose a brush Size, Softness, and Strength, and click on Erase.

Then paint over the areas where you don’t need the light beams.

Wrapping Things Up

a chandelier hanging from the ceiling in a room.

Luminar Neo’s Magic Light AI is an interesting tool with many applications, especially if you shoot at night and use artificial lights in your compositions.

By artificial lights, I don’t mean strobes and continuous lights – the sort we use for portraits, products, and other shots. Rather, I refer to sources like street lights, neon lights, and candles.

Magic Light AI can transform those into something interesting, thereby popping your images’ final look and feel.

You can use them to transform your birthday pictures, Christmas images, portrait shots with street lights in the background, general nighttime street photos, and more. You’re only limited by your imagination.