Does Luminar Portrait Bokeh AI Work for Animal and Bird Photographs?

Portrait Bokeh AI was introduced with Update 4 to Luminar AI and looks to be improved with Luminar Neo.  I’ve used Luminar Portrait Bokeh AI on human portraits and it works really well with minimal painting required on the mask.  In fact, it worked so well, I wondered if it would work for bird and animal photographs.

Does Luminar Portrait Bokeh AI Work for Birds and Wildlife?

I tested Portrait Bokeh AI bird and animal photographs in both Luminar AI and Luminar NEO.  In both applications, Bokeh AI did not work for bird and animal photographs. 

What Does Luminar Portrait Bokeh AI Do?

Portrait Bokeh AI will automatically detect your human subject and allow you to blur the background bringing more focus to your subject.  With Portrait Bokeh you can also fine tune the depth correction of the focus and fine tune edges of your subject just by moving sliders.  There are also additional sliders to adjust the background: Brightness, Highlights Glove, and Warmth.

Bokeh AI also has a Brush Feature where you can manually paint focus on your subject or paint (erase) defocus on your background.

Luminar Neo performed differently than Luminar AI on animal portraits, so it looks like the algorithm has been improved in Luminar Neo.  In Luminar Neo, Close up portrait photographs of a wolf and my dog were recognized as portraits by Luminar Neo but not Luminar AI.

Below are are my test results on a variety of bird and wildlife photographs in both Luminar NEO and Luminar AI.

Luminar Neo Portrait Bokeh AI Animal Test Results

• Close Up Wolf Portrait – Bokeh AI Function active but a lot of manual masking is required
• Peanut Close Up Portrait – Bokeh AI Function active but a lot of manual masking is required
• Scratching Fox – Bokeh AI Function not active.  Amount slider grayed out
• Blue Grosbeak – Bokeh AI Function not active.  Amount slider grayed out
• Wolf Farther Back – Bokeh AI Function not active.  Amount slider grayed out
• Hooded Merganser – Bokeh AI Function not active.  Amount slider grayed out
• Bald Eagle Profile – Bokeh AI Function not active.  Amount slider grayed out
• Dog Christmas Photo – Bokeh AI Function not active.  Amount slider grayed out

Portrait Bokeh in Luminar Neo recognized two close up frontal portraits of animals.  It did not recognize any bird photographs including a close up profile of an eagle.

Luminar Neo Portrait Bokeh AI Animal Test Results

• Close Up Wolf Portrait – Bokeh AI Function not active.  Amount slider grayed out Peanut Close Up Portrait – Bokeh AI Function not active.  Amount slider grayed out Scratching Fox – Bokeh AI Function not active.  Amount slider grayed out
• Blue Grosbeak – Bokeh AI Function not active.  Amount slider grayed out
• Wolf Farther Back – Bokeh AI Function not active.  Amount slider grayed out
• Hooded Merganser – Bokeh AI Function not active.  Amount slider grayed out
• Bald Eagle Profile – Bokeh AI Function not active.  Amount slider grayed out

Portrait Bokeh in Luminar AI did not recognize the subject in any of the bird or wildlife photograph including the close up animal portraits that Luminar Neo recognized.

Summary

I understand that the intent of  this Portrait Bokeh AI is to blur the background of human portrait photographs, but Portrait Bokeh AI would be perfect for wildlife, pet, and bird photographs.  I searched the Skylum community boards and found a post on using Portrait Bokeh AI for animals.  Skylum’s response is that Portrait Bokeh AI is programmed to recognize humans and they may will consider it for other subjects in future releases.  Let’s hope so!

Written by Martin Belan

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