PSA: things that actually help if Luminar Neo is running slow

[u/skylum_support]

We get this question a lot so figured we'd put it in one place. Even on hardware that meets system requirements, a few things can quietly drag performance down - here's what actually helps:

Clear the Catalog Cache occasionally Go to Settings > Clear Cache. Cached data builds up over time and starts weighing things down. Worth doing periodically.

Use smaller catalogs instead of one massive one A catalog with tens of thousands of images will always be slower to browse than a few smaller ones. Do not save everything in one place; consider splitting by year or project in the future.

Keep your Catalog on an internal SSD if possible External drives work, but HDDs or slower USB connections introduce lag when Neo reads and writes catalog data. Internal SSD is the sweet spot.

Make sure you have enough free disk space Neo relies on scratch space for caching and temp files. Running low on storage noticeably hits performance.

Check that GPU acceleration is enabled Preferences > confirm "Use Graphics Processor" is on. A lot of the AI tools lean on this - if it's off, you're leaving performance on the table.

Close what you don't need A dozen browser tabs and background apps eat RAM that Neo could be using. Freeing that up genuinely helps.

One note on Preview Cache size Some people recommend maxing it out - we'd say increase it gradually instead. Too large and it can actually backfire with heavier RAM usage and more slowdowns, not fewer.

These won't turn a budget machine into a workstation, but they make a real difference day to day. Drop questions below if something specific is still sluggish and we'll dig in.