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Cerium doped lutetium orthosilicate thin films were sputter deposited onto rough and smooth alumina substrates to compare their extrinsic photoluminescence efficiency. To understand the photoluminescence results, scanning electron and cathodoluminescence imaging were performed. The plane view and cross-section images revealed that dark cathodoluminescence regions were correlated with topology in both films, though the mechanisms for the degraded luminescence were different. For the rough films, substrate topology causes localized shadowing of the sputtered species which creates compositional inhomogeneities. The smooth films have protrusions caused by thermally induced stress and the reduced cathodoluminescence intensity is attributed to electron-hole surface recombination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]