Christina Keddie

...Like I said above, on March 28.

If all you've got is the JPGs with these lines on them, I'm afraid you're SOL. You should always, always save your master PSDs! Can you screenshot your actions panel with this action's steps expanded? Obviously, it's highly suspect if it messes up your files like this...

It should, yes.

Only for edits going forward -- though that also includes files you click on again in LR. But I'd hazard a guess that opening all the files again in LR would be no less time-consuming than retagging all the files in Bridge...

http://www.damiensymonds.net/art_monitor.html

A 700x700px 100% crop might be helpful for when Damien wakes up and can take a look.

Yes. And account for any wrap width. And sharpen for print for each output size. Canvas prep: http://www.damiensymonds.net/tut_canvas.html Print sharpening: http://www.damiensymonds.net/trainingsharp.html

And, of course, you'd need to do your raw processing on both images first, before you start doing any kind of PS work.

Honestly, I think even a full body swap of the younger boy (pulling in the entire lower right quadrant of the photo to make it easier to blend) would still be easier than trying to swap the older boy's face. The older boy has different parts of his parents' arms and bodies right up against his head, making it much harder to line up or blend, and the angle will make it nearly impossible to make it look natural to have the second head on the first body. (I do a looooooot of swapping -- I've got three little kids, and it's impossible for me to ever get one frame with all of them looking nicely at me. So that's how I would approach this one...)

Just a thought -- wouldn't it be easier to swap the parents' heads from the first one onto the second one? You could also swap the youngest boy's head in as well, if you prefer the head with the hand in front of his chin. Doing all three of those swaps would, I think, be significantly easier than trying to swap the older boy.

Go through the entire troubleshooter, step by step. The document profile indicator at the bottom is simply an indicator -- that's not where you change the setting. The blue bars in the troubleshooter are links, so click them to follow them all the way through.

And the class will unfortunately not really be worth your while until you can afford the test prints. The sharpening method for prints is based entirely around your personal sharpening preference, which is determined by an exercise of comparing various sharpening numbers on a set of test prints. So whenever you're ready to learn how to sharpen for print, you'd need to save up to be able to afford the class as well as the test prints for the class to make sense and be worth your time.

The class actually has nothing whatsoever to do with digital files. It's the PRINT Sharpening Class. If you want info on sharpening for web, Damien gives that away for free on his website. Just do a search there for sharpening for web.

Looked into it a bit, and I believe checking this box will only automatically create XMP files going forward. But you can also select any files in your Library that you want XMPs of and then choose "Save metadata to files" under the Metadata menu, and that should do it for you. I wouldn't recommend doing this for 140K files at once, though...

It's been too long since I checked that box myself so I don't remember -- best thing would be for you to open a random folder of raw files on your hard drive and see if XMP files have popped up. (And if they aren't there, try rebooting LR -- I want to say the XMP files might be created once you load the catalog?)

WAIT WAIT WAIT -- you want that box to be CHECKED. And then you want to make sure that all your raw files in your hard drive folders have .xmp files safely sitting right next to each of them!

Just so you know -- as long as you have your presets saved on your hard drive properly, and as long as you've made the LR settings change to write the XMP data separately from the raw files, you wouldn't lose anything if you lost your catalog. Please tell me you've got your presets saved on your hard drive, and that you've changed your LR settings to write the XMP data separately.

Follow the desktop instructions when you calibrate the Dell, and the Macs and laptops instructions when you calibrate the iMac.

Yes -- because some of the responses are changeable (like hard drive space), and some of the responses maybe should have been changed (if you were asked to fill this out before, you may have needed to upgrade your RAM or something similar). And also it's a lot nicer to provide the info directly here in a thread where you're asking for help rather than making Damien search through all your old posts to find your previous response.

FWIW, whenever you're ready, you'd get a discounted rate to take Raw again since you've already taken it.

Yup -- go to the camera calibration tab and switch to the 2010 process. You'll have to do this every time you open ACR, but you can save that by itself as a preset and apply it across the board to your whole set of files every time. (Or you can sign up for Damien's Raw class and get the updated class info for the 2012 sliders. )

What happens if you add ".jpg" to the end of the filename in your Windows Explorer folder? (And you know it's tiny, right? 1280x960? That's a FB-sized file.)

Have you scrolled through this subforum? I know there have been at least a few threads where Brian has just said "here, buy this laptop."

The trouble is, you need the precise selection around a graphic shape. Damien's comment about masking being better is for photographic editing purposes -- you see people trying to use the pen tool to select a person's face, for instance, for selective editing, and that's where it's definitely better to mask. But what you're trying is graphic design rather than photographic retouching. The quick mask is wonderful for soft feathered (gradually blending into the surroundings) selections, which is exactly the opposite of what you want here. And masking, quick or not, is going to be very slow going as you try to make precise lines around each puzzle piece. Wait for D to chime in on whether the pen tool is the best option here. But if you want to learn how to use the pen tool, this is a great option that D has recommended in the past: http://bezier.method.ac/

OK, so can you screenshot these screens for us? One with your entire PS window with the PSD open (plus the histogram where you're viewing these numbers), and one with the JPG file? BTW, this is how I'd recommend checking for clipping: http://www.damiensymonds.net/tut_clip.html