Christina Keddie

OK, wow, hold up. First of all -- why are you creating a new catalog for every single session? That's adding so much extra time and confusion to your workflow, and just the thought of your organization system on your hard drives is giving me hives. This means any time you want to go back to access the files from a given session (say you're pulling photos for your website portfolio, which will require you to pull photos from multiple sessions), you'll have to open a new catalog in LR and wait for it to load and get your flagged favorites from that one session, then open a new catalog and repeat, and repeat, and repeat... And you can't take advantage of LR's amazing flagging and sorting functions except within one session at a time. And you've completely Balkanized your hard drive organization. It's madness! Secondly -- because you've created separate catalogs for everything, there is no less time-consuming method to delete files from your hard drive. As a general principle, you should be using LR to manage your files -- delete, move, rename all your files within LR's Library, not on your hard drive. This way, you won't break the connection between LR's catalog and your files. But because you have zillions of catalogs, you'd have to go into each one individually and manage your files from there. You've got to stop thinking in terms of catalogs as your smallest unit of organization within LR. You only need to create a new catalog if you're starting to see performance slowdowns -- on my 2013 iMac with 8GB of RAM, I still only have the one catalog for ALL of my files (about 23,000 files the last time I checked). Others choose to create a new catalog per year. But seriously, in case I haven't made my incredulity clear yet: one catalog per session is insane!

Why are you trying to use an ICC profile, and what ICC profile are you trying to use? Note that his file is untagged, which is bad. Send him this troubleshooter so he can go through and fix his default settings for all future files, and this troubleshooter so he can fix the color space for this file and any other files he's already brought into PS.

Do you have any other photos of the dad, from any other point in the day, where he's looking at you and smiling from about the same angle and lighting?

You mean you DON'T know where the sky key is?? You've been editing ALL WRONG. (I think Kim meant the alt key?)

OK, so go ahead and do your raw processing and post it again. I *think* the hair might be too light (not enough contrast with the existing sky), but do the raw processing properly first and Damien can help you see if this method will work for this image.

And one of the biggest factors leading to slow loading speeds is images that aren't properly optimized for web display. You want JPGs (**not** PNGs), resized specifically for the display size on the website, saved at around 10 quality out of PS.

Also, where does the banding appear? Is it in your SOOR, or does one of your layers introduce it?

Did you shoot this in raw? Can you do your raw processing on it and see if there's any detail whatsoever in the silhouettes of the award recipient and the person she's hugging?

OK, now do your raw processing and post the SOOR, please.

I'm a Canon user, and I wholeheartedly agree with Brian's comments. Even if all you ever shoot is outdoor photos in perfect light, the 24-105L has markedly better image quality than the jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none 18-135. And of course, in less than perfect light, you will really desperately feel the loss of the fixed f/4 aperture. When I had my trusty 7D as my main camera, my main workhorse lens was the 17-55 f/2.8. It's an incredible lens, and the only reason why it doesn't have the L designation is because it's EF-S (crop sensors only). If you're staying with crop sensors, I would definitely recommend putting the 17-55 on your someday wish list! But for now, I'd really encourage you to figure out how to keep your 24-105.

And just to clarify, in case this is where you're getting confused -- SOOR still means simply "straight out of raw," that is, with all your raw processing done but no PS work. Damien will often ask for the SOOR when helping with editing questions. And he might ask for the clean-processed version when helping with artistic style editing questions.

Frequently asked questions about Lightroom: Q. Any questions involving color spaces or color profiles. A. The answer is almost always sRGB. Sort it out here. (Note: there are four steps to take, so please make sure to do all four!) Q. Help! My files are missing! Why can't LR see them anymore? A. LR is a cataloging system, which gives you control over your file structure on your hard drive. If you're going to use LR for your workflow management, you've got to USE it -- only move or rename files from within LR in the Library module, not directly on your hard drive. If you've moved or renamed folders on your hard drive, you've broken the pathway link between your hard drive and your LR catalog. So now you'll have to go into your LR Library module, right-click on the folder that's now "missing," and choose "Find Missing Folder." In the dialog box that pops up, navigate to the new folder to reestablish the link to your LR catalog. Q. How do I help make sure that a LR glitch won't result in me losing my edits? A. It's IMPERATIVE that all LR users make one small settings change: make sure you have LR set to write the .xmp files separately from the catalog. This way, if (God forbid) you lose your LR catalog data, you won't lose your work. Details on how to make this change here. Q. What's the best way to send a file from LR to PS for further editing? A. Once you've done all your raw processing on a file in LR, the most efficient way to send it to PS for editing is the "edit in" function. Right-click on the file, choose "Edit in," and then choose "Edit in [your version of PS/PSE]." Once you've finished your PS editing, simply save the file (just Save, not Save As), and your newly edited master file will pop up in your LR filmstrip right next to the original raw file. You can then use LR to manage the backend of your workflow (e.g., select just the master files and batch export to rename the files in sequential order, etc.). Q. My adjustment brush is leaving weird speckles. What am I doing wrong? A. First, you're using an adjustment brush. Don't!! More reading here on why you shouldn't use adjustment brushes in your raw processing, in either LR or ACR. But the immediate answer to the speckling problem is that you've got "auto mask" turned on in your brush settings. Q. How do I batch process files in LR? A. Do all the edits you'd like on your first file. Then select this file in your filmstrip, and select the rest of the files you'd like to batch (shift+click to select a range of files; ctrl+click to select individual files). Click "Sync" on the bottom of the right-hand panel, and then choose which sliders you'd like to sync across these files. Q. All my tools and panels have disappeared! A. First, try pressing the Tab key. If that doesn't work, try pressing the F key a number of times. If that still doesn't work, look for the tiny triangles at the center on the edge of each side of your workspace, and click that triangle to make each panel come back up.