Damien Symonds

Did you see this thread? That's the kind of photo where soft-proofing is important.

It's very common, yes. It would be significantly concerning if you saw a big chance. Out of the photos you've tried it on, do any of them have very vivid colours? Bright pink clothing or anything like that?

I've sent you an email.

See if you can get your lab's soft-proofing profile.

I'm not for a moment suggesting it's not edited. I'm just saying, you couldn't edit any old photo to look like this - it has to have the right lighting.

It's got to be the lighting, hasn't it? Looking at her eyes, would you say a large light above the photographer, and a reflector below?

Great. Ok, talk to me about that. is it all colours, or only some?

I reckon you'd just replace the whole background with a single colour, wouldn't you?

So generally for shadowing I add a Hue/Saturation layer and move the Lightness slider to about -60. Then invert the mask. Then paint on gently to add the shadow where needed.

It absolutely doesn't matter. They can be good, or crappy. Heck, they don't even need to be from your pro camera. They could be from your phone if you wanted! All that matters is that they're printed at a pro lab.

Right. But you'll also need to trace some vein detail too.

Can I see a screenshot of your layers panel?

I'm not sure what you mean by "plan". If you want to turn this photo into a logo, you'll need to use the Pen Tool. That's the plan.

Yeah, it's a hard thing to learn, all right. Have you ever seen this page?

Yep, like most logos, that's a vector file created with the Pen Tool. Do you have any experience with that tool?

Holy moley! You've done an excellent job, well done! You're right, just add some shadowing and call it done.

We'll get to the vibrance in a moment. Are you comfortable that 80 is perfect for brightness now? Or do you need to go to 70?

Glad I was able to. You're welcome. Post again any time you need.

Looks good at this distance.

Let me know how you go with it.

This is the best I can manage: Download file

Yeah, fab. May I have the 100% crop of her face again now?

Oh, exciting! Benq have a good reputation. Yes, calibrate with the same steps.

No, of course it's much too dark. Go ahead and do your raw editing in the usual way.

Oh, phew! Ok, go ahead and do your normal raw processing (exposure etc) then post the photo again and we'll discuss the glare.