Damien Symonds

What target did you end up using for the brightness? 80? All the prints? Or only the black-and-whites?

What???? Because PDF files have vectors, of course.

Don't leave me hanging, @seraphim!

I'm so sorry, I don't know.

For now (the next couple of months at least) I don't want you to worry about all your old photos. They can stay in Aperture. What we must concentrate on at the moment are the new photos you shoot. Establish your new Bridge workflow with those. For heaven's sake stop saving photos in folders on your desktop! That's really bad for Macs. Please?

Terrific. I've been googling this like crazy, and I can't find out where on your hard drive Aperture has put your photos. This is so damn frustrating. Can you do this for me?

Great. And have you installed Bridge too?

Gee, it's about a million years since I used Aperture, so my memory is more or less nil. Do you have a version of Photoshop on your computer?

Whoa, no, the noise layer mustn't be separate, and it mustn't be masked separately. It must be clipped to the gradient layer, and have an all-white mask. And yes, the mask on your Gradient layer is too distinct. Towards the top it should fan out a little more softly.

May I see a screenshot so I can see your layers?

How did you go with the fixes, @StudioPopJess?

What have you got to show me, @seraphim?

How did you go, @Brandicm?

@StudioPopJess?

Needless to day, you can add more colour markers if you need to, and you can move the position of any of the colour markers.

It's really really easy. As you probably already know, the solution is a gradient layer. I've written about it here: https://www.damiensymonds.net/preventing-banding-in-backdrops/ This tutorial is also important, please read if if you haven't already done so: https://www.damiensymonds.net/2012/10/using-photoshops-gradient-layer.html Sometimes these gradient background fixes can be rather complex, involving multiple layers. But yours is blissfully easy. First, make a marquee selection down that side. Make it just wide enough so that the left-hand edge of the selection encompasses the existing backdrop: Then add a Gradient layer, and choose a nice colourful preset with a sufficient number of colours. Sometimes two or three are enough, but for this one, let's choose the four-colour preset: Single-click on the first swatch: Then single-click on the real backdrop just beside that colour on the image. This will immediately change the yellow colour to the correct dark colour: Then do the same with the next colour. Single-click on the marker ... ... then single-click on the proper colour right beside the purple on the image: Do the same for the remaining colours: Voila! Here is the result: Press ok to the Editor window, to return to the first Gradient window. Make sure "Dither" is checked: Then press OK to that as well. Then hide the gradient with a black mask, then paint on with a nice soft brush to make it blend naturally. In this screenshot I've enlarged my Layers panel so you can have a slightly better view of the softness of my mask: Finally, add the noise layer (per the first link I gave at the beginning of these instructions): Piece of cake.

Yep

Do you know the exact size it will be used?

No, sorry. Once you send a file, you can't stop somebody "doing anything else" with it.

Can't wait to see some of your creations!

SelCol has some similarities to Hue/Sat, but for this kind of work, Hue/Sat is definitely the one you need.

(By the way, when you want to change the colour of the greenery, go to "Yellows" not "Greens".)

Here's a suggestion for your playing: Add two Hue/Saturation layers to your photo. For the top one, simply move the Lightness slider on the Master channel to about +10. Then on the bottom one, change its blend mode to "Hard Light". Then start playing with the sliders. Play play play. Play with the sliders on the Master channel first, then tweak the individual colour channels after that.

https://www.damiensymonds.net/2015/07/creamy-silky-perfect-angelic-skin.html

Actually, maybe this one: