Damien Symonds

Because I needed you to be able to see your skin retouches in the context of the aggressive black-and-white edit. Otherwise you might not have smoothed her enough.

I just fiddle around with the values until it looked right. There's no science or "trick" to it, I assure you. This is still a disaster. Post your raw edit in class please.

Have you got out the prints you used to check your calibration? Do they still match, or is the screen brighter than them now too?

Let's take this in steps ... First, make sure you process this raw file in 16-bit rather than the usual 8-bit. We'll need all that robust data. Then do your BW conversion again, exactly as you've done. Then add the overall Levels layer. You'll probably find that you can bring the white slider in to about 250. (DON'T bring the black slider in. Despite what you think, I don't believe there's any black clipping in this edit.) Then move the middle slider aggressively darker, I suggest to about 0.40. At this point, you'll begin to recognise some of the characteristics of the other photo. Not all, but some. Enough for now. Then return to the Background layer, duplicate it, then perform all your skin smoothing and blemish removal in the usual way. Post for me once you've done that.

For the second photo, a Solid Color layer on Soft Light mode: 107/81/87. For the first photo, can you do the raw processing then show it to me again?

This is going to sound seedy, but I'll need a 100% crop of her chest so I can see the problem.

Sorry, I've got nothing.

Oh, sorry! I didn't realise you actually wanted a black background.

Perfect. Use the right-hand side of that one.

Well, I guess the first step is to look at your other photos from the evening and see if there are any that you can borrow a bit of background from.

Because you're cropping before you flatten! You MUST flatten as the very first step towards preparing for print.

Yes, I believe so. If the amount of your noise that you added to your PSD was sufficient to prevent banding in the test print, it will also be sufficient for a bigger print. The noise is added to your PSD master file, so yes, of course it's added before sharpening. Then yes, sharpen as usual. I agree with this. It's implausible.

Oh, this annoying thing. Go to Preferences>General, then turn on this checkbox: https://pe-images.s3.amazonaws.com/basics/cc/2017/interface/legacy-new-document/use-legacy-new-document-interface.png

The instructions are here: https://www.damiensymonds.net/2013/09/grabbing-700x700px-100-crop.html In the screenshot you've shown me, you don't have the Marquee Tool selected.

A little bit of light from a monitor is not going to make a speck of difference, I promise.

No it won't.

I haven't heard of any problems with CS6 and High Sierra or Mojave.

I beg you to consider the Bridge Class as a starting point. It's only ten dollars, and packed so full of important info.

No, I really wouldn't. You already own excellent software, there is no benefit in paying (and paying and paying and paying, every month for the rest of your life) for CC. Yes. This question marks the first step towards a good portfolio. It's time. https://www.damiensymonds.net/bridge-30-day-challenge No, absolutely not. Yes, you are in the right place.

Or you could take a big risk on something as cheap as this one, but there's every chance it might not calibrate well.

Actually, this one is much more affordable than I expected. IPS and everything. I'm not familiar with this particular screen, but I've always been impressed with LG screens in general.

Well, if you were to go for a good brand like Dell, I can't imagine you'd get any change from a thousand dollars.

The words "40 inch" and "monitor" don't really go together. Or if they do, they're accompanied by the words "hideously expensive". You're really looking for a TV, I figure?

Hi Melissa, what will it be connected to? Your normal editing computer, or another one?

The files you're sending to the client today will be just the same as all files you've sent to clients before. It's not the end of the world. The next client, however, will get amazing files.