Damien Symonds

NEVER use Progressive. Ever. Only Baseline Standard. The Quality setting is a moot point. You always change that setting to suit the particular photo you're saving, and the purpose for which you're saving it. (You'll learn more about this in the Print Sharpening Class.) So even if you can manage to get a default to stick, it won't matter, because you'll need to change it most times anyway. This NEVER happens. There is not a single circumstance where you would legitimately open a jpeg file then save it again as a jpeg file. If you're doing this, something is wrong with your workflow. Please elaborate on your situations so we can fix the problem.

This one is a bit more exaggerated, yes. But still in no way related to the Aleksey editing style.

Definitely not the same technique. The Noelle one is good light, and more or less good clean processing, but a bit over-the-top with the editing on things like the teeth. Mainly it's beautiful because of the wonderfully blurred background (do you have a lens which can achieve it?) cleverly changed in colour slightly to be harmonious with the child's clothing. If you can provide a suitably-located, suitably-posed and suitably-lit photo, I can help you with the editing. But in essence, it will edit itself. This is more a question of photography, really. The Aleksey one genuinely is an editing question. He's spent quality time with D&B to get that look. (But of course the lighting in the photo plays a big role too.) Dodging the highlights in the hair, the lower irises, the lips ... and burning arms etc. Your photo is a little more side-lit than his, but I think it has potential. Once we've done the normal clean processing on yours, it will be fun to try the D&B. So let's discuss it in class first, then we'll come back here.

Yes ma'am.

Hue/Sat on Colorize is often how I've done it too. This looks good.

It would be useful if you could provide them with a normal print (eg 8x10 lustre) from your regular lab, and say "I want it to look like this".

Yes, definitely raise this with them.

I'm relatively relieved. It sounds like it's a fairly good result. But if you have the means to do so, it would be great to talk to them about the blues and greens, and see what they suggest.

This was always the concern. Not knowing which CMYK to convert to meant that it was extremely likely there'd be some colour problems. I'm glad the wheat looks good. Are you able to talk to them about your colour concerns? Gosh this must have been a frustrating hour for you!

Can you give me a few minutes? I need to re-read our thread so I can remember what else we discussed.

Yes, blurry (when viewed up close) is exactly what we were hoping for. If it was a highway billboard, either pixelated or blurry would have been sufficient, because nobody gets out of their car to look at a highway billboard closely. But people are going to be closer to this, so I think blurry is better than pixelated. This is excellent news. Wonderful!

Razor sharp, don't worry.

No, but of course check its results very carefully.

Sorry, that layer is the first one you must make. THEN make the other two below it, and the Hue/Sat above it.

Because you duplicated the background layer, I assume. Instead of that duplicate, you'll need to add a blank layer and Cmd Opt Shift E.

Download PSD

Yay!

I assume it's like this.

Gosh, I don't know. Do any of these light your candle?

Do you mean that kinda polaroid look? Eg on this page?

Then you'll have to re-install Photoshop, I'm afraid. There's no setting that can cause that. It's a flaw in the program itself.

Bugger. Ok, how do they look in Bridge? Like ACR, or like Photoshop?

Because of your small hard drive, 100 history states is way too many. Drop that to 50. And uncheck the "Use Graphics Processor" box. Then press OK, then restart your computer.

ALL photos are RGB. I assume you mean Adobe RGB, and you must NEVER use that. Next step, in Photoshop, can you go to the Edit menu and choose Preferences>Performance, and take a screenshot of that window to show me?

Ooh, that's not very much. I strongly urge you to do this to clear up some space. Brian always says that a hard drive should have at least 1/3rd free space; and your hard drive is very small to begin with, so 50% free space would be a better goal if possible. And I urge you to run this as well. This kind of behaviour sounds exactly like symptoms of a too-full hard drive.