Damien Symonds

https://www.damiensymonds.net/art_tscs000.html

Did that happen when you converted it to CMYK? Whaaat? Gosh, are you sure?

After the CMYK conversion.

Of course it would be better with the right amount of sharpening. But it'll be a heck of a lot worse with the wrong amount of sharpening. So if you wish to sharpen, do so very mildly.

I'm sorry, I can't discuss sharpening here You're welcome to try some if you wish. But for heaven's sake keep it mild!

Now convert to CMYK then save as a jpeg. Quality Level 6 is fine. Now you have your file ready to send to them.

Excellent. Now change the Resample option to "Bicubic Smoother" for enlargements, then change the resolution to 50ppi. Then press OK, at which point your file will enlarge significantly on screen.

Good. You must also make sure the "Delete Cropped Pixels" box is checked. NEVER uncheck that box. Once you've done that, go ahead and crop where you've decided you want it. Then open the Image Size dialog to see what the resultant resolution is. In fact, may I have a screenshot of that too?

No, don't put 0 in the Resolution. Just leave it completely blank. Does it allow you to do so?

100%. The real size.

Image>Mode>8bit Yet another strike against them. I've never heard such nonsense.

Yeah, that's not easy. And I see no particular benefit in it. Let's just give them one file and let them worry about the strips. First, flatten the layers. Second, convert to 8-bit. I noticed earlier that you're in 16-bit. That's not really necessary for a well-lit photo like this, but it doesn't do any harm either. But it definitely needs to be 8-bit for the output stage. Third, choose your Crop Tool and enter the height and width of the whole print. It has to be in inches, so you'll need to convert your feet to inches. Make sure you leave the Resolution field blank. Please show me a screenshot when you've entered these values, so that I can check them before you crop.

No, I don't agree. We do know exactly how to crop, and we can make some educated assumptions about the resizing and the resolution. However, if you've already submitted it, we might as well wait and see how the sample looks, eh?

It's not that that layer won't work. It's that any adjustment layers under pixel layers won't work any more. You can't re-adjust them, because they're obscured by pixels.

Oh, right. ALL PIXEL LAYERS MUST BE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE STACK. Period.

Yeah, in the absence of any other information, it's generally the one everyone uses. It's nerve-jangling, though. The best possible scenario is when the company is truly skilled in colour-management, and accept your sRGB file. I wrote a bit about this here: https://www.damiensymonds.net/cmyk-rgb-files-press.html

Do you understand why this is not correct? (It's the only thing you could have done here, but it's not correct.) Because now that you've done that, you can no longer adjust any of the layers below. Please confirm your understanding of this.

Now, what information did you get about the CMYK profile?

There's no way to remove the spots "correctly" with the layers like this. So whatever you've already done, just go with it. Don't do it over. This is a lovely photo, by the way. I'm sorry I haven't remembered to say that before now.

This is yet another pointer towards their incompetence. I'm getting increasingly nervous about these people, that's for sure.

This is excellent. Not measly at all. Oh, you've already sent it? Ok, it should be fine.

Yep, this is great. Great news!!!! Oh crap, yes, of COURSE you must do that before flattening. That cloning/healing layer must be part of your PSD file. May I see a screenshot of your layers panel?

Christy ... this is me. I'm aware of how boastful this sounds, but I'm a REALLY good Photoshop operator. There aren't many people in the world with better skills than I have. I was able to achieve that result, using only Photoshop, with the average-standard raw edit you supplied me with. If you aspire to achieve a similar level of work, you're gonna need to give yourself the best possible start by doing the best possible raw editing.

You only gave me a jpeg file, so of course I couldn't do any of it in ACR.

Yes, but it would be pretty expensive. At least $25 per photo, probably more for more complicated ones.