Damien Symonds

No, there should be almost no careful masking necessary. Next, a darker radial gradient on the left side to match the colour of the wall there.

Yes, I think so.

Yeah, that's definitely true!

Just a little bit strange at the very top? (over on the left-hand side).

Right. So that's why you don't want to convert file to PSD unnecessarily. Stick with "original". To help me sleep better tonight, can you please do this check?

How did you go?

Have you observed that the PSD files are smaller, or bigger, than their source raw files?

I would think original. I see no reason to force files to be something other than they are.

What did you end up doing about this?

Ah, it's pretty easy. Just make sure you work at low opacity (I used 5%) and take your time. It's not a fast process.

Have you used liquify and D&B before?

A bit of Liquify, then some dodge and burn: Download PSD It's not perfect, but an improvement, I think?

I can't answer that here. PLEASE consider upgrading to Deluxe to get my mentoring. It's only $17. Now can you post a 100% crop of the lady's side?

Well, not perfectly smooth, but yes, I think we could improve it. Go ahead and do your raw processing, then post it again and we'll talk about our options.

That was actually one of the very last layers I added. After all the gradient ones, I went back and put that in there, then fiddled with the sliders to make the area match the new background.

Yep!

You sure do. Don't go back and redo any of that pixel stuff. If you can help it.

There aren't any adjustment layers in your screenshot. Still confused.

Maybe it would make more sense if I could see a screenshot of your layers panel? So sorry I'm not getting this

I'm so sorry, I don't understand the question.

Having said that, I urge you to remember to run Glary or similar once a month.

If the trackpad works ok, it just means a dodgy mouse, which would be a pretty good outcome, I figure. Mice are cheap.

And? Did you try the trackpad to see if the same thing happens?

Weird. Have you noticed this behaviour in any other program, or in your operating system? You mentioned it's a laptop. Are you using a mouse, or the trackpad? Either way, have you tried the other, to see if the same thing happens?

It's so important, you know? We can never trust any form of digital storage to be safe ... in fact, it's best to assume that every drive could fail tomorrow. So never keep only one copy of your important files.