Damien Symonds

Well ... no, it's flat and dark, and with dubious white balance. This is not clean-processed by a long way. There is heaps of scope for more life in this photo:

Yep, that might work. Go ahead and do your clean processing as normal, then show me.

Ah, crap, I didn't keep it. I'll have to start again. Provide a photo of your own for me.

Could you link me to the question from last year? I can re-upload the file.

I reckon if you burned a little more shadow in there, it would be ok. For shadow, I always like to add a Hue/Saturation layer, and reduce the Lightness slider to about -60. Then invert the mask, and paint on very gently.

Hmmmm .... did they provide you with the layered file?

Gee, their dark areas will need to be darker yet, won't they?

Well, I figured that the shape and shadowing where the tummy met the elbow was similar enough to use for the place where the tummy meets the knee. So I selected that chunk ... ... then Cmd J to put it on its own layer. Then I flipped it and rotated it, and moved it into place: Then masked it in. Then balanced out the shading and colouring using the handyman method: This is what my layers panel looks like: Does it look ok?

Terrific. There are two possible answers to your question. 1. Find a more suitable hand from another shot, and put it in there. This could be easy, or insanely hard, depending on what hands you can find. 2. Google "Puppet Warp Tutorial". It's designed for exactly this purpose. However, it'll be a bit of a learning curve, so allow lots of time. (In fact, before you even start, ask yourself if it's worth all the time it will take. How important is this to you? If you go for Option 2, make sure you do it on a duplicate of the background layer, because you'll need to clone out the original hand. Read this article to see what I mean. The cloning will need to be very careful, because it will be painfully obvious if you don't line up the fabric texture properly.

And you've fixed the problem?

Great. Have you fixed the colour space problem?

Which version of Photoshop do you have?

Oh gee, you have a much more serious problem than a wayward hand. Please follow this troubleshooter ALL the way to its conclusion: https://www.damiensymonds.net/art_tscs000.html

That's the second time you've posted this, and it's STILL wrong. Please try again. Be better than this. https://www.damiensymonds.net/2014/11/the-bldy-adjustment-brush.html

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

Yeah, you got it. Lovely.

You really should. Your Spyder3 could fall over any day now (of course, it might also last another two years, but that's a gamble I, personally, would not take.)

There still seems to be a hard patch of shadow under her chin.

You'll never get the Spyder5 so cheap. I beg you to consider it. How new/old is your screen?

Make sure you follow the Flow Chart carefully.

Do your raw processing as normal, then save the resulting photo as a jpeg to upload for me here.

Ok, let me know when you've got the calibration problems sorted out.

This is my hasty play with the method described above:

Regarding the darkening, I guess there would be a million ways of doing it. I suggest trying this: Add a Gradient Map layer, plain black-to-white. Clip it to the kids layer. This will mean they're in black-and-white, but the city is still in colour. Change the GM layer's blend mode to "Multiply". This will turn them back to colour, but a lot darker. Paint low-opacity black on the mask of the GM layer, to return some of the original brightness where you want the light to be striking the kids. Then add a black Solid Color layer, and also clip it to the layers below. Invert its mask to hide it. Paint with low-opacity white where you want the kids to be darkened.

Oh crap, your city photo is still Adobe RGB.