Damien Symonds

Couldn't resist a play with fake beams.

Can't wait to see!

Well ... I assume you'd have to double-process the raw file. Once as normal Once for the sky only, with REALLY aggressive contrast, so the beam stands out. Then combine them as layers in PS. But the trouble is, such aggressive contrast would almost certainly bring out some pretty nasty noise. A dark blue sky will usually harbour noise, and the risk of exaggerating it would be great. So try it, but you might find that the "faking it" route is better.

Yes, use these modes. And then yes, change the colour of your text layers until it looks like a match.

Yep, exactly this. Another difficulty will be finding a suitable font.

Yay!

I'm not aware of one, no

1) For painting directly onto a layer? Almost never. Painting is for masks. 2) Avoid doing so if possible, or if unavoidable, use multiple radial gradients.

Don't you understand? This is perfectly normal. This is why you must never paint to try to fix backgrounds.

Great! This is very normal. Nothing to worry about. Wait, can you show me this?

Are you saying it doesn't do that if you apply exactly the same 1 click using your mouse? The rings, I mean?

I've deleted your other thread, because it is likely related to this one. Did you turn the pressure nonsense off?

That's a lab issue. If you're ever testing a new lab, make sure that is one of the files you send.

Thanks. I finally understand what you mean about the halo. Sorry about my denseness. But it's no biggie. I just used a little bit of burning on a D&B layer. Download PSD

Ok, may I see the swapped one at full size, then? Not cropped?

Please Meris, I can't stress this enough: You must never crop during editing.

Let's go back a further step. May I see the SOOR?

I need to see the whole photo. Before and after your background fix. And no, there's definitely no banding there. It must be your screen. What screen do you have?

May I see?

Looks excellent to me, well done.

Oh, the high-res would be great, thanks! Could you send it to me here? No, I really won't need to show faces, thanks.

One that I'm just beginning to write, actually. May I use your photo as a demonstration in the class? I won't need to show the children's faces.

Yay!!

You'll need to be a LOT more precise with your masking than that. The only place, ironically, where you don't have to be very precise is on the hair. For everywhere else, you'll need to zoom way in, and use your Shift key.

How about a Levels layer, and on the Green channel move the white Input slider to 240, and on the Blue channel move the white Output slider to 180? Fiddle with those numbers as you see fit, of course.