Damien Symonds

It will change your situation from "Blending these photos is impossible!!!!!" to possible.

Let's take it one step at a time. First, this: http://www.damiensymonds.net/color-space-settings-for-the-lightroom-user.html Also, for later, this: http://www.damiensymonds.net/bridge-30-day-challenge

Well, have you fixed your colour space?

No, not the opacity, the hardness!!!!! Brush hardness must always be at 0, always.

Well, either of the versions you posted could work, but why are you working with hard-edged brushes? That's catastrophic.

No, sorry mate, you'll have to do a lot better than that, there's a lot of clipping at both ends. To start, do this.

No, I mean the original photos. Did you not have enough room to step back a bit?

Gee, what happened? Why are they all chopped off?

Now try the [ and ] keys.

Raw processing must always, and entirely, come before any Photoshop work, yes.

Oh! No, don't click there. Click here:

Ok, may I see a screenshot of your screen, including that Brush panel?

Oh dear, Barb. Read Module 11 of the Raw Class again.

No, I'll need the Brush Tool selected.

Ok. What about if you manually use the Size slider in the Brush panel? Does that work ok?

So sorry, could I have the whole screenshot? So I can see the toolbar and options bar and everything?

Great news!!!!

No, it's definitely not doing that. May I see some screenshots?

I've moved this post into Brian's area, because he's likely to have more info about this than me.

Yes, double-clicking is the same as Ctrl O.

Ok, can you do me a favour? When you select a raw file in Bridge, there are two ways to open it into ACR - one is Ctrl O (for "Open") and the other is Ctrl R (for "Raw"). Could you try both ways, and see if the problem exists both ways?

Hi Karen, is it only ACR where you're seeing weirdness? When you open the photos into Photoshop, is everything ok?

This is the best I can offer. I realise it's not very good.

Have they seen any of your images? I mean, do they know they have pure white backgrounds already?

This is not going to be easy, I'm afraid. Can you tell me the exact file requirements the printers have given you?