Damien Symonds

Ok, great. I've been sitting here pondering this. Whether to assemble the design in colour first, then make it all black-and-white afterward; or to edit the photos separately in black-and-white, then assemble the design. Since there might be some blend mode work involved, which is hard to apply to multiple layers at once, I think we should go for the latter. So go ahead and edit both photos in black-and-white in the usual way, then post them here for me and we'll discuss combining.

Terrific! Now, do you intend yours to be in black-and-white too, or in colour?

No, I said -50 for Lightness. And that shadowing is too big and ... not how shadowing would look.

Not by me they're not. What did they say, exactly? Write to me in the "Contact Damien and the Team" section.

Ok, so underneath the baby layer, add a Hue/Saturation layer, and move the Lightness slider to about -50. That will darken everything except the baby. Invert the mask to hide it. Then gently mask on where you want shadowing to be. Afterwards, you might like to increase the Saturation slider a bit, to your taste.

http://www.damiensymonds.net/2010/08/what-you-see-when-you-pixel-peep.html http://www.damiensymonds.net/art_enlarge.html http://www.damiensymonds.net/2011/02/printing-big.html IGNORE the centimetre dimensions. They are utterly meaningless. http://www.damiensymonds.net/2014/03/how-aggressively-can-i-crop.html And finally, if you need it: http://ask.damiensymonds.net/forum/30-focus-checks/

May I see a screenshot of your layers panel?

What do you mean by "sadly"???? 24 megapixels is EXCELLENT! You can print as big as a house with that!

5976x3992 pixels is just a shade under 24 megapixels. Is that correct for your camera?

Yeah, I think that's better. Does it need some shadow on the flower behind the head?

Yep, "WxHxResolution" is the one you'd use for print.

Your masking around the edges of the baby is too soft to be plausible, I think.

No, no, I'm not saying that at all!

Ok, then you're going to have to live with it. It's just one of those things.

And does the soft-proofing make any improvement to that particular red issue?

Is that with or without the soft-proofing?

Oh no, how annoying!

Wow, that sounds weird!!! Have you spoken to Dell on the phone about it?

Then we have nothing to talk about, sorry. This isn't fair to the artist.

I haven't used one for a while, but yes, I think that's right. Can you explain this statement?

Well, for print you DO need a resolution, of course (eg 300ppi, if that's what your lab uses).

Yep, Ratio is the perfect setting for this. But of course, you'd need to change it when cropping for print.

If the levels layer doesn't work for the others, please feel free to post them in this thread as well.

No, no, no, that's the point, don't you see? There is no set aspect ratio. Because of the responsive site. You just PICK an aspect ratio that you like, and use it for all images. Roughly 2:3, I guess, but err towards squarer if anything. Use 1500px wide, and sharpen for web in the usual way. That's all you can do.

Ok, great. We definitely need to talk about this one in the Raw Class please. Go ahead and post it there.