Damien Symonds

This is an excellent question. The way I do it is to group all the layers above the BW conversion layers. Then I can just turn the group off and on to see the edit.

I know you don't! This is catastrophic, don't you understand?????? The whole purpose of shooting in raw is to harness the amazing power of the raw data. You MUST do your comprehensive editing in a raw program BEFORE taking the photo to Photoshop. You're KILLING the quality of your photos.

Weird.

How did you go?

See in the options bar, beside "Rule of thirds", there's a little cog? In there, there'll be an option to "Use classic mode" or similar wording. That should solve the problem.

Ok, then may I see a screenshot with your Crop Tool selected?

Ok, what about if you turn off the Crop step in the action for now. Does it make a difference? I promise, the action works perfectly. Since something is going wrong, it means you didn't follow the instructions to the letter. Somewhere, you missed something.

Ok, can you choose your Crop Tool, then look at the Options Bar. I think maybe you have the "Delete Cropped Pixels" box unchecked. It must be checked at ALL times.

No, that's exactly right. That's exactly how it should look at that step. You need to re-record the Place step, that's where the problem is.

Download the PSD The initial combo of Channel Mixer and Levels was almost enough by itself, but to polish it off, I found it needed the addition of the two Handyman Method layers as well.

Ok, may I see a screenshot of it? Your whole screen, including toolbars and stuff, thanks.

And have you made doubly sure your watermark file is RGB?

Ok, great, then you shouldn't need to change the Fit Image step at all? My default setting should already be 720x720, yes?

This is the best I can manage. Do you think it's ok?

Great. And have you jotted down all your relevant info, the way I did here? http://www.damiensymonds.net/images/actions/wmact16.jpg

Hi Emzy, which one of the four actions are you using?

I just want a nice raw edit. Not too dark. Backdrop extensions and stuff, don't matter right now.

Please please PLEASE take the Raw Class. This needs to be SO much better, if you want to have any chance of achieving the look you desire.

No, white would be too stark, I think. It would be better to go black. Simply add a black Solid Color adjustment layer, and mask it carefully around. Don't forget the Shift Key.

Right. And that's what I want to see.

Well, yes, by re-scanning it. But if that isn't an option, I suppose you'll have to try gentle desaturation. One does not simply "remove" a background. One "replaces" a background. So, you need to tell me what you want to replace it with.

Oh darn If this ever comes up again, follow these guidelines. Anyway ... You actually wrote the answer in your question The wonderful Dust and Scratches filter

Which is why I beg you to take The Raw Class before too much longer. It will make everything make a lot more sense. Correct. That's why your raw processing must be PERFECT before moving on to Photoshop work, because there is no going back. Because you only sent me the raw file, not the accompanying xmp file, I can't see what you've done. But that's ok, I just need you to save a jpeg version of what you've done, and post it right here in the thread.

A bit more info here as well.

See under the histogram, there are three sliders? A black one, a grey one in the middle, and a white one? The numbers I gave you, as I said, are for the black one on each channel.