Damien Symonds

Weird. May I see a 100% crop of the area?

Oh, if only you could! I hope that you will jump at the chance to upgrade to Deluxe when it arises.

Yes, and yes. But it should be pretty darn blurred at the bottom, all the same.

Gosh no, worse!!!!!!!! Please read Modules 5 and 6 again.

Yes, but can I see your clean raw edit first?

No, not even close. The links you gave me have MUCH more blurred backgrounds than that. Don't skimp on this. The background blur is crucial to the style.

Well, I don't know anything about NIK, I'm afraid, but I'm quite sure you should start with proper clean raw processing as usual.

If you have NIK, don't worry about anything else. Have you played with it yet?

Did you get it? How did you go? A little, yes, but much more in the Levels one.

Yep!

It looks easily passable. Nobody will know.

I dunno, it seems a bit flat to me.

It's just rotten luck that it was worst in that little area of shadow, right?

How did you go?

I think you've done an excellent job so far. Now it's a slow and painstaking matter of handyman method.

Great. Now, obviously the next step is the background blur. It will be MUCH better if you can achieve it in camera in future, but for now, do this then post for me.

Oh, phew!

How did you go?

Have you got the Gradient Tool selected?

It's quite likely that what you desire is impossible. However, spell it out for me. What do you want to do with the background?

Don't feel bad, it's not your fault. That tool never works. It's an elaborate prank played by somebody with a sense of humour at Adobe HQ. "Let's add this feature to make people think they can extract hair! Ha ha ha!"

Now we've got a good SOOR, can you post it here again so we can discuss the style?

Sorry, I can't discuss this here, because it's information directly from my Levels Class. But this is definitely relevant: http://www.damiensymonds.net/2015/07/creamy-silky-perfect-angelic-skin.html

Just click on the mask (in case it isn't selected already) then Ctrl I (for "inverse").

Oh, wow! But the banding problem is new? You've never seen banding in your images before?