Damien Symonds

Is this the method you're using?

Right.

If I'd erased, there would just be white space there. So yes, I have to clone nearby detail onto those areas. Have you used the Clone Tool very much before?

Hi @AlSimmons, thanks for your kind words. I realise that it's not super-easy to see what I've done in that particular part of the tutorial. Here, I've assembled the before-and-after into a gif. Does this make it a bit easier for you to see?

Try a Hue/Saturation layer with "Colorize" checked, and +27, +27, 0 for the three sliders. (Or thereabouts)

You can't upgrade the class until you're calibrated.

Gotta get the prints first.

Sorry @ChristyB, a setting got messed up. You should be able to reply now.

That means your screen is too bright. Are you following my exact directions here? https://www.damiensymonds.net/calibration-instructions/

Talk to me, @Erin Falkenham. In what way does your screen differ from your prints? What make and model of screen do you have, and which Spyder do you have?

Could you go ahead and do the clean editing on your photo so I can have a better go?

https://max.mailbigfile.com/5d82612d0dbf56b91aa46d212ebc48b2/listFiles.php It would work better if the clean editing was done first, of course.

Looks like a job for liquify. Have you tried it yet?

You can switch to whatever stupid software you want, but you'll get no support from me.

Please read the bolded paragraph near the end of this article. The Sharpening Class is NOT the one you need to take. Your raw editing is awful. Please start with the Raw Class, pronto.

I have the Epson Perfection V700, and I've never used Silverfast. I just use the Epson software.

None of those layers are smart objects

Wow, groovy! May I see a screenshot of your layers panel?

I have some knowledge of Illustrator, but not this kind of work. I don't know if it's possible, sorry.

Hang on, copy and paste is definitely not my recommended technique. Never C/P, only Place. Blend If can be awesome, but it's not infallible. Make sure you always check its results VERY carefully. I suggest putting a bright red layer behind your Blend-If-ed layer to help examining for flaws. Well, I'm pretty sure if I was doing it I'd want to do the one-image-at-a-time method. My computer is no slouch, but it definitely doesn't have enough power to be placing an overabundance of full-res images at once. But it's up to you.

I assume you found this? https://www.damiensymonds.net/2010/09/extract-then-copy-vs-copy-then-extract.html

No, of course you can't do that, because the raw and jpeg files aren't the same colour.

Hi Suzanne, did you take a look at all of Brian's pinned posts at the top of the page? https://ask.damiensymonds.net/forum/18-the-windows-pc-hardware-forum/

I've already answered on Facebook, so let's keep going there.

What file format did you upload?