Damien Symonds

Yes. And as you said, it will be much easier if you choose a colour that's most similar to the colour that's already there. Plus, of course, use the Shift key.

Ok, so, just add the gradient. http://www.damiensymonds.net/preventing-banding-in-backdrops/

Choose your crop tool and look at the Options Bar. See how that checkbox isn't checked?

Yeah, duh. See how it says "Layer 0"? That's because your crop tool doesn't have "Delete Cropped Pixels" checked the way it should be. But this is a moot point. NEVER CROP YOUR PSD FILE, FOR ANY REASON. http://www.damiensymonds.net/2011/09/cropping-tutorial.html

Thank you. And you want a circular gradient in the background, which is black on the outside and very dark blue in the middle, is that correct?

Then it must be 16-bit?

Just delete all the layers, and show me the SOOR.

Oh gee. The 50GB free is likely the problem. Brian always says you have to have at least one-third free space. Also, run CleanMyMac, pronto.

Well, start over.

I agree with Sam. The monitors might be the issue. How old were your old monitors?

This happens if you have unflattened layers when you save the jpeg file; or if your file is 16-bit instead of 8-bit.

Hi Heather, Christina will be along to help you with your question as soon as she is available. To help her out, do you mind doing this?

Yeah, there's nothing magenta about that skin. It's just cold. Add warming filter.

Yeah, wait and see.

Ok, may I see a screenshot, including your layers panel?

I beg you to renew the Raw Class. The new material is completely overhauled and updated, and the new Flow Chart is miles better than the old one. And as a previous participant, it's very cheap for you.

About this big, I thought:

Yeah, that's the problem. There's a limit to what you can do when you only have the bare minimum RAM that Adobe recommends for running CC.

Let me know if you run into any troubles.

Yeah, the big thing that's missing from your photo, that's present in the others, is the depth of field blur. Do you have another photo of your own, with a better blurred background, that we can work with?

Can you explain the problem a bit further? Do you have different cameras from each other? And are they the same cameras you've always used? Have you synced successfully in the past?

The link that Christina gave you should take you through the process, if you follow it all the way.

If you had 12 files open at once, with only 8GB of RAM, it might explain the problem.

Ok, does it save to your internal drive ok?

It's not fabulous, but if it's the best you have, you can definitely use it. When it comes to sharpening, you might have to mask it off the tree, because it might grab all the attention.