Damien Symonds

First things first, please make sure you always do your raw processing properly. And I urge you to consider The Raw Class, it will change your life. To help you with this further, I need to know what screen you have, and which calibrator you have.

Yes, that's looking how I expected. I suggest you move to the actual seat part of the chair next, that's where you'll see the most change. Let me know if you like it.

My personal experience with Acer hasn't been good. That doesn't look like an IPS screen. You'd be better to look to the Asus "Republic of Gamers" laptops, they're amazing.

So, I was going to suggest a Channel Mixer adjustment layer, with these values: Red +100, 0, 0, 0 Green +100, 0, 0, -25 Blue +100, 0, 0, -45 Then masked VERY carefully to the whole chair. You'll definitely need this.

Please read over Modules 5 and 6 of the Raw Class again.

Well, just open the coloured one, add a layer mask to its layer, and mask out the existing text, then save that as a PSD. Then use that PSD as the basis for your new watermark design.

I'm confused. Wouldn't you want to use the coloured one?

No, it's fine. I'm really sorry, I can't think of any solutions that don't involve incredibly painstaking masking.

Yes, I'm quite confident I can help with this, to a degree at least. Go ahead and do your raw processing as usual, then post the photo again and we'll talk about the Photoshop part.

Yes, that sounds like the best idea. Do you know if you'll be able to put good bright white bulbs in the ceiling?

Yeah, it's the standard matte thing. Did you look through these files? About 2/5 down the first page you'll find a black-and-white one just the same as this.

Hi Ashleigh, is this the whole photo, or a part of it?

It's great!!!!

NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NOT the Burn Tool. Please read the dodge and burn link I gave you.

Perfect. Now change its blend mode to Soft Light, and start painting.

I urge you to take the Layers & Masks Class as soon as you can. All of this stuff will be MUCH easier then.

No, now you've clipped the clone one to the background layer. Undo that. You need to select the top layer, and clip it to the clone layer.

No, you've clipped BOTH the layers. Layer 1 should be clipped to Clone, but Clone should NOT be clipped to Background.

Just one more thing. Add a blank layer and set it to Soft Light blend mode, and clip it (Cmd Opt G) to the clone layer. That's your dodge and burn layer. With a very low opacity black brush, paint some shadowing where needed.

Looking better, right?

Perfect! Now turn your mask back on, and mask all the way out:

Good, but clone out even more. Clone out most of the toes, and all of the fingertips.

Hey, that's looking more promising, well done! Shift-click the layer mask thumbnail for me, to turn off the mask temporarily, and show me another screenshot, so I can see your cloning.

Great. Then if you've got your calibration matching your test prints, you have nothing to worry about.

And is it nice and bright?