Damien Symonds

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?

I think it's great!

At face value, it sounds like a room lighting issue. If your room lighting is too dim and too yellow (as room lighting often is) it will cause the problems you describle. Could this be the case?

You've done a good job. But for kicks, can you try something for me? Turn off all your layers for now, so you're back to the SOOR. Then add a Channel Mixer adjustment layer, and check the "Monochrome" checkbox. Enter 0, 0, +100, 0 for the four values. This will turn the photo black-and-white. Then lower the opacity of that layer to your taste (I found that about 60% is good).

Yep, I think you should get away with those. Except ... do you also need to enlarge the piece on the blue plate?

This isn't my area, but I was of the understanding that it did this automatically. If you go to Preferences>General, there should be a setting about "Treat raw and jpeg files as seperate photos". Make sure that box isn't checked.

It should be sufficient to add a Levels layer, and move the middle slider on the Red channel to 1.15; and the middle slider on the Green channel to 1.05. Then mask on gently.

... which prompts the question: How regularly do you restart?

http://www.damiensymonds.net/lab-reviews Can you submit one about ProDPI please? People need to know.

First, duplicated the Background layer, and immediately converted it to a Smart Object. This is vitally important: Then halved the opacity of that layer, and Ctrl T to transform it bigger as needed. I also found I needed to rotate it ever so slightly: Then returned it to 100% opacity, and masked it in carefully:

Yes, I guess you'd need to enlarge the cake:

Oh gosh, that's REALLY bad. I gave you this link earlier. Please read it: http://www.damiensymonds.net/2010/10/role-of-masks-when-cloning.html

Here's my attempt

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?