Damien Symonds

Ok, here's my layers panel: First, I added the Hue/Saturation layer. This is going to sound a little crazy, but go to every channel in the Hue/Sat dialog (Reds, Yellows, Greens, etc) and pull the Lightness slider all the way to +100 for each one. Don't do it on the Master channel, though. That will make the photo black-and-white, and lighten the background as much as possible. It also makes the dog's tongue too light and desaturated, so mask strongly on the nose/mouth area, and lightly over the fur on the chest, to your taste. I hope you can see what I mean from the thumbnail in my screenshot. Next, add a Levels layer. Pull the white slider in aggressively, to blow out as much background as possible. And fiddle with the middle slider a bit. I used 0.80 for the middle slider and 195 for the white slider. Next, add a white Solid Color layer on top. Invert its mask to black, then start painting white where you want white. Use your best judgement for the shadow - I painted over the shadow with a 10% brush a bit, to make it a bit less strong. You'll know what you like best. At this point I returned to the Background layer and made a new blank layer above it, for cloning. That was to get rid of some of the stones on the ground, that I couldn't paint out with white. Again, this will be to your taste. Then return to the top layer. At this point, pour yourself a stiff drink, because you're going to be zooming WAY in and carefully masking around the fur for the bits of background that couldn't be made white by the Levels adjustment. I did a few easy parts, but as you can see, I left the hard parts. This will take you a while. But it'll be worth it! I can't wait to see what you achieve.

Yay!

I haven't done all the masking, because we're down to the painstaking part, but do you think this is promising so far?

Ok, may I see a screenshot of the first window? Where you choose the format, and enter the name?

Are you saying that you get the first window (where you enter the file name) but not the second window (where you choose the quality)?

Is this the tutorial you're following?

Now, add a Hue/Saturation layer, go to Yellows, and move the Lightness slider all the way to the right. Then mask to her top.

What about star ratings? Are they not sticking either?

Ok, let's try the cache. Go to one of those folders, then Tools>Cache>Purge

An easy mistake to make, I'm sure. Thanks for letting me know.

That must be the case, yes.

Wait, what? How did you set a bigger size for the watermark than for the photos themselves?

And these files are saved in the same place as usual?

Hi Gemma, do this for us. Then also read this.

Could you temporarily turn off all the steps in the action after the Unsharp Mask step, then run the action on a photo. We need to see if the white borders are there before the action places the watermark.

Did you check to make certain your logo file is RGB mode, not CMYK or something else? Have you read the Raw Class yet?

Ok. Does it do it on every photo you try (including landscape ones)? And if so, is the white border exactly the same width every time?

Just to confirm, you turned off the checkbox in the action? http://www.damiensymonds.net/images/actions/wmact17.gif In that case, did you crop at all, at any time? Manually, I mean?

Has anything changed since before the 29th? New camera, new hard drive, anything at all?

Ok, try processing a raw file in 16-bit instead of 8-bit.

Just to confirm - when do you see the banding? Can you see it SOOR? Or only after your Photoshop edits? Or maybe not until print?

What do you mean, how to open Bridge? I can see Bridge open on your screen, behind ACR! Oh, sorry! Not your picture. Because of 2GB of RAM.

First things first, you MUST click on the blue link at the bottom of ACR and change from Adobe RGB to sRGB.

Yeah, we can do this. Obviously the key to it is taking a bright photo in the first place. See how this photo has a white wall, pale skin, blonde hair, white clothing.

What about older sets, from the past, that you know you colour-coded? Are those colours still applied?