Damien Symonds

No, sorry, black is not feasible. Very dark brown, or very dark grey, would be the best we could manage. Would she settle for that?

You won't know until you try, I guess ...

As long as you nail the shallow depth of field, the editing is easy enough.

Download the PSD

Notwithstanding all of that, how does this look?

Before we start, I need to know that you are aware of the two differences that will make a significant difference between your photo and hers: Hers has leading lines going towards a logical area of light in the background. Yours does not. Yours has lots of light area (snow) at the bottom of the photo, which hers does not. As such, your photo can never have the same "feel" as hers.

May we see the outcome?

No it's not, look at the how the light is falling on her face. In particular, look at the camera-left side of the mouth in Lisa's photo and in yours. I would say that Lisa is using a much bigger light source that you are, but you would need to seek advice from a photographer about that. All I know is that the angle of your light is too far around to the side.

Great, then that's the one I'd use for the working files.

Take your photos again. Lighting lighting lighting. This is primarily not an editing matter.

Is the Seagate internal?

No, Bethany is in the Standard class.

No, you're doing too much! You're pushing it too far.

Did you find this one?

Before/after:

Then I recommend a bit of gentle cloning to reduce the remaining crease in the skin:

That gets you to here:

Then you can nudge up the pudgy part using as big a brush as you need, and only the pudgy part gets moved:

Yes, this is definitely a Liquify job. To my mind, the key is to use the mask tool before you start. Block off everything that you don't want to move, like this:

You needed to have her turn her face towards the light more. The nose shadow is much too strong. Also, it needs the darker background.

Were you specifically googling for a tutorial for Elements?

Well, the photo on the right is too blurry, so let's concentrate on the left one. I think you should crop with him a bit more centred, and if there's a bit of the lady in the frame, you should be able to clone her out.

Oh, this is REALLY bad. External drives are for archiving and backup only. They're not fast enough for working from. Only use internal drives for live jobs.

I hope so, yes. May I see a closeup?

@Miss Sally, how did you go?