Damien Symonds

Can you tell me the exact filename of the file, including the extension?

I'm sorry Eddie, this all starts with raw processing. You'll have to wait.

What quality level did you save the jpeg at?

This is all that matters. Numbers are meaningless. I think it looks good too.

These pieces look obviously stretched. I think it would look better if they looked like real puzzle piece shapes. And yes, the pen tool.

This is ridiculous. You're WAY off track here. Tell me about your room lighting, darn it.

How does it look to you?

Just the Patch Tool. It should be the work of seconds.

Please read the guidelines for this kind of question.

This might be a suitable candidate for Frequency Separation, though I'm not certain. Is it one of the things you've tried?

Do you have the physical photo in your possession? And if so, did you scan it yourself?

How did recalibration go?

6500K is correct. Tell me about your room lighting. Eizo's "printing" setting is literally for printing. That is, the commercial offset printing industry. NOT for photography.

Which lab? 5000K is not correct. If you have a screen-to-print match at 5000K you are either using a dreadful lab, or have dreadful lighting in your room.

The best I can suggest is to add a Solid Color layer of hair brown, and set it to Multiply mode, then mask it on very gently where needed. I used a 10% brush in this example: I realise it's not spectacular, but I hope it's better than nothing.

Oh, it exists. How far down that path do you get?

Great. Go ahead and follow the instructions.

That focus is fine.

Yep, that's a laptop.

If it's going to be possible (and I'm deeply skeptical) there can't be those black shadows. Start again with your raw processing, without ANY black clipping.

As if it's a source of light, do you mean?

I've had great success with this method. Make sure you do your raw processing before any Photoshop work, of course.

Oh, no, I'd get a new monitor to plug in to your laptop. (Unless you were already thinking about replacing the laptop for other reasons)

May we see a 100% crop?