Damien Symonds

I know it must think we're labouring this point very painfully, but a good black-and-white conversion really relies on a nice raw edit. Once you have your calibration done and confirmed against prints, let me know and we'll talk about the editing. Also - VERY IMPORTANT - do this.

Sadly, I have no magic fixes for this. Just plain old (very patient) cloning. Not on any fancy blend modes, either, just normal cloning.

Hi Erica, when saving files for web, always make sure the "Embed Color Profile" checkbox is checked. It might also be called "ICC Profile".

I think you should keep going a bit more.

Use ReCAL. CheckCAL is kinda silly, because if you go through it and it says you need to ReCAL, then you have to do it again, and you could have just ReCALed in the first place, you know? ReCAL is the time-sensible option.

Great. Now warm bub's right arm and both hands a bit. See how the skintone is a bit different?

I think this: http://www.damiensymonds.net/2015/04/the-handyman-method.html

Oh, that's great news!

Great! I made you something ... Hope it helps.

Let me know how it goes.

Sorry Sandra, you know this is legally questionable. I'm not touching it.

Is it a scan of a print? There's a weird lightness down one edge.

Yes, keep painting on that D&B layer, with a 5% opacity brush. Patience is the key.

The solution is so simple you'll fall off your chair. Just add a Channel Mixer adjustment layer and swap the Red and Blue channels ... Red 0, 0, +100 Blue +100, 0, 0 Then mask on to the ribbons. You won't even have to mask particularly precisely in most areas. Then, clip a Hue/Saturation layer to the Channel Mixer layer and manipulate Blues a little more if needed (eg darkening or whatever)

Download the PSD file

Do you have it in raw format?

Your skin work is lovely. Really lovely. But your blanket work is dodgy as sin. It's really obvious where you've tried to clone pattern and it doesn't line up. What do you think of this for the blanket?

A calibrator has to be your priority.

Sure, I can help you with this. Go ahead and do your full normal clean edit on your photo (including skin work), then post again. We'll talk about changing the fabric colours, and adding that warm effect to the overall image.

I agree. You don't want to be rushed with this part. As long as you can work in quite even lighting, it will be fine to be in different locations.

Before you press Return to commit the crop, glance up at the Info Panel - see the H and W values there? Multiply them to make sure they're more than 6 million, then you're good to go.

Perfect.

Correct. When you crop to 11:15, make sure that no resolution is being imposed. When you crop, the image shouldn't change size on screen (apart from the removal of the cropped parts, of course).

Not necessarily a blackboard. Any black surface would do. As long as it was quite flat and evenly lit, and nice and dark. A wrinkled black blanket would be a bad idea, if you know what I mean. The way I see it, there are two options: Start with the photo of the baby on a black background, and Place the picture of the drawing, and set it to "Screen" blend mode to merge it. This way should be the easiest, if we can pull it off. Start with the photo of the drawing, and Place the baby onto it, and mask it. Either method should give great results. I can't wait to work with you on this project!