Damien Symonds

On the same photo as yesterday?

Brian always says you need at least 1/3rd of the hard drive free.

How many internal hard drives does your computer have?  Only the one?

3 minutes ago, Sarah Alloway said:

Its hard drive has 8GB free out of 111GB.

Is this a typo?

If not, it's definitely the problem.

Forgive me if I've asked you this before, but can you fill this out for me?

I figure it would be the same as this.

Yep, there is no problem at all here.  Just remove the noise as usual.

Yeah, it seems like to be a composite, doesn't it?  A very well done one.

How about this?

Looking great at this size.  Well done.

Hey, great!  Now just keep copying what I did.  A couple of Solid Color layers next.

Please?

Do you mean retouchup.com?

http://www.damiensymonds.net/2015/09/black-boxes-and-other-weird-behaviour.html

Try the suggestions in that article, and let me know if they help.

If you're still having trouble, post a screenshot of your whole screen for us.

No, you appear to have used the "Assign Profile" function.  That causes the dullness of colour we see here.

Please follow the instructions in the link that Samantha gave you.  Ta.

You can definitely give de-haze a shot.  You seem to already be doing exactly what I would have advised:

1. Do it after the other adjustments; and
2. Make sure you watch its effect on the whole photo, don't be myopic about it.

If you're not happy with its effect on the whole photo, that's ok, don't worry about the haze in raw.  Take it to Photoshop and fix it there (which you'll learn in the Levels Class).

I'm so sorry, I don't understand the question.  Can you elaborate?

52 minutes ago, Janet445 said:

Yes, true.  

I feel like something has changed about the quality of my images overall, but I can’t put my finger on it.

Well, nothing you've shown us here presents any evidence of it.

18 minutes ago, Janet445 said:

Here is just one of about a bazillion I went back and found that were taken before the aforementioned lens filter shattering. There is virtually none of that noisy sandpaper look to the skin.  Obviously I trust you if you believe its user error/new lens learning curve and I will leave it at that and practice more.  I just wanted to be sure and rule out what happened to my lens and the difference in the quality of my images compared to before.  Thanks again.

Please also remember that this is ISO 500, compared with the other two which were ISO 800. It's not a huge difference, but it's not nothing either.

12 minutes ago, Janet445 said:

Obviously I trust you if you believe its user error/new lens learning curve and I will leave it at that and practice more.

No, this is not what I'm saying at all!  It's not user error, it's not even an error at all!  These photos are PERFECT.

Yeah, that's way too low for any web purpose, but especially when you're seeking feedback from peers about file quality.  Can you take the last three 100% crops again, and save them at Level 10 for upload?

Fantastic.

But can you tell me what quality level you chose when saving those jpeg files for upload here?

Can you do this for me?

The only complicating factor is the little bit of missing wing on the right side of the big girl. I had to borrow some other bits of wing to recreate the missing areas here:

That's right.  Open the first image and extend the canvas size to the left.  Add more than you think you'll need.

Then File>Place the second image.  Then lower its opacity and fiddle with it until it lines up as best you can.  Then mask.