Damien Symonds

No that's fine, perfectly legitimate. Just checking. If you Alt-click on the mask thumbnail to show it in black and white, is it pure black in that problem area?

Ok, great. That makes things a little easier, at least. Do you mind sending me the full-size file of the lady that you posted above? And would you mind if I used her to write a tutorial for you on my site?

What is the purpose of the layer you're masking there?

Yep, post in the LR section for help with that.

Hi Lauren, the action takes a little while to set up, but it's well worth it, I promise. It will save you so much time in the future.

It's most likely Chromatic Aberration.

Fair enough. Do you intend to leave some shadows around their feet? Or a clean cut-out down there?

What file format will you be providing to them?

And then what? What are they being used for?

Oh Stacey, PLEASE tell me you've got your name on the Raw Class list. As Christina said, this is too blown out to "fix" per se, so you'll need to look through your shots for another photo which could donate some background.

I can help you get any colours you like, I promise. But there has to be some detail there to work with. Adding colour to white will just look like flat colour, not lovely at all.

Hi Bree, I don't suppose you had the luxury of raw files here?

Hi Mankro, this will be tricky, but I'm sure we can manage something. The first question is - do you have another photo of the back at the same angle, without the roll?

I've played around with a few methods, and I think your best option is a Hue/Saturation layer with the "Colorize" box checked. When you do the first photo, you could find a value on the Hue slider that you liked. You'd also adjust the Saturation and Lightness to how you liked it. You'd mask very carefully around the subject. This will be very handy. Then, you'd keep that photo open, while one at a time opening the others beside it on your screen. For each one, you'd use the same Hue value, but carefully vary the Saturation and Lightness sliders to get the best possible match.

Did you have any luck?

Hi Heather, I would do it with the Patch Tool, similar to eye bags. A little bit of cloning would be necessary too, near the hem of the pants. First, take them out altogether on a new layer: Then lower the opacity of that layer to a point that you think she'll like (this is 69%): And of course the beauty of it is, if she comes back and says she'd like them more or less visible, just return to your PSD file and tweak the layer opacity further.

No, no new prints required. As long as your screen is calibrated accurately, your prints will match it, no matter how they've been edited.

Hi Christina, gosh yes. Do so as you see fit. http://www.damiensymonds.net/2012/02/camera-calibration-tab-in-acr.html

The missing paws will be the killer here. You could conceivably take another photo of grass to put in there, but you'd need to find another photo of the paws at the same angle, and that is likely to be next to impossible

That's great news.

The one you linked either had detail in the capture, or the sky was replaced.

Yes, that will be the trickiest part for sure. Around the feet will need some artificial shadowing. Yep, do this first, then show me.

Yes, that might work.

Principally, the problem is the lighting. Your baby photo is so dimly lit, but the ornament is so brightly lit. You need to go back to your raw processing of the baby photo, and make it brighter.

Yep, that's good. That's the right way to do it.