Damien Symonds

Hi Christopher, thanks for posting. Before we delve into the calibration side of things, can you do this for me and report back?

This.

Yes, but then I went on to talk at length about examining and adjusting it for your own image's purpose. No. They appeared because the lab messed up.

http://www.damiensymonds.net/save-action

http://mbf.cc/MP13Zs

Yes, but it's 20% opacity, WAY too high. And you didn't clip it to the layer beneath, so it's all over the child etc.

No, that's WAY too much noise, and it's all over everything.

Wonderful! So, you'd do your raw processing on these two photos so they match: Then you'd combine them, so that you got the bottom of the basket. Then you'd also process this raw file so it matched: And use it to fill in the missing corners of the rug in the main photo. If you need help with all that combining stuff, go ahead and do your raw processing first, then post the photos again for me.

Yes, generally this means simply no resizing from your original files. Just send them every pixel you took. Their request for both jpeg and tiff files shows us that they don't really know what they are talking about, however. Nobody needs tiff files in this day and age. Let us know what they say.

Yes, 12 is crazy high. 9 is ample for web images.

A play with the "Dragan effect". The first three layers are duplicates of the Background layer, with High Pass filter run at various radii. The radii you choose will depend on your photo, so some experimentation is necessary. Download the file here.

Did that help?

Yeah!!

Needs more, I think.

Now you can start your normal editing, particularly magenta photo filter for the foliage cast on them.

Alternately, a Hue/Saturation layer at 0/+40/-20, set to Multiply mode.

To that end, I'm thinking maybe a Hue/Saturation layer, set to 0/+75/-50, and masked on where desired.

So now it has to be all about the darkening. Adding shadows to her where shadows should exist.

Told ya I think if you can just manufacture a few more blades of grass encroaching onto his shin, that'll be good enough.

Now add a Photo Filter layer (one of the warming filters) and clip it to her. She needs a bit more warmth.

Not at all. Exactly the right direction. Can't you see that the image you want to put her into has a lot of distinction to all the edges? That's the "cartoon" look you were talking about. Yes, changed the colours. But that's not necessary with yours, is it? Your subject already has the warm tones you'd expect when being lit by that lamp.

I urge you to take it down aggressively first, eg -20, then very slowly bring it back up, and stop where you think it looks most plausible. I think you'll stop lower than -6, to be honest.

There are a few different styles there. The piper one definitely is cartoon, but I'm not sure if that's what you actually want? Generally this is done with high pass filters. How is this?

Gosh, nice work. Looking at it again though, I think you need to go a little lower still with the Lightness slider on that Hue/Sat layer you made.

First, try these.