Damien Symonds

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.

Is it a jpeg? NEVER do this. Put the new background on the baby photo, not the other way around. http://www.damiensymonds.net/2010/09/extract-then-copy-vs-copy-then-extract.html

Yep, just careful cloning.

Gee, it should be a matter of simply going to Adobe's site and downloading it again?

Hi tropicmom, in order to enrich the background of a photo like this, there has to be some detail to work with. If you lower the Exposure on your photo, is there some detail in the white areas?

The class-related topics. For other stuff, just post a new question right here in Ask Damien.

I understand there is a group on Facebook called "Find a retoucher".

A couple more questions ... How many screens does your computer have? Is it a desktop computer with just this Asus monitor? Or is it a laptop with the Asus plugged in to it? Also, are you very certain that the Munki preferences are set to a "Version 2" profile, rather than Version 4?