Damien Symonds

Yes, I think just brighten the background a tiny bit.

Well, I think the first one would be easier. The second one would require more background editing.

Well, lockets are so small, so you might be ok!!!

Hi Mira, have you read this?

This is a very good idea. The more you can do this, the better and faster your work will be. Have you ever made an action before? I wrote a simple tutorial here. Also, some general info here. And of course, this one will slice heaps of time off your output workflow.

That's great, but it's also largely irrelevant. The only thing that's relevant is the comparison to your pro lab prints. How is it?

Absolutely not. Don't try to mess about with the black point, it's more risk than reward. Let it fall where it may.

Yeah, just patient cloning, I'd say. Probably at low opacity, so it blends.

It's showing good promise so far.

Needless to say, feel free to post a photo any time you need assistance.

You haven't actually said what's wrong? Why are you unhappy with the calibration?

2) When it comes down to technical basics, the files you're sending to the lab are just a bunch of ones and zeros. Simple binary data that comprises all digital files. The screen upon which you edited is completely irrelevant. All that matters is for your calibrated screen to show those ones and zeros the same as the lab printed them.

1) For the purposes of calibration, you must ignore those profiles. They'll become important later, but can only be utilised after you are confident with the calibration.

Gosh, yes, maximum is madness!

I have to leave now, for a little while. Basically, I think your settings should be 300/300 (rather than 300/450) and High, or even Medium, not Maximum for the image quality.

No, no. Save the PDFs from the PSDs again, and take another look at this screen: Can you take a screenshot of your screen, and show me? I need to see the settings you used.

Is this an accurate sum of the parts? I mean, the individual PDFs you merged to make this one - did they add up to 347-ish MB? Or has a whole lot of extra size been added in the merging process?

It's never a waste of time. I view every opportunity to remind people of the importance of in-camera achievements over post-processing achievements as a valuable use of time.

Can you find an example photo of a male portrait in similar lighting to yours? We need to be discussing apples with apples here.

Well, it was because I wanted to preserve the flooring, you know? In the ones in the tutorial, there tended to be only backdrop visible. So I was able to use a plain 100% opacity gradient. But when flooring is present, we generally need the backdrop to fade as naturally as possible into the floor. Am I making sense?

I don't know why your image wouldn't load, sorry. You're right, it's very small. I think it has good potential.

It can't hurt to try. But it's still merely a stop-gap measure until your calibrator arrives.

Oh, I understand now. Are you aware that you're basically making every attempt to sabotage your own photo here? The more you find to be critical of, the less chance you have of producing an image.

This sure is odd. Can you send it to me via this page?

Significantly less, yes.