Damien Symonds

You've learned several hard and good lessons here. I think this begins in raw. Make your raw edit overall a bit brighter first.

No, that doesn't seem so likely to me. Can you explain this part?

How about this?

Yes, the only thing I can suggest is making your best attempt with a Levels layer - the black and middle sliders. But for the worst of it, some dodge and burn or even cloning might be necessary afterwards. Remember not to do any Photoshop work until your raw processing is completed. I'm referring principally to noise removal.

I'm so sorry, I'm really flummoxed by this. The only thing I can imagine is that it has something to do with how you made the blank document, right back at the beginning. Can you test it for me? Make a new blank file at exactly the dimensions you require (at 300ppi, I figure). Scribble on it with the brush tool, or something, then save it as a pdf, then open that pdf in Reader and see what the size is.

How did you go, Dom?

Well, turn off all the layers, then turn them on one by one. See if you can identify which one is causing the problem.

Oh gee, this is really bad. May I see a closer view of the area?

So, the million dollar question - do you see banding in the photo when you're editing the raw file?

http://www.damiensymonds.net/what2buy_cal.html

Is this what you mean?

Your original post seems to suggest you have lots of prints to choose from?

I know you already know the answer to this, and just don't want to hear it. Yes, of course. May I see the SOOR of this image?

Just to check, have you browsed the FAQs? The short answer is, if your screen doesn't match your prints, your screen is wrong, no matter how much you like it.

Just to check, you don't crop the master files this way, do you?? 11:15 is only for client jpegs.

That's the link I gave you in the very first sentence of the long explanation post, didn't you see it?

With an extraordinary amount of patience, quite a lot of skill, and a heck of a lot of time, it would be feasible. You'd need to start by copying the Mickey Mouse heads on the string that do have backdrop behind them, and replacing the ones that don't have backdrop behind them. Then you'd have to create a completely new backdrop with a series of gradient layers, then start tediously masking them in. I suggest to you that life is WAY too short for this. Accept a portrait orientation, and move on.

http://www.damiensymonds.net/trainingialm.html

Ok, so you pretty much want the background you already have, but with a bit more vignetting, is that right? Do you also want to know how to do the purple colouring?

Hmmm ... extend it how far, exactly? Are you aiming for a landscape crop? That's going to be insanely hard.

And may I see a screenshot of your Image Size dialog in Photoshop?

Download the PSD file Sorry it's so big. Usually I try to make them smaller and easier to download, but it wasn't possible with this one.

Gah! I just had an internet outage. Of all the times ... I'll try and upload the file again ...

Well, it was a variation of this method. I opened the sky photo, and (on a new layer) cloned out the pole and stuff. I saved that sky photo as a PSD file, and closed it. I opened the dog photo, and File>Place to insert the sky photo onto the dog photo. I lined up the horizon as accurately as possible. I applied a sufficient amount of blur to the sky to be plausible. Then I duplicated that sky layer. I turned the top one off, and returned to the bottom one for the time being. I changed its blend mode to "Multiply", and masked it around the head of the dog. In some areas, where the sky was quite light, the masking was very easy, I could let the sky encroach onto the fur naturally. In other areas, where the sky was darker, I had to zoom in and patiently and carefully mask until it looked good. Then I returned to the top copy, which was still on "Normal" blend mode, and masked it in everywhere else. Finally, I added a Levels layer to make the bottom of the sky a bit lighter, so it plausibly matched the existing horizon. If you can allow me a few minutes, I'll upload the PSD file so you can follow along.

Not at all. The lighting is lovely.