Damien Symonds

I'll need some more information. Do you mean you can't open your raw files to open them? Or do you mean you can't even get them off the card?

By using grids.

Oh gee, you must NEVER touch the Assign Profile menu item. Fix your colour space issues here.

Here's a file for you to download and see First, roughly clone the other eye across, then mask it more accurately. More information here. The other eye is a bit lighter, so the cloned area will need to be darkened a bit. So add a dodge and burn layer, and clip it (Ctrl Alt G) to the cloned layer, then burn as needed. More information here.

Well, maybe all the way back to the raw file. It depends where the clipping occurred.

You STILL can't post photos?

Terrific! Now gently apply some Cooling Filter LBB.

Yes, the troubleshooter should have guided you to this one?

To begin with, go through this.

Wonderful! Much nicer already. There's more I wish I could discuss with you about the raw processing aspect of this photo, but I can't do so here, sorry. I urge you to get on the Raw Class waiting list as soon as you can (if you haven't already). So for now, I'll have to make do as best we can. Before we get to the colouring issue, I need you to brighten the hands and the face, so that they're more of a match for her chest/shoulders area. (A match in brightness, don't worry about the colour for now. Then post again for me.

Yep, we can do this. Can you take a close crop of her face for me?

Oh, I can't wait to hear how they turn out! I'll sit here fidgetting in the meantime

Are you referring to the fact that her right eye (our left) has two catchlights in it instead of one?

Oh heck no. The white balance must be correct in raw. NEVER look at skintone in raw, period.

Ok, that's good and bad news, I guess. Good news that you're in the correct colour space, but bad news because it means you can't blame incorrect colour space for your messed-up editing You might need to start over.

No, I'm sure that's meant to be a white dress.

Ok, could you post the SOOR for me?

Very normal, yes, and nothing to worry about. Click "Don't show again". Now, next issue. You're in 16-bit, which is contributing to this problem also. Please don't do that. 8-bit is fine.

It's because you've got an awful lot of clipping in her face. Really badly blown out. First things first, can you do this for me?

I'm so sorry. I give a lot of advice freely here, but not where it coincides directly with my classes. This is all covered in the Print Sharpening Class. I hope you understand.

Next, this.

Gosh, then of course you don't need to make a separate file of it, and Place it. Just use a Solid Color adjustment layer right there in the file. So do you not want any gradation in the background at all? Surely some shadowing is needed?

You haven't set the new background file to "Multiply" blend mode. Can you post the new background file by itself, so I can see what it looks like? I think you might be going about this the wrong way.

If it was just shadows, I'd say yes. But this isn't just shadows, this is a white balance problem.

I beg you, watch this and make your life much easier in the future.