Damien Symonds

You'll find that the search function on my new site is much better than my old one. If you simply typed "eyedropper" into the search bar, you'll get those same articles.

Hi Sharlene, there's one here, and a slightly less relevant one here.

You should have a "PrtScrn" button on your keyboard? Usually it's somewhere at the top right corner, above or near your Backspace key. Once you press it, the screenshot is in your clipboard, and you can simply create a new blank document in Photoshop, hit Ctrl V to paste the screenshot onto it, then save it as a jpeg to upload here. Or, you can simply search in your Start Menu for "Snipping Tool". It's a great little app, very easy to use.

The really only come into play with VERY noisy images. The ones where you've had to push the Luminance slider above 90. Then, aggressively swing the other sliders both ways, to see the full impact of their adjustment. Like a slowing pendulum, gradually your swinging will become smaller as you zero in on your preferred value. Sorry, I can't discuss that here. You'll learn all about it in the Raw Class.

I think she looks ... "over-perfected", if you know what I mean.

I'm so sorry Katie, there's a heck of a lot I want to discuss about this photo, but I can't do it here. Only in the classes.

Always 0% hardness. Never higher. Only the size varies, according to the area I'm masking. No, not at all. In this one, you'll see it was straight gradients.

The specs look great on both. Interesting reading the reviews at the bottom of the pages, though. The second one seems a bit more favoured? As long as your graphics card supports 4K, of course.

Yes. That's very unusual. Are you saying that you've got your screen at its absolute minimum brightness, and it's still brighter than the prints?

Of course. Facebook compresses everything. It's great, well done!

Download the PSD file Done using this method, and as you'll see, the addition of some Levels layers to make sure the background around the hair blended perfectly.

Oops, I forgot to darken the area between her legs. I think this is better:

Hi Dayna, as the others have said, process your raw file flatter before attempting any Photoshop work on this.

Looks good.

How about this?

I cannot stress this enough. If a lab asks you to convert to their profile, RUN AWAY FROM THAT LAB AS FAST AS YOU CAN. Lab profiles are for soft-proofing, NOT for conversion.

Download the PSD file Done using this method.

I'm so sorry about the delay. Your edit was the last thing I did before I went to bed last night. Give me a few minutes, I'll upload the file.

It looks very ... circular, doesn't it? What about this?

Oh, sorry, on a Mac it's in the actual "Adobe Bridge CC" menu.

Darn it Nery, STOP THINKING. Just do every step of this, and all your problems (present and future) will disappear. No, this is a massive and damaging myth. It's screwed you up, just like it's screwed up thousands before you.

Ok, great, because the first step has to be getting the white balance right for all of them. Even for the jpegs, you can still do this. Once you've balanced them, post them again and we'll discuss the background tweaking.

Hi Helen, did you shoot them in raw format?

As long as you follow this method exactly, including the noise layer, it won't band. From my files, you'll see I used 150% scale, and of course radial.

No, it won't band. You already read the tutorial, you linked it in your original post. DO NOT MAKE THE BACKGROUND ENTIRELY BLACK. I can't stress this enough. The baby's hair will disappear completely, and it will look ridiculous. NEVER quick selection or magic wand. And definitely never the stupid Refine Edge feature.