Damien Symonds

Ctrl Alt Shift N, isn't it? That's what it's always been in every version of Photoshop I can remember. Cmd Opt Shift N on a Mac, I assume.

I don't mean to be Captain Obvious, but have you tried simply a Hue/Saturation layer, choosing Reds? I just had a quick play, and +20/-15/+5 seems pretty effective. And shouldn't require painful masking.

Well, it's very easy. While holding the pen, you click on the new layer icon at the bottom of the layers panel.

Sorry, we can't be fooling around with photos that don't belong to us. Do you mind taking a photo of your own glass of water against a white background? Of course. If it's destructive, and you mess it up, you have no choice but to start over. Our goal is always to use sensible methods that can be undone or tweaked at any time, even after closing and re-opening the file.

The previous post you're referring to didn't require transparency, as far as I'm aware. Just a white background. The method you're describing here, for transparency, is really clumsy and destructive. Can you post the original glass photo for me?

How did you go?

That's wonderful. So, can you show me your result close up?

It would be ok as long as you are replacing the sky with another very light sky. But yes, if you were wishing to replace it with anything much darker, it won't work.

Oh, it looks lovely!!! Well done.

Yes, it's my belief that png files are the biggest culprit in this regard.

Yes, I echo Christina's question. It's vital for us to know if the banding was already there in your raw edit, or if your subsequent Photoshop editing introduced it. So if you could go ahead and show us the SOOR, that would be great, thanks.

First of all, congratulations! Is this your first child? Second, do you agree that the best option seems to be to remove his hand altogether? Do you have another photo in a very similar post where his hand wasn't there? Where your elbow was entirely visible?

That's great. Thanks for letting us know.

No, if you intend to repair some of these, you MUST scan in 48-bit.

It's not a gradient, it's a Gradient Map layer. One of the options in your list of adjustment layers. But if you feel like being lazy, just drag my layer across to your file and re-mask it You are very kind. It's a button at the very bottom right-hand corner of damiensymonds.net

Can't wait to see how it looks! Can you post for us?

For $35, it might be worth the gamble, I guess. As long as you're fully aware that it is a gamble.

There's not a whole lot you can do, unfortunately. It's definitely true that your best option is a complete swap. But if you'd be satisfied simply with a little colour here, try a Levels layer, and move the middle slider on the Red channel to the right a bit, and the middle slider on the Blue channel to the left a bit.

Yah, I can see those ones!!! The bulletproof way to prevent it is this.

Hi Charlotte, if you simply search for "sky" on my site, it should be the first hit. Here it is.

Hi Natasha, as you've found out, using the brush tool on backdrops is fraught with danger. I always recommend using other methods if possible. May I see one of the photos you've had trouble with?

That's great, thanks. When you were trying Liquify, were you using the Mask feature to make sure you wouldn't move areas that shouldn't be moved?

PSD file for downloading In this one, I flipped the top brick layer horizontally, in hopes of disguising the edit a bit. What do you think of it?

In my playing, I think it's easiest to duplicate the Background layer and desaturate it, then duplicate that again. Move the second one up, and line it up with the existing lines of bricks as best you can. Working with it in grayscale seems to make it easier. I'll upload a file in a moment ...

Gosh I love this forum. I was just coming back here to type "Can you tell me whether you have Photoshop or Elements?" (old habits die hard) but I don't need to! It's right there in the sidebar! Woohoo!