Damien Symonds

Ah yeah, that gels well.

Hang on ... you've warmed the background. Which is great! So you don't need to fiddle with the red channel on the people after all.

Hmmm ... 20 is definitely too much, isn't it? Fiddle around with it and see if there's a spot where it looks good.

Thanks. I wanted to suggest adding a Levels layer immediately above the "couple" layer, then clipping it to that layer, then going to the Red channel and bringing the black slider in to about 20. Yes it will make his suit clip a bit, but it will balance the colour with their surrounds a bit more, I think.

Yeah, that might be better. May I see a screenshot of the layers panel?

Hi @SLS, sorry about my delayed reply. I was doing the grocery shopping I don't have any "clever tricks" for you, I'm afraid. It will begin with Levels using the eyedropper tool, and careful masking. After that, very painful, painstaking cloning. Download this PSD file to see how I've done one of the glares so far.

It does seem to be encroaching on his leg an unnatural amount, doesn't it? I think you've left a bit too much grass there.

I'm not sure, sorry.

Ok, there's nothing there that alarms me. Yes, it's a small hard drive, but you're doing an excellent job of keeping it clear. But you really should be running CleanMyMac once a month.

Come on ...

For my general peace of mind, though, could you do this for me?

You have every right to expect a good match between paper and screen. But with a crappy old laptop, that might be a bridge too far. Do you have a desktop screen you can plug in and try calibrating that instead?

Ha ha ha!!!! I love it!

I'm so sorry, I can't tell from this. These are the set of prints that weren't too saturated, yes?

It's time, Cailynn. https://www.damiensymonds.net/training.html

Yeah, that's what I feared

How do you score on this?

Great. Ok, go ahead and do your raw processing on the photo as normal (white balance, exposure, etc, etc) then show me the photo again.

There are two tricks in making Camera Raw keep a new default. You must only have ONE photo open in Camera Raw at the time you change the setting. After changing the setting, you MUST open that photo into Photoshop.

Then work in 16-bit for these ones, but change straight back to 8 for the next job.

16-bit is necessary in two situations: 1. When you're working in stupid ProPhoto RGB from stupid Lightroom. I'm very pleased to say this no longer applies to you. 2. When you're working on a very hazy photo, eg strongly backlit at golden hour or whatever. This might apply to you from time to time. But most of the time, 8-bit is completely perfect, and 16-bit is unnecessary overkill. And don't forget that you foolishly bought a very small Mac (hard drive size I mean) so you're going to be constantly struggling with space and performance issues. And as 16-bit files are twice as large as 8-bit files, you definitely need to stick to 8-bit as much as you can.

Why do you think you need to be in 16-bit?

Get CleanMyMac and run it right away, and every month hereafter. And clear some space off your hard drive. Aim for 90GB free at all times if you can.

Yes you are. SHUT DOWN EVERY DAY.

Ok, wow. There's a lot going on here. First, can you please do this for me.