Kim Howells

I'd love to see a bit more room around them, instead of it being cropped in so tightly to the sides.  I would also blend in that bit of backdrop where it changes from dark to light  towards the left.

If you were in the old raw class on Facebook, you are automatically in the deluxe class here.

In this situation, I would "place" the image with the background over the portrait.  I would move it so the wall goes to the left hand edge of the frame.  Then add a layer mask, invert it, and get in nice and close (100%) to carefully mask around the left hand person.  No quick fix unfortunately.

Ideally you don't want stray light hitting the screen.  It *should* be OK with some ambient light, but to be safe, turn them off.

All this sort of info is in Damien's calibration instructions.  I suggest following them as it makes things a lot easier.  http://www.damiensymonds.net/calibration.html

I retouch photos for others, and am just sorting my website now.  Brian and the others have some really good points, particularly re what I call the "rote editing" - the bulk stuff which photographers can pay next to nothing for elsewhere (I personally don't do this sort of editing, and I charge in 5 minute blocks for the "tricky edits" and retouching that I do).  If he goes ahead with it, I wouldn't be expecting an income of any significance for a couple of years absolute minimum.  But it depends what you want to achieve and how many hours you are prepared to spend sitting on your behind, and for what amount of money.

When it gets to that point in the action, is there anything that is actually selected in the image, ie do you see the "handles and lines" on the image ready to be warped?

Can you please post a screenshot of your action with all the steps?

It looks to me like a low opacity collage and a regular photo, then play with either blend modes, or layer modes to achieve the look you want.

Hi Damo.  I am trying to open a raw file dropboxed to me, to convert to DNG.  I have the latest version of the Adobe DNG converter, and have re-downloaded the NEF file in case something had gone wrong with the download.  It won't recognise the file.  Any suggestions?

Scrap that, I just noticed that there was an underscore at the start of the file name.  I removed it and it worked fine.

How did you get on @Lady Photog?

How did you get on Laurentomten?

How did you get on Edie?  I found that when I first updated to Win 10, it was "buggy" for a couple of days, and then things started to behave themselves.

Did you find it HP78?

Damien's classes!  They are the best way to learn.

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

Have you extended it on the right as well?  I would take a photo of the backdrop on its own, then mask it in where you need it on either side.  If you can't do that, then make a new layer via copy of the backdrop, move it to line it up, and mask it in.

Try a new layer, change the mode to colour, select the colour you want it to be (by holding the sky key down and clicking on the gold part of the rim), and paint on the red.

No, because you are presumably putting the resolution in when you open the new document.  So going from the smaller to the larger doc would require upsizing, and a resultant loss of quality.  So I would start with the size you intend to print.

I think it would look more natural if they were casting a shadow, and also if you didn't use such a severe gradient?

Oh!  I assumed it was a typo, thanks @Crystal Felton (didn't know you could tag so just trying it lol).  I use that sometimes haha!

@ChristalChildress have you ensured that the scrubby zoom is checked in the options?

Hahaha, I have been looking for the last five mins for the FAQ's.

ACR?