Samantha LaRue

I guess the first question is, what's your budget?

Have you read Damien's article yet ? http://www.damiensymonds.net/2012/01/light-around-your-computer.html

Hmm, can you fill this out? http://www.damiensymonds.net/thread1.html

I'm thinking this would be very hard to do without looking silly because if you remove the arm, you'll be left with the shadow created by her arm on her sweater.

Hmm, actions can be finicky sometimes! Have you tried recording the step again?

It depends since we might have different definitions of "tiny". lol Make sure the light in your room is bright and as good as it can be, for starters. Normally, I'd advise you to lower the brightness on your monitor until it matches - but I'm unsure how that would work after what you've done here. I'm thinking you'll need to recalibrate, but I'd wait for Damien to advise on that.

I don't know. I tried to follow the video on my computer, but for whatever reason it couldn't find my monitors and could only find my printer! So I'm not even sure what that setting does. Have you taken your prints out and compared them to your monitor after you did this?

If you take your images into PS and add a levels layer above them, you can see the banding by moving the middle slider all the way to the right. How to fix it will depend on what caused it to begin with. I'd open up your PSD file and place that levels layer on top, then turn off all the other layers and turn them on one at a time until you find the one that introduces the banding.

And make sure you save it as a PSD to preserve all your layers. I saw you said "png" earlier and wasn't sure if that was a typo!

Yes, there are a lot of pink and peachy tones in this image from their skin and the backdrop color. It's just more obvious now because the other objects in the background are no longer there. Assuming of course that you're properly calibrated to match your prints already and seeing the same thing we are.

Can you post the actual photo please and not a screenshot?

I actually think your luminance can go even higher still.

There is a setting that I've seen Damien mentioned before called "high res previews" but for the life of me I cannot find it in my Bridge (I have CC as well). So he'll have to tell you where to look for that. Click on the image with the magnifying glass and viewing it at 100% is the only way I'd evaluate an image for focus. The speed of your computer determines how quickly that preview will render. Yes, just go to "edit > develop settings > clear settings" or "camera raw defaults" and it will take you back to the SOOC if for some reason you want to start fresh. Nothing you do in raw is ever permanent, so there is no need to create multiple copies of the raw files for different ways you've edited. No, but as I said above, nothing in ACR is permanent so you can change it at any time. Not sure what is causing this if the stats you posted above for your computer are accurate. You should have plenty of speed. The clipping warnings don't match the color of the histogram. Anything that isn't black is clipped to varying degrees.

Thank you! That worked.

I tried to open some PNGs from Bridge to PS, and received the following error message: When I opened the same files using windows explorer and windows viewer (or whatever it's called), I had no issues. These are just memes I've saved from facebook. I'm heading off to bed now and do plan on looking this up tomorrow, but on the off chance ya'll remember seeing this error message before I wanted to post.

Raw editing would be where you'd start, which is why I was asking. If you were still in the class Damien could advise on what to do in raw, and that might help here. But if you're sure you did the raw processing as best as you can, then this is all I have for now: http://www.damiensymonds.net/2011/11/strategies-for-managing-out-of-gamut.html

How does it look when you remove all of the noise as Damien describes here: http://www.damiensymonds.net/2010/07/raw-noise-removal.html

Are you in the raw class?

The vertical part is just the orientation. (Taller than the image is long.) It's nothing to do with the color profile.

How precisely did you convert? "Assign profile" is not the right way, if that's what you used.

good job! are you going to be fixing his leg and bottom too? They look a little cold to me as well.

Once you're calibrated you can re-edit any images you need to so that they are exactly as bright as you want them and you'll know exactly how they will print! How does the color match your prints at this white point?

Can you post a crop like this please? http://www.damiensymonds.net/2013/09/grabbing-700x700px-100-crop.html

So what is dull and desaturated in this image when compared to the print?

Well, it's not scary weird pink if that's what you're asking. Us telling you what we see on our screens won't help you calibrate.