Please help me in removing background shadows

[Aitchess]

Yes

[Damien Symonds]

Well ... you hadn't done so in the screenshot you showed me.

[Damien Symonds]

How did you go?

[Aitchess]

no luck, the dropper won't pick up the grey, idk what I did wrong anymore. I sampled at the x for the far right color swatch...

[Damien Symonds]

Can you manually make it grey, though?  Or another colour?

[Aitchess]

If I go back and forth figuring out the hex codes I can paste them into the gradient and achieve some grey...

[Damien Symonds]

Hex codes, are you nuts?  Just use the RGB numbers that the info panel tells you.

[Aitchess]

I didn't think of that, this is the result

[Damien Symonds]

Is there any reason why the scale is 136%?

[Aitchess]

nope, must have accidentally changed it, I reset it 

[Damien Symonds]

Cool.

I can't tell why sampling isn't working, sorry.  Everything looks the way it should.

[Aitchess]

It was photoshop, I was working in beta. I updated photoshop 2024 and the sampling works now. Here's where I am stuck at. 

[Damien Symonds]

I cannot understand why ANYONE uses beta. It's nothing but trouble.

[Aitchess]

I did not realize my default changed, I had just recently used it to test out ai features. Here is where I am now but I still think it is looking fake.

[Damien Symonds]

I had just been trying it too: https://max.mailbigfile.com/c87c6df4269bbe6f610f4550a555ea4b/listFiles.php

2 minutes ago, Aitchess said:

I did not realize my default changed, I had just recently used it to test out ai features. Here is where I am now but I still think it is looking fake.

Why are you using the dark version of the photo again?

[Aitchess]

I have saved too many versions I've confused myself. I think there is a matte layer that is darkening it, I removed it here.

[Damien Symonds]

Still looks awfully dark.

[Aitchess]

 followed your method to do the same with the background shadows and wrinkled fabric at the bottom, how does this shot seem?

[Damien Symonds]

It looks too dark as well.

But the background edit looks fine.