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Well, I am totally late to this thread, but I wanted to say that I hope Chelsea is doing all right. My heart goes out to her. I've had two miscarriages, but everyone feels the loss differently. I'll be praying for her.

Kimber, I'm glad that someone recognized what a great job you did and respected you enough to ask for another print instead of just helping himself. And I'm glad that you're at least getting a token compensation.

If you do gel green and turn the WB to fluorescent, any colored or white light you add will go a little more magenta than usual. Since it's a girl thing, magenta is fine. I think it's in the Moment It Clicks book where McNally takes a picture of a basketball player sitting next to the commute train. He has his flash greened to balance the light that will spill out of the train when the doors open, and a magenta filter over the lens instead of setting the wb, but it's the same principle. The sky goes a beautiful purple instead of blue.

Black hair fading into the black background is one of my frequent problems. But black is so easy to work with (no hard shadows, and easy to make composites because you don't have to align anything). If you want to be a purist, use a backlight or rim lights.

Another tip: colored gelled light on a black background will give you a much more saturated colored background than shining the light on white ever will. The only thing is that the flash has to see your wireless trigger, and in a large room or outside, the signal won't bounce so you have little room for error, like you do in a small white room. So I wouldn't put the light behind the subject where the signal won't reach it. If you put it to the side, you can skim the color across, giving it a cool gradient effect.