Damien Symonds

Yes, it MUST be sRGB.

Oh, phew! Ok, let me know how you go with the lights.

Oh, sorry. https://www.damiensymonds.net/color-space-settings-for-the-lightroom-user/

No, in the bottom left corner of the Photoshop screen, remember? Where it said "Untagged" before.

See where it says "Custom" at the top? That's bad. Pull down that menu and put it back on "North America General Purpose 2" the way it should be. However, that still doesn't explain all those untagged images. Did you re-open one of the raw files from Lightroom to see what it says?

As I said in this article, your choice of calibrator depends on how closely your prints match your screen before calibration. But the trouble is, we can't know THAT until you have good light in your room. Right now, it seems like your screen is a dreadful mismatch to your prints, but a lot of that is probably the lighting's fault. Once you badger your husband into getting better lighting, you might find that the mismatch is nowhere near as b ad as you thought; in which case you only have to buy a cheaper calibrator, which would be great! Cool. Can you quickly go to the Edit menu and choose "Color Settings", and take a screenshot of that window for me?

I don't know how it happened either. I guess you'll need to open the file from Lightroom again and see if it has its profile this time. The best practice is to get a good desktop screen and plug it into your laptop. (This is best practice for all laptops, whether they are touchscreens or not.) Good desktop screens are very affordable nowadays. Or maybe you've even already got a spare screen in your house that you could plug in? Anyway, for now, let's just do our best with what you have. No calibrators come with disks any more, for exactly the reason you stated. The software all comes from download. But yes, even if you could access the software for your Munki, it wouldn't work on the new touch screen technology of your new computer. So a new calibrator is on the cards for you. Great! Keep on his case about that. It's impossible for a photographer to work properly under dim and/or yellow lighting. Hmmmm ... can you tell me which version of Photoshop you have?

Hi @reneefoto, there's a whole lot going wrong here. Let's try to break it down. sRGB is the correct setting, but somehow your photo has lost that setting. It's got no profile attached at all. I don't know how that happened. Do this check and you'll see what I mean. Secondly, you're using Lightroom. Lightroom is a steaming pile of shit. PLEASE take the 30 day challenge. Thirdly, your computer has a touch screen. They are really really terrible for editing. Is it too late to take the computer back? Fourthly, you don't have a calibrator yet. You must get one right away. Also, possibly a fifth point, your room light might not be any good. Please read this.

I forgot to ask - what kind of paper was the book printed on?

I know the time difference makes our conversations very elongated, and for that I apologise. I see that your files have arrived in my inbox, but I'm exhausted, so I'm turning in for the night. I'll take a look at them in the morning.

I was wondering if you could send me both the ebook and the print PDF to take a look at? https://spaces.hightail.com/uplink/BellePhotography

100 is the screaming maximum. Most people are more like 80-90, and some as low as 70.

Yep, that looks similar to others I've seen.

Have you explored "The Orton Effect"?

I would say there are some areas of normal colour, surrounded by a lot of areas of reduced colour. Therefore, the normal colour looks "vibrant" in that context.

Really? I would have said the style was characterised by removal of colour.

Gawd that's nauseating.

Yes, I think so. If there was more shadowing I might have been able to leave Blue at 0/0/100/0. I made it.

I'm not sure what you mean, sorry. I didn't do anything like that. I think this method would work for a lot of photos; but again I emphasise there was no blue channel shift. I simply used the blue channel to make the black-and-white version of the photo, which is then used on Soft Light mode as a form of D&B.

Unexpectedly dark printing is first and foremost the result of a too-bright screen. What luminance target do you calibrate to?

The instagram subject has a more shadowing on her than your subject (particularly when we compare arms), but I'm pretty sure the blue channel is the key: Download PSD

Hmmmm ... that might make it tricky.

That might be a challenge for you? Do you do any photographic printing? Do you have any pro lab prints you can use?

Cool. Have you followed my directions here?

I see in your profile you list X-Rite under calibration device. Which X-Rite do you have?