Damien Symonds

I don't know, I'm so sorry. I've moved this thread into Brian's area so we can see if he has any ideas.

Ok, phew. So there must be an obscure power setting on your laptop that's clashing with Bridge somehow.

Gosh, that's weird. You might need to do this.

The BenQ software is a dud, ignore it. Surely SpyderTune will take care of that?

Gosh, how weird. I'd be curious to know, if you plugged in an external screen, whether it also dimmed.

Well, the usual thing. Start by going to Preferences>Performance, and turning off "Use Graphics Processor".

You bought a new calibrator?

It's very very rare to have to adjust contrast, you're right.

I hate to raise this, but we can't ignore the possibility that the Spyder just doesn't work any more. It's a bit old now.

What about the S5Elite instructions?

Yes, just.

Remind me which calibrator you have?

There should be no need to start from scratch.

Ah crap. The Spyder4 might not be able to properly cope with the modern screen technology. Sounds like the 178 might be more accurate than the 84, eh? Did you check and turn this off? https://www.damiensymonds.net/premiercolor

Good. Yeah, OpenCL (formerly called OpenGL) used to be the main culprit.

Ok, cool!

Thanks. So turn off "Use Graphics Processor" then restart Photoshop, and see if it helps.

If you'd like to show us a screenshot of your Performance preferences, maybe we can help a little more.

Yep, you're not the only one. It's very similar to the old black boxes problem caused by an update a few years ago: https://www.damiensymonds.net/2015/09/black-boxes-and-other-weird-behaviour.html So you need to go to Photoshop's preferences, and play around with the Performance ones. Try turning off Graphics Processor to start with.

There's a new flow chart to get from the beginning of Module 10 too. Only minor changes.

Yep, I discussed all that in Module 11.

Have you read the new Module 4 of the Raw Class that I published last week? It's still under "Detail" exactly as it used to be.

Did you see this post?

So the brightness is better ... but is the screen still too warm? I'm doing everything I can here, but in my bones I really do fear that you are going to need a new screen soon.

Do you have any other screens in your house that you could plug in to your computer and calibrate? Fix the room light first though.