Damien Symonds

Can you explain what your concern is, exactly? You seem determined to find faults with the monitor calibration process.

No, that's not the ColorMunki's role. Its role is to create the profiles for you. Use Windows, or the app, to switch between them.

Lightroom is utter shit, and I urge you to get a version of Photoshop or Elements pronto. You can choose any profile that's on your system with the little app I described in this article. (You can also do it with Windows itself, but the app is easier.)

And now that I think about it, I guess one of the most poignant reasons is that some people prefer to save their profile with the date (thereby gradually filling their system with out-of-date profiles) and some people prefer to save it without a date (thereby replacing the same profile each month). Software that automatically made that choice for us would only please half of us, if you know what I mean.

If you're calibrating dual (or more) monitors, you need to be able to name the profile to tell you which monitor it belongs to. This is important for checking (in the Display control panel) to confirm that Windows is recognising a profile, if you need to do any troubleshooting. If you're doing a series of calibration tests, you need to be able to tell yourself what settings you used. Remember that these settings won't always be in-system ones that the software could automatically pick up and include in the name for you. They might be settings you used on the actual monitor.

Because of all the things I just said.

Sorry, I don't understand what you don't understand.

No, not two separate systems. I mean dual monitors on the same system.

No no no. The cheapest range of calibrators do do that (name and save automatically, without user intervention) and it's a hassle. It means that you can't calibrate dual displays, for one thing. It also means you can't save profiles with different calibration settings while you're testing for best calibration results. Also remember that your computer is clever enough to remember different profiles for different monitors, even if you unplug them to use a different monitor for a while, then plug the original one back in. That kind of functionality requires unique profile names.

That's the profile that all your software uses to display colour correctly! It's true that YOU can't do anything with the profile, but you're not meant to. It sits in the system, and Lightroom and other colour-managed programs refer to it when they're displaying colour.

Hi @rickettss, are you referring to the last step of naming and saving the profile?

Sorry, there is no way to "urgently" learn the advanced features of Photoshop, or even the basic features for that matter. It takes years and years to get really advanced.

Great. This is probably because you turned down your lighting. What brightness target did you calibrate to? 80? 100? Something else?

I fear you're not following my instructions closely enough. You should never have landed on this screen.

Should be fine, yes.

Yeah, you're probably right. The first thing I need you to do is this: https://www.damiensymonds.net/2013/10/how-to-properly-re-install-spyder.html

How long, exactly? I'm trying to establish how long it's been since you last achieved a good calibration with the Spyder.

Thanks, I'm sure this answers the next question I was about to ask - whether you were confident that the Spyder itself is functioning ok. If you've used it successfully plenty of times before, that's great. What screen did you have before?

Are you still there, @Amanda A?

Thanks. And you were following my directions here?

Hi @Amanda A, just to check, do you only have the one monitor attached to your computer? Occasionally there can be complications if you're running dual monitors. Which Spyder is it?

What does your "someone" need help with, exactly?

It's here: https://www.damiensymonds.net/2011/09/cropping-tutorial.html I recently updated it, yes. Well, when I say "updated", I actually shortened it a whole lot, to just leave the most important part.

I went with Outlook, and it's going well. As it turned out we didn't switch our ISP after all, so it kinda didn't matter.

I'm about 70% sure that I'll be able to help you change the colour of smoke, in at least some of the photos you take. But that means I'm 30% nervous, of course. If you invest the time and expense, then it turns out that it's not possible after all, you and I will be frustrated and your client will be disappointed. The decision about whether to try it will have to be up to you. (I can say, though, that I'm 100% sure that it will be very time-consuming editing. So be sure that you're prepared for that commitment.)