Damien Symonds

I forgot to ask earlier, how many photos are you comparing? You showed me this one a bit earlier. May I see the others? Do they show other parts of the spectrum, like trees and sky and stuff?

Sorry, yes, you did the right thing. Always use the top number. 5500 was too cold, I assume? How did 5000 turn out?

It's always interesting to see how wildly wrong the screen manufacturers are about their presets! Especially at the high end, wow. Which of these did you try using? I assume you would have tried the 5500 setting first?

Do you have a piece of paper like mine? https://www.damiensymonds.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/15i1dppc09.jpg

Ok, I'm back.

Ok. So let's ignore the laptop for a moment. Can you tell me about the external screen? How many presets does it have, and how did they measure? (If you could take a quick photo of the piece of paper where you jotted down the values that would help.) I have to go out for about an hour, I'll check in again as soon as I get back.

BUT ... if you tell me that you're confident that your lighting is as good (close to daylight) as it can be, that's great! I'm happy to move the conversation onto the actual calibration.

I'm not holding anything back from you, I promise. I just literally can't do any more from this side of the world. I would have to visit your house, and that's a flight I can't afford.

I absolutely want to help you further! But you haven't posted any more photos since you upgraded, so there's been nothing for me to help with yet.

Yes, as soon as you've shown me some more white balance posts, and at least 80% of them are right the first time.

I've reached the limit of the help I can give you about this. This is up to you. Your room light has to be nice and bright. Period.

I'm confused. These two statements seem to contradict each other.

Yes, it will be easy enough to change, but yes, there will be very precise masking involved.

Can you?

So if you turn the overhead light off and on while looking at the prints, you're saying their appearance doesn't change?

Since I have no idea what mauve is, yes, you'd better show me the dress.

Is this still your laptop we're talking about?

Well, I guess finding labs that print the media you want is an important starting point.

Oh shit, you have to ditch Millers. Millers/Mpix print to a different (warmer) standard than the rest of the world, for some unknown reason.

It means that your screen is naturally a bit cold, as is quite common with laptop screens. Yes, it's better if your screen's native temp is closer to 6500, but there's nothing you can do about that.

Gee, it might be hard to buy them any cooler than that. But try for a 5000 if you can. No higher than that.

This is one of the reasons I don't like lamps - the positioning is really difficult. It has to be close enough to cast enough light, BUT it can't be anywhere in your field of vision because it will mess with your perception, AND it can't be anywhere that will reflect glare on your screen, AND it can't be anywhere that it casts shadows on your screen. I don't know what to tell you specifically. You'll have to play around with positioning and see what is the least worst position. Not necessarily. If the existing bulbs aren't too old, hopefully you'll be able to find some printing on them to tell you what temp they are?

Right. So your lamps are too dim, but the right colour. The overhead lights are nice and bright, but the wrong colour Any chance of changing the bulbs in the overhead lights? If not, we'll just have to persevere with the lamps.

Do you understand the point of my question, though? Is your interior lighting the same as daylight?

No, I mean if you have to go to D50, it suggests your lighting is too warm. I know this can be a VERY hard question to answer, but if you took your computer outside, would the screen still be too cool compared to the prints?