Damien Symonds

Yeah, it really sounds like you need better room light.

@cathm, talk to me about your calibration problems. In what way does your screen not match your prints?

I'm going to show you what I did, and you can play with the settings to your taste, and let me know if you like the outcome. Download PSD

Gee, now I feel embarrassed, because Hue/Sat was what I was going to suggest first. Was yours anything like this?

https://www.damiensymonds.net/scanning-guidelines-for-old-photo-restoration.html

Ok, let me know when it arrives.

Are these prints from a pro lab?

You have to stop getting new prints! You just need to match the prints you already have. PLUS, you need to have more photos than just this one. You need a range of photos.

Sorry about my delayed reply. I'm having some mean internet troubles here this morning. Yes, you absolutely should be making your screen darker to match your print. Is that what you've done?

Ok. DEFINITELY don't do any editing until you've got the prints, and made sure your calibration is ok.

I desperately need to know if you have a set of pro lab prints there, to verify the calibration result.

PLEASE answer the question. When you calibrated, did you follow my exact instructions?

Is the answer "no"?

Hi @Adventurechic, can we talk about your calibration first? Are you following my directions here?

I've never found a way, sorry. If you find one, can you let me know?

No, you have to ignore that 120 nonsense. I don't know why they persist with that! I'm so sorry I don't have instructions for the 4 Elite. Have you tried following my instructions for the 5 Elite? They'll be in the ballpark.

Are you certain of that? Where are you looking? The reason I ask is this: https://www.damiensymonds.net/icc-profiles

Yes, and make sure they DON'T do colour correction on them.

Yes. You think the prints came back dark, but actually the prints came back correct. Short of a lab cock-up, which is rare, prints are ALWAYS correct. The disparity is because your screen was too bright.

Zero is fine. It's not common, but it's not unheard-of either. Does zero give you a print match?

https://www.damiensymonds.net/what2buy_cal.html

Online and other monitors are meaningless. ONLY the print match matters. Do you still have them?

Right. So you're not calibrated at all. Calibrate again.

That kind of stuff is minor details. I just wanted to reiterate that the heart of this look is the aggressive midtone darkening layer, with the "Blend if" sliders being used to take it off the bright end.

That's ok, just bring in the white slider on the RGB channel on that final levels layer I just gave you.