Damien Symonds

And is your computer set to "Vibrant (Full)" as well?

If you choose "Display Settings" (just below the Dell PremierColor setting) what does it tell you the profile is?

Can you show me a screenshot of that?

In that case, you'll need to do this: https://www.damiensymonds.net/art_vista.html

Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves. First, let me know what happens with this profile-transfer experiment.

Great. So copy that, and paste it into the same folder in Cara's computer. Then restart Cara's computer. When you've restarted, you should go to the "Color Management" control panel in Windows. That control panel should open on the "Devices" tab by default, and the "Display" should be the chosen device. Then you can look down and check that the Spyder profile says "(default)" beside it. If so, you can start to play with files and see how they look.

Right. But probably only one called "Spyder"?

Not a dumb question at all. Your profile should be in this folder: C:\Windows\System32\spool\drivers\color Can you check?

Hmmm ... it's actually quite lucky that the S3E even works on one of the computers. It's very old tech, and your computers are very new tech. Have you tried copying the profile from your computer to Cara's? It's not an actual solution, but if it helped at least to a degree, it would give us some clues as to how to proceed.

Hi Amanda! Hope you've been getting some rain up there. Remind me which Spyder you have?

That's more like it.

That doesn't look quite how I expected. Are you sure you have the layer blend mode on "Color"?

Oh, phew! So now just invert the mask of that layer, then paint on to the problem areas with a 5% white brush.

Hang on ... these are transparent files!!! Shit, sorry, I hadn't opened them before now. In that case, just use the Magic Wand tool to click in the space.

Don't keep me in suspense, @Lorie!

What? The hex one is much much much much easier, because it's straight lines!!!

Thanks. In that case, I'll be very very interested to hear if this method works for you, since other people with the newest CC have been reporting a problem with it. Add a blank layer, then with your eyedropper tool choose some of the nice rich skin colour from her upper cheek. Then add a new "Solid Color" layer of that colour. Change that layer's blend mode to "Color". At this point the whole photo should be that colour. But some people have reported it turns their whole photo green instead. Can you let me know what happens to yours?

Hi Lorie, can you remind me which version of Photoshop you have?

When you say "hand draw a mask" ... I fear you might actually mean that literally. I fear you're not using the Shift Key?

Oh yeah, they do that. Well, tell them you'd be happy with "near enough is good enough" and you'd happily accept today's profile.

Well, "best" is a moving target. If "best quality" is the goal, then it must be a vector file like EPS or PDF. But the average programs like email and Word and stuff might struggle with those. So yeah, PNG is probably safer, from a "best usability" point of view. In which case, no, I can't think of any special considerations.

What file format does the eventual file need to be?

Can you give me the back-story? For what purpose are you masking them?

If it's only trees and grass, that's likely to be a soft-proofing issue. Have you tried soft-proofing with your lab's profile?

This can happen if the brush tool is accidentally on a blend mode other than "Normal". Next time this happens, make sure you check that in the Options bar. I'm so darn nervous about everything you're describing. I trust you're keeping frequent backups of all your data, in case the worst happens suddenly?