Damien Symonds

Too-warm room lighting makes prints look too warm, which makes the screen look too cold in comparison.

Yes. But gee this is pointing towards too-warm room lighting.

Ok, now follow the troubleshooting to try to correct the coolness.

The prints. Only the prints.

Correct. Treat this as a completely new calibration.

Great.

No, right now I want you to calibrate the laptop screen. Let's see if it gets any closer. If the problem is exactly the same, that would suggest the calibrator is faulty.

Sorry, by "vivid" I meant "oversaturated". Ok, and you've followed the troubleshooting part of my instructions to try to deal with this?

You can't keep saying that. You're approaching this all wrong. You can't say "The prints yada yada yada". You MUST express it in terms of the screen. The screen is the variable here. So, to clarify, the screen is too cold, and its colours are too vivid?

Well, I think it's definitely something we should explore. Is it daytime where you are? Can you let some light flood in through the windows and compare your prints in it?

Well, how would you describe the light in your room? It should be as bright as if you had the windows open and daylight flooding in.

I'm really sorry, I know I answered this thread when you posted it, but my reply doesn't seem to have posted. I tried everything I could think of, and found nothing that helped, I'm so sorry.

Are you certain your room lighting is not too warm? That would exaggerate the problem.

Ah, ok, never mind.

Is Native a long way off?

It's always great if you can use Native, but that's not always the case. I would be astonished if it got them all. Just choose the one that looks best. Calibration will deal with the rest of the colours. For now, just whatever roughly matches the prints. Later, during calibration, try 80.

Oh, it would be a good idea to manually lower the brightness to a reasonable level before starting those other judgements. Remind me the full list of the colour presets that your screen has?

Right. I fear that your screen is too bright, you see.

Terrific! Good lab. So, is your monitor calibrated following my instructions here? The Spyder's own instructions are woeful.

Thank you. And which lab do you use for your prints?

Which Spyder do you have?

No, that's not right. It's still dreadfully dark.

I don't know, sorry.

Well gosh. I wish we'd checked this right away. From your wording in your original post, I (foolishly) assumed you'd already done so. Yes, calibrate again. Compare ALL the prints you have.

Right.