Damien Symonds

Are you saying you calibrated during the daytime?

Do you understand why I'm asking you all these questions? Do you understand that your room light (at night) is much duller than the daylight which would be coming through your window if you were editing during the day? And do you understand what a HUGE impact the surrounding light has on your screen-to-print comparison? If you're holding your prints in dim room light, of course it will seem like you can't get your screen's brightness low enough to match them. PLEASE tell me you understand.

No no no no no no no no no no no!!!!!!!!!!! It doesn't matter when you edited them, or even on which computer you edited them! As long as the prints are from your usual pro lab, you can compare them. What time of day is it there right now?

Ok, let's start with the daytime. Have you compared your screen to your prints in the daytime?

And do you do all your editing in the daytime?

Yes, it's good to calibrate in the dark. But that's not what I mean. I want to know about the normal light. The light you edit in. The light you're comparing the prints to the screen in.

I mean, how bright is your room light? It sounds like it must be much too dim.

Hi Amanda, what type of screen is it? And which calibrator do you have? Most importantly, how's your light? https://www.damiensymonds.net/2012/01/light-around-your-computer.html

Oh, great!

Oh no, you must never never never do that! That would be catastrophic. Always preserve every precious pixel your camera captures. To free up space on your hard drive, move the photos you're no longer editing onto two external hard drives. Do you own two external hard drives?

Yes, it's not a skill you pick up instantly. For now, you can simply copy mine.

Let me know what you find.

I'm so sorry mate, I don't know

Did you look through your other photos, to see if there's some broader background detail you can borrow?

How did you go?

What does it do?

What is it?

Well, one thing you certainly need to do is get some test prints at a different lab.

They are a little bit dark, but not

Oh yes, that's an excellent point, thanks for reminding me. It's VITAL to tell the lab not to edit your files in any way.

Definitely don't try any of those pixel edits. This is a replacement job for sure. Use a gradient, per this method. Download my PSD

Yeah, I don't think you should do that.

Oh, yay!!!

No, that's always been there. But as you say, nobody ever uses it, because we don't have to. I'm stumped, sorry. I don't know why this would be happening.

I'm not aware of any setting which controls that. It sounds more like a glitch to me. Can you click and immediately drag to make a new selection ok? Is that functionality still working?