Damien Symonds

The photo looks all kinds of bad to me, not just his skin tone.

If it looks ok to you, then that's super, because if you know that your prints will turn out exactly the same as the screen, you know you will be happy with the prints. Conversely, if it DOESN'T look ok to you, and you know what your prints will turn out exactly the same as your screen, you can adjust it until you like it, and then you know you will be happy with the prints.

It doesn't matter whether it looks ok to me or not. Thankfully, personal taste doesn't play any role here.

If your screen matches your prints, everything is right in the world Once you take the Skin Class, you won't have any worries.

Yes.

They do match after adding magenta? In that case, they must also match without adding it?

Great. So have you talked to them about the collage?

Gosh, adding magenta in editing is REALLY bad. You've gotta get your calibration right. Are these the instructions you're following? https://www.damiensymonds.net/cal_CMD_pc.html Also, can you confirm you're working in the right colour space? https://www.damiensymonds.net/art_tscs000.html

That article references the X-Rite i1Display Pro, which is the big brother of your ColorMunki. Yes, it's better, but there's no reason why your Munki can't do a good job. Put that article out of your mind. Can you clarify this? It's critically important. Are you saying that your calibrated screen matches all your prints, except for the ones that you edit using the new techniques?

No, of course not. In this case, you would drag across the white and first two grey bars all together.

You don't click, you drag. If your version of ACR allows it.

Right. Therefore, they CANNOT be described as "great". Of course.

Then the next most affordable solution is to buy another monitor to plug in to your computer, and edit on that. What??? No they weren't!!!!! They were dark, you just said so.

Ah, crap. Well, it means you'll need to work in much brighter room light (while the screen is at its very lowest brightness setting) to achieve a visual match. Can you increase the brightness of your room lighting? And it also means you have very feeble basis to complain about this recent collage print. If you can't honestly claim that your previous prints match your screen, it's going to be a hard argument to mount. However, you should still contact them, of course, and see what they say.

Crap. So this raises a really important question, and I need you to answer it very honestly: Have you EVER achieved a print match with this screen? A really truly print match.

You don't have to reset. I think you're still reading the wrong instructions?

It can't be fixed, sorry. Just very carefully clone it out.

Trust me, it's a laptop. For all intents and purposes, it's a laptop.

Ok, so it's a laptop, essentially. As such, are these the calibration instructions you follow? https://www.damiensymonds.net/cal_S5P_mac.html

What? No, of course not. If your screen is too bright, it makes you edit darker to compensate. That's why your prints are dark. What screen do you have, and which Spyder?

How long has your screen been too bright? How long since you can remember actually checking with a print comparison?

Are you sure you're in good light?

This is something I don't know anything about. Is it a template made by your lab? Or is it some kind of generic template that can be used by anybody for any lab? I guess it goes without saying that there is always risk when using somebody else's template. Well, go ahead and recalibrate your screen with lower brightness to match those prints. For now, continue to ignore the collage, just concentrate on matching those prints.

Sorry to hear about this. The first thing you must do is dig out some previous prints from the lab, and make sure your screen still matches them. The second thing is to make sure your collage file was sRGB as usual. Did you design it yourself, or did you download a template to use?

We really need a bit of variety in the prints, if possible.