Damien Symonds

Have you tried it yet?

The thing about dodge and burn is, some people try to use it for major editing of their photos. That's not what it's for. It's only for fixing little areas, like bits of troublesome shadow, or double chins, etc, as shown. Major editing must be done with Levels as usual.

This one is the ONLY one to use. It's by far the easiest, and it rocks. Here is a tutorial on it: https://www.damiensymonds.net/simple-dodge-and-burn-tutorial.html There is also a demonstration in this video: https://www.damiensymonds.net/liquify-demonstration-cloning-dodge-burn.html I used it here: https://www.damiensymonds.net/double-chin-fix-without-liquify/ And it is most important when combined with the colour fix layer of the Handyman Method: https://www.damiensymonds.net/2015/04/the-handyman-method.html NEVER use the dodge and burn tools. They're far too clumsy - having to switch between tools, and settings, all the time is incredibly time-consuming. As you yourself described: It's absolutely not worth the hassle. And this one is the same - WAY too clumsy switching between layers:

Hi Jacquie, this is what you need: https://www.damiensymonds.net/art_tscs2.html

@OTOSPhotos?

I'm about to shut down for the night. I look forward to hearing if there's any improvement after you recalibrate.

Yes, but you can drag them wherever you want, yes?

See in this screenshot, just below the "Extend" option, there's a checkbox about "make this my main display"? You can choose which of your screens you want to be the main one - that is, the one with the task bar on. Try both and see which you prefer.

I don't know if they do yet. But you've had nothing but calibration failures so far with the laptop closed, and I know for certain that the default "Duplicate" setting is catastrophically bad, so that now that we've fixed that problem, let's try the calibration again.

By the way, you know those two rectangles that you now have? Make sure you drag them around to represent your actual physical workspace. If your laptop is "Screen 1" and it's sitting to the right of the desktop screen, make sure its rectangle is on the right as well. If they're one above the other, make sure you have the rectangles set up this way. I can't stress the importance of this enough.

Yes. You have two screens, USE THEM. Whichever one calibrates the most accurately (presently the laptop screen is winning that contest, but we'll see) is the one you edit on. The other one is the one you use for Bridge, or your folder, or emails, or whatever.

Now calibrate the desktop screen again. No it's not bloody ok!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I click here: Then here: Which brings me here: You should see both your screens displayed as two rectangles, like mine. If you're only seeing one rectangle with "1|2" written in it, that's VERY bad. Scroll down a bit, and change to "Extend":

I don't recognise that screen. You go to the Start menu, and hit the little cog icon to get to settings. From there you choose "System", and then Display. Is that what you did?

May I see a screenshot of that?

Correct

Screenshot please.

In the Control Panel. It's the Displays one, I think. I'm out at the moment, I'll check for you later if you haven't found it.

Oh, yay! That's wonderful news.

I think I might be a dense idiot. Can you make sure your Display control panel doesn't have your screens set to "Duplicate"? That would be catastrophic. They must be on "Extend". Also, which one is designated as the Number 1 screen?

That's a soft-proofing issue, and we might as well pursue that now. https://www.damiensymonds.net/2010/03/bit-about-soft-proofing.html

I'm not expecting it to look any different, to be honest. I would be flabbergasted if it changed the on-screen appearance drastically and made it look like the prints. But we need to check, to rule it out. The other thing I'm curious about is how the prints are from other programs. For example, if you save a photo as a PDF file, then open it in Adobe Reader and print from there? Or, save it as a Jpeg then open with with Windows Viewer (or whatever the equivalent program is on your computer) and print from there?

Well, if you try to ignore the skintones, is pink still the problem in other areas?

There must be something we're missing here. Do you have any prints without people (skintones) in them to compare?

Well, let's hope you can get a calibration that you love.