Damien Symonds

"GIFT VOUCHER" is quite a bit darker now - is that ok? You had it very grey in your first design.

Ha ha! Yes, you're not the first person who has said that. One does become rather uppity about photos, doesn't one?

... but its opacity is lowered, yes? You need to create a replacement layer, at 100% opacity, to match it. And it must be made up ONLY of cyan and black, if at all possible. Maybe, if necessary, a tiny bit of magenta OR yellow, but NOT both. Text must be 100% black only. This is madness. The same as point one, you need to replace this with plain text at 100% opacity (none of this colour overlay nonsense) made up of ONLY black (presumably about 50%). No cyan, magenta or yellow.

Fantastic! Then most of the battle is already won. Ok, so I need some more info: What colour is the light blue "Color Fill 2" layer? I mean, what are its C M Y and K values? Likewise, what colour is the black text? What are its C M Y and K values? And what colour is the grey text at the bottom?

No, I mean the profile.

Have to go out for a bit. Will check in when I get back.

Yes, this is what I needed. They're dead right. So, the million-dollar question: Have you created this design in RGB or CMYK?

Thanks. You mentioned their recommendations for minimum text size. Did they also mention text colour?

Yes, that was my next suggestion too. Get a handful more prints done, and see how they compare.

Ok. This should be straightforward, but do you mind showing me a screenshot so I can see your design and your layers panel, so we can be safe?

Hi Sam, are you creating it in Photoshop?

Well, yes.

https://www.damiensymonds.net/desktop-monitor-brightness

Just to check - you've read this, right? https://www.damiensymonds.net/2015/02/moire.html

What? The lines should be nice and big at 100%. https://www.damiensymonds.net/2013/09/grabbing-700x700px-100-crop.html

And? Is it accurate? Is that why you're considering buying another screen? No, ABSOLUTELY NOT. That is a false setting, it's not real.

Hang on, break it down for me. There is no moire at 100% view in your master file, right?

Alas, sorry, all the channels are damaged. There's no fixing this one. You'll need to look for another photo from which you can swap that area of detail, if possible.

I emailed you.

Right. Sounds perfect. Yes.

Yeah, I'd say it's gone bad.

Can we talk about this first? How current is your monitor calibration? Your whole edit is weirdly dark.

Well, you'll have to sacrifice all those flyaways.

And may I see how you wish it to look?

No, it can't be done, sorry. It will always look cut out. In black-and-white maybe you could get away with it, by making the hair look very ("artistically") dark.