Damien Symonds

Would it help me see it if you posted some 100% crops?

Hi Jennifer, there is no pixelation visible here. Where are you seeing it, exactly?

You'd hope that a calibrator would last for at least three years. Some may last a heck of a lot longer than that, but eventually they might be made out-of-date by software upgrades (eg Operating Systems). I haven't heard of one whose reliability has faded gradually. Usually they just stop working.

100 is definitely too high. 70 is fine.

The 11:15 thing.

Please hurry. You'll kick yourself over any images you send to people without that knowledge. No, this is really bad. Please read this again.

Lol @ "moody"

Lightroom is no different from Photoshop in this regard. Your export or save settings are entirely dependent on the purpose for which you're creating the file. You never "just export a file". It always must have a specific purpose. So, what is the purpose of the files you wish to export today?

Oh, Photoshop of course.

There's no "solving" it. It's very normal, especially for a laptop, that non-colour-managed interfaces make the photos look strange. If you got a nice desktop screen to plug into your laptop, it would be better.

Hi Wesley, I don't have any clever "tricks" for you. Just add a black Solid Color layer, invert its mask, then zoom in and paint with a very small hard-edged brush to fill in the space:

Yes, but you have to be REALLY sure you're only doing good, not damage, to every part of the photo. The reason we wait until Photoshop isn't because Photoshop is better at strong contrast, to use your example. It's because you don't add strong contrast until after you've completely manipulated the photo so it's PERFECTLY lit. Every inch of it, top to bottom, left to right. If you add strong contrast to a photo that's not quite ready for it, disaster happens. For example, a photo of three people ... two of them are well lit, but the third is standing in a tiny bit of shadow. If you add the strong contrast before you've brightened that person to match the other two, he or she suddenly goes from being a bit too dark to a LOT too dark. Hope this makes sense. It'll make a LOT more sense once you've taken the Levels Class.

This is what the Levels Class is for, Emma. Please don't wait any longer. In the meantime, can you post this one in the Raw Class so I can check your edit?

Very important reading: https://www.damiensymonds.net/2010/03/bit-about-soft-proofing.html https://www.damiensymonds.net/2014/07/proof-setup-working-cmyk-not-really.html

Oh gee, no, that's really bad. Press Cmd Y to turn proof colors off.

Yes, that's what I saw too. And it means that those files are completely useless. How disappointing!!!! Use your own photos.

All photos are RGB. Do you mean Adobe RGB? Or even ProPhoto RGB? https://www.damiensymonds.net/2010/11/colour-modes-vs-colour-spaces.html

Hmmm ... something doesn't add up here. Why do these file have a grey border around them?

Yep, that seems to work.

Great! Have you considered putting a border around the photos? Layer>Layer Style>Stroke Once you've added Stroke to one of the photos, you'll see it listed below the layer in the Layers panel. To copy it to the others, Option-drag it to the next layer, and the next, and so on. I don't know of a way to apply it to all layers at once, I'm sorry.

Hi Roleen, do you mind posting the photos you mentioned?

No, copy my numbers EXACTLY.

May I have a screenshot, showing your layers panel and the channel mixer window?

Yes, that's correct.

Good. Now walk away. It won't get any better than this.