Damien Symonds

A home printer? Or a lab?

NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No no no no no. What your pictures look like on your monitor is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT unless they match your prints. Prints are the only standard that matters. Unless your screen matches your prints exactly, I forbid you to love your pictures on your screen. I hope you understand why I'm saying this? If your screen isn't accurate to your prints, you can never accurately edit for perfect prints, and you'll waste fistfuls of dollars with disappointing prints, every week of the year. The purpose of your screen is not to look lovely. It's to match your prints, period. As it happens, there is a relevant and important parallel to be made with your computer. Computers are not meant to look lovely on your desk. Their only true purpose is to be the best possible tool for your work. Sadly you, like so many thousands of other photographers, bought a Mac. It looks sexy, but it's an inadequate tool for your work (and ironically, you paid far too much for it.) Mac screens can't be adjusted when they are too warm or too cool for print matching, and so you're left with the calibrator's adjustments only, and as you've found out, those are often inadequate. For now, yes, get prints from a new lab and see if they're much different. Regarding calibration, just below "Native" in the white point options, you'll see one called "Daylight Temperature ...". Choose that, and it'll allow you to try an even greater range of colours than the listed presets. But it's not a magic bullet, sometimes you get odd results, not at all nice.

Ok, so what are you thinking? Do you recall them being a perfect match in the past? Or do you think you weren't so diligent in checking, and maybe they didn't match in the past either?

Hang on, whoa. Let's not change your whole calibration based on one recent (possibly dodgy) print or print batch. Concentrate on previous prints that you've been happy with, when checking your calibration.

Can you elaborate on this? What has changed recently?

Hi Rachelle, have you read the Troubleshooting part of my instructions?

Please don't keep me hanging! Can you post the closeup again, with the profile attached?

All I can tell you is that I've always been very happy with my simple, cheap tablet. I don't have any fancy extra buttons or anything, just a tablet and a pen.

You can't, though. Well, if you do, you'll have to do your skin work again.

Oh crap. And it's untagged. This is really bad. Always make sure the Profile box is checked when saving:

Hmmm ... what happened? The photo is suddenly much darker than before?

It's exactly the same in LR.

You see? It's not an insult, any more than it's an insult to tell somebody with dark skin that they're black. It's simply a statement of fact. If you don't restart your computer every one or two days, you are an idiot.

Also, this might interest you: https://www.damiensymonds.net/patch-tool-for-eye-bags.html

Yep, you HAVE to restart. Please do so, and see if the problem still exists.

How long has this problem existed? Can you pinpoint the day when it started? Also, just so we can be thorough, can you do this for me?

Great. Perfect. Now, talk to me about what you feel the skin needs. To my eye, there are just a few little spots on the forehead, and maybe one or two on her chin. I don't see anything else? Those spots are easily fixed with Dust & Scratches.

Hmmm ... is it giving you an error message? Or just ... nothing?

Have you read the Troubleshooting part of my instructions? Towards the bottom of the page?

Also, I noticed that you didn't take the 100% crop properly. Please read the instructions again.

Yes, this one is adequate. PLEASE don't wait too much longer to take the Raw Class. There is so much more I'd like to discuss about this photo. Oh CRAP! I just noticed a VERY bad problem. Please go here to fix it.

That's what I want to talk to you about. Go ahead and do your raw processing, then post the 100% crop again.

Yes, I know, that's the point.

If you go for a "Pen and Touch" one like this or similar, you'll probably find you want to turn off the touch functionality.

Oh gee. You haven't even removed the noise! Go back raw. https://www.damiensymonds.net/2010/07/raw-noise-removal.html What you need to understand is that Frequency Separation is a wildly over-rated, stupid, unnecessary technique. It's largely promoted and favoured by people who don't know how to edit. The latest "fad diet" of the editing world, as it were. Once you've re-processed the raw file, show me the 100% crop again.