Damien Symonds

A little underexposed, yes. Absolutely. Your screen is too bright, which is making your brain think it's ok to leave your photos too dark.

No, I'm pretty sure you DID mention that. After we finish Phase 1 (getting your screen correct during the day) we commence Phase 2 (getting your room properly lit at night).

To me, that looks like the best option, yes. You don't need to have the desk right in that corner. In fact, it would be better not to. But some way along that wall would be good.

It's best to have the window beside you if possible. Perpendicular to your line of sight with your screen.

Ok, great. Lustre is good. Time to move your computer to a different room with bigger windows, I guess.

What paper are the prints on?

Have they arrived yet?

It's all in the class: https://www.damiensymonds.net/trainingsharp.html

How close to the prints?

With much more ease than this white background, yes.

Then the edges of the fluffy scarf will be just as problematic. I urge you to abandon this idea while you still have your sanity intact.

Almost certainly yes. What are you changing it to?

@gelz?

Which is warmer? The screen or the print? Either way, yes, you should recalibrate. What did he mean, exactly? What was he referring to? No, we can never go down that road.

I know it's hard, but try to ignore black-and-white photos. BWs are really hard for labs to get right. Concentrate more on near-neutral areas of your colour photos. How do they look?

And what about the colour?

How did you go? Have you recalibrated?

And you/he followed my exact instructions here? https://www.damiensymonds.net/calibration-instructions/

And which calibrator?

Talk to me, @gelz. In what way does your screen differ from your prints?

I assume the key is using fill flash, but you really need to ask Kim about this.

Oh heck, I'm so sorry, I do that every time, don't I? Ok, do it this way instead: 1. Add a Brightness/Contrast layer. Don't make any adjustments to it. 2. Add a Solid Color layer - R0 G150 B255. Set its blend mode to "Multiply". Clip it to the B/C layer below it. At this point the whole photo will be a very rich blue/cyan colour. 3. Add a Hue/Saturation layer. On the Master Channel move the Saturation slider down to -100. Then go to Cyans and move the Lightness slider to +50. Then go to Blues and move the Lightness slider to -30. Clip that layer to the layers below. At this point the whole photo should be a fairly dark black-and-white, with almost no moire. 4. Add another Solid Color layer on "Color Dodge" blend mode. Use the values R92 G95 B112 (or thereabouts). Clip that layer to the layers beneath. Now the whole photo should be shirt colour. 5. Finally, go back to the Brightness/Contrast layer and mask it to the shirt only.

Oh yeah, it MUST be a new lab. https://www.facebook.com/groups/askdamien/posts/4143619009031601

With jpeg files you can't fix blowouts. So if you shot any where the sky is blown out, there's nothing you can do about that. Otherwise, you can edit them just fine, don't worry.

Channel Mixer layer: R 0, +75, +25, -6 G 0, +75, +25, -3 B 0, +75, +25, +6