Hey all, I have been getting into photography for the past 3 years, and bought a new MacBook Pro with CS5 a year or so ago. I'm gradually getting the hang of the CS5 workflow and editing features, but getting extremely frustrated when I go to print photos because they're coming out way darker than on my screen. I guess the Mac display is adding some brightness, because they even look slightly dark when viewing on a PC (though not as dark as in print). I tried compensating for this by editing with the monitor brightness turned down a bit but I'm still not getting good results.

My question: Is it worth buying a hardware calibration solution for a laptop, or should I be investing in a standalone LCD monitor for doing photo editing? I guess another way to state that would be, will I ever be able to get a MacBook Pro screen to look like my prints, or is that a futile endeavor?

Thanks!