I was looking at my images on my mother's computer and they looked so much darker than they do on my own. I fiddled with the monitor and it was the brightness and contrast which were to blame. Her computer would have to have the brigtness and contrast set all the way up to be equal to mine when I have mine set at about 1/2. So I was wondering if there was a way to calibrate the contrast and brightness for the computer so when I post something in the gallery there will be a good chance you see it the same way. sorry for the wordiness: PapaBlueMarlin

Rule of thumb is to run the contrast at max, brightness so that you can see differences in the darker greys. Ideally, on a PC you should be able to see all 17 of the greys on the one I'm going to attach, with about equal differences between. Macs are going to have trouble with the dark end, incidently, because they run different Gamma factors. Going past that, programs like Photoshop include ways to calibrate your monitor to a standard, however it is very, very subjective. I used to cringe when I taught that part in my Photoshop course, walking around the room I could see about half the people were ajusting all wrong, sort of using the settings from Outer Space. Some just don't have a clue!

Attached Link: http://www.displaycalibration.com/

Here's what I use.

On the monitor I had before, things seemed a little darker so I would move up the brightness...until it was up all the way...what was happening was slowly over time..in fact so slowly I barely noticed, the screen was getting darker...finally it was so dark that I noticed I had to take images into a paint program and lighten them to see the details plus the eyestrain and it couldn't be adjusted any lighter or brighter. Note: my monitor was only 3+ years old, but it was on probably at least 80 hours a week, every week for those 3 years. I bought a new monitor... WOW, I was shocked at how light and bright everything was with the settings at less than half... I immediately redid some of my website graphics....LOL Moral of the story...her monitor may be getting old...so most people would probably see it the same as you do, or close....

yup crt monitors darken with age..it's a fact.however if things are getting bad and you can't adjust the monitor itself any brighter,try your advanced display properties,most video cards these days and for quite a while have included a tab to adjust things like color and brightness...so you may be able to crank it up further via the software there. i find the adobe gamma loader software that comes with photoshop a godsend btw...i run two monitors and this is the only way i can get them to look close to the same in regards to color and brightness..if you can get the phospher numbers for your monitor[try the manufacturers website!]so much the better...

I think her monitor is much more new than mine. But then again, I have photoshop on my computer and she doesn't so the gamma loader must be working on my computer.

If you didn't go through the calibration wizard (in Control Panel under Windows) you may find your system is running with a wildly inappropriate profile. Photoshop should have prompted you to run it when you first ran the app.

Calibration's always been a pain for me. One day things look good and the next I don't like how it's set. That link you posted was very helpful. I just changed viewing modes and now I can see all the grays in JimBurton's grayscale. Much appreciated!

:-)