Here's what I mean, Swade... If it's a difference of monitors, yours my friend is up past the legal limit, and is damaging your retinas as we speak! (smirks) This is just a one-click auto-contrast in Photoshop. It's too bright by anyone's standards, BUT, it's standardly bright as well. From an artistic standpoint, unacceptable. But the image you posted above would print as almost pure black... I'm not saying you SHOULD make it this bright at all, Ser Swade. Just pointing out how different our monitors must be, and letting you know that yours is seeming weird to me, given what Adobe has to say about it as well... Not trying to pull elitism either, my monitor isn't a big, fancy one. It's a standard kickass Viewsonic, which means "Sony" in English. But it goes up to 9600 degrees, and as far as I know is in tip-top shape. Tell me how bright this image is on yours, and compare with the one you posted in #1 here?