I need some help from you all. First off, I am not asking about if you like the scene or not. This is simply a brightness of the image question. :)

I did this scene a month ago and sent a copy to somebody else to look at it. Well they said it was way too dark. I sent it to another computer in my house and it is washed out and bright.

Looking at this pic, it is a dark scene but you can make out all the textures just fine, even in the shadows behind the board and the statue(darker but just light enough to be visible). The wooden wheel is easily visible but you can't make out the details on textures on it for the most part. The wooden boards have an easy to see grain and you can see rust on the lamp.

So on some computers it is really dark and can't see many of the darker details. On another computer is is way too bright and you can see it everything too well.

So I know this is a gamma and brightness issue. My problem is, who's computer is the most common look? I ask because I designed something for a contest and I found it looks nice and sharp colors. But when I look at it on the other computer it is totally washed out. There is no way anybody would pick the washed out scene because it just looks blech. :)

So I need your help to see which way I have to design my images. Do I need to make them darker and richer, or brighten them up.

Thanks in advance! :)

I don't think I can help, cause I just love this, it is coming out terrific for me. Sharen

I can see some details in the shadows, but they are still shadows. The image looks fine to me.

look's fine to me.

I checked on two machines and it looked fine on both.

For me, the image looks too unified blue. That's maybe what you wanted to get. But if not, I would like to see her left side (right side in the image) a little more lith then the other side. Just a little. Maybe in adding a qudratic spot to give more shadow (and light) to her face and body on the side the light is coming from. Just my 2 cents:-) Guitta

Thanks all! I appreciate you taking the time to look at it. :)

I think the brightness levels are just fine. There are a few utilities you can use which will sync up the monitors you have, at least as much as possible. One is called Colorific. You can set your monitors to use True Internet Color, or any number of other presets, so that you can standardize brightness levels and color balances. We've been using it for years, across several platforms and MANY different monitors, and it seems to be the best solution for this type of problem.