digital photos on PC monitor too dark

(Warning: I'm PC-proficient, but new to handling digital images.)

I recently bought a Canon A75 digital camera. I'm very happy with it, but
the photos that are displayed on my monitor are too dark. The images
displayed on the camera's LCD screen are great -- very true color, and very
good brightness.

When I download the .jpg photos to my PC and display them they appear too
dark. I have a Samsung Syncmaster 700. I'm very happy with it and it has
plenty of brightness displaying other things. [If I just adjust monitor
brightness, everything brightens (not just the photos -- obviously), which
is not what I want. Also, doing so does not reveal more photo details, as
does happen if I use software to increase the brightness of a photo.]

If on my PC I 'manually' increase the brightness of any given photo I can
make the photo look fairly close to what the camera shows on its screen.
It's pretty consistent that if I increase any photo's brightness by +12 (on
a -50 to +50 scale) it approximates what I see on the camera's LCD. I don't
want to permanently edit the brightness on each photo as I suspect the
original .jpg is pretty true, and I want it to remain original should I
switch to another PC in the future.

-- What is the cause of the photos appearing too dark when displayed on my
PC?
-- Is there a setting (registry?) that would adjust the brightness by which
these images are displayed?
-- Does 'Color Management' come into play here? (If so, is there a way I
can get/acquire or build an .icm that would resolve this?)

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help.

Absent a two monitor setup, you really need to choose between seeing images as
they really are or optimizing your monitor for everyday use. There's not much
of a middle ground. It's also an open question how accurate any camera lcd is.

This link was posted recently, which might be of interest to some:
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://purfectimage.home.mchsi.com/calibrate.htm." target="_blank">http://purfectimage.home.mchsi.com/calibrate.htm.</a> Not too useful for an A75
owner though.

BobAtVandy wrote:
 > (Warning: I'm PC-proficient, but new to handling digital images.)
 >
 > I recently bought a Canon A75 digital camera. I'm very happy with it, but
 > the photos that are displayed on my monitor are too dark. The images
 > displayed on the camera's LCD screen are great -- very true color, and very
 > good brightness.
 >
 > When I download the .jpg photos to my PC and display them they appear too
 > dark. I have a Samsung Syncmaster 700. I'm very happy with it and it has
 > plenty of brightness displaying other things. [If I just adjust monitor
 > brightness, everything brightens (not just the photos -- obviously), which
 > is not what I want. Also, doing so does not reveal more photo details, as
 > does happen if I use software to increase the brightness of a photo.]
 >
 > If on my PC I 'manually' increase the brightness of any given photo I can
 > make the photo look fairly close to what the camera shows on its screen.
 > It's pretty consistent that if I increase any photo's brightness by +12 (on
 > a -50 to +50 scale) it approximates what I see on the camera's LCD. I don't
 > want to permanently edit the brightness on each photo as I suspect the
 > original .jpg is pretty true, and I want it to remain original should I
 > switch to another PC in the future.
 >
 > -- What is the cause of the photos appearing too dark when displayed on my
 > PC?
 > -- Is there a setting (registry?) that would adjust the brightness by which
 > these images are displayed?
 > -- Does 'Color Management' come into play here? (If so, is there a way I
 > can get/acquire or build an .icm that would resolve this?)
 >
 > Thanks in advance to anyone who can help.
 >
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