Adjusting Your Monitor

One challenge in showing people photographs on the web is that everybody's monitor is set just a little (or sometimes a lot) differently. Many graphics professionals will use special hardware and software that measures the actual colours and intensities displayed by their monitors and then builds a profile that compensates for their unique characteristics. I do this myself so that the look I create on screen is the same look that appears when I make a print, but most people do not do this.

The most common problem, and the easiest to fix, is that the monitor's brightness and contrast are set in such a way that some tones cannot be distinguished from each other. The image below is of 20 small squares, each representing a different tone from very dark grey up to white, surrounded by a black border.

Try to adjust your brightness and contrast so that each of the twenty squares can be seen distinctly from its neighbours and from the border. You may have to look very carefully to distinguish the darker tones from each other. If you can do this, then you'll be able to see all the details in the images you find on the web. If you cannot see the border between these tones, then unfortunately you will be missing some of the subtle details in the images on your screen.