Have you ever worked really hard on an image, posted it, and then looked at it from another computer only to discover that it looks much too dark on that person’s screen? Or much too light?

Here’s a quick-and-dirty set of steps to get your monitor at least in the right ball park for displaying images with the right brightness and contrast.

If you don’t see the image inline with this post (hello, facebook), you can view it on my photography website.

The strip shows a range of greys from pure black to pure white. You should be able to see a clear difference between each shade of grey, ranging from pure black (left) and pure white (right). Along the top of the strips are alternate patches of black and dark grey. If it looks solid black to you (look very carefully), your monitor’s brightness setting is too low. Increase it until you can -just- perceive the difference between the grey and the black squares.

Also note that you might need to adjust both brightness _and_ contrast (if your monitor allows each to be changed independently) in order for all of the distinct shades to be seen.

Also note the important fact that this is not going to help at all to correct color problems if your monitor’s color settings are off; it’s only for getting the right brightness. For the color aspect of things, I highly recommend getting a hardware calibration device (like Pantone’s huey or X-Rite’s Eye-One); ESPECIALLY if you want to sell prints of your work.