washed out monitor screen

[Ben Calwell]

I searched the archives, but didn't see much on this. I recently purchased a Dell laptop, which I use for photo editing. However, my pictures look terrible on the screen -- they're washed out looking. This is in sharp contrast to how they looked on my old HP laptop. On that machine, they looked great, pretty much matching what I saw on my D40's screen. I've adjusted the screen brightness down on the new Dell, but photos still look pale and washed out, even with adjustments in Photoshop Elements.
Are there other adjustments I can make to the screen? I'm thinking of buying an external monitor to use.

[Preston]

Ben,

You should be able to adjust brightness, contrast, gamma and color using the driver for either the on-board graphics (graphics controlled by the CPU) or discrete video card graphics driver (NVidia or AtiRadeaon) if your laptop has one.

Could you let us know which you have; either on-board or a discete video driver. Alernatively, you could give us the specs for your laptop. Once we know either of these, we may be able to give more detailed advice.

--P

[Ken Lee]

Get yourself a monitor calibration package, which consists of a sensor and software: there's no point in guessing.

[Don Dudenbostel]

Second the calibration system. These systems are cheap and simple. The only way to do it right.

[Preston]

Second the calibration system. These systems are cheap and simple. The only way to do it right.

I certainly agree with this. But, until Ben can obtain a calibration system, using the adjustments available in the grapics driver will get him close.

--P

[Jon Shiu]

Also try different screen angles and room lighting.

Jon

[pherold]

If you are viewing this screen with any kind of overhead light shining on it, that will tend to cause your blacks to be washed out. That's why the better displays come with monitor hoods. (They even make hoods for laptops.)