There is something wrong apparently with the monitor(s) I work with.
Can someone who sees my img as very dark adjust it accordingly so I can see what was wrong? My image is full of nice an d crisp details that I though would make it appealing.
It is very dark on my monitor. Are you able to look at it on someone elses computer to see if it looks different. I had the same trouble and I bought a monitor calibrator. It has made a difference. It could also be that if you are using a laptop that the back lighting is giving a false sense of brightness.
to me the image is quite dark, but i know that's relative. The man is completely black except a faint belt line. I also don't see any detail in the face of the beams as they are also too dark. The far wall at the end of the corridor is also completely black except for three small spots, two down low and a faint one over the left one.
For me this is much better. The original is dark and dingy, looks under exposed. The lightened one now looks brighter and clearer and looks like a well light station. It could possibly even go down a notch or two depending on the feeling you were wanting.
One thing I sometimes do is overexpose the photo in Photoshop and then bring it back (darken it) to where I want. Your original may have looked just fine to you at first, but your second edit shows you just how bright you can go while still maintaining your intended feel.
I think it has less to do with monitor calibration and more to do with how you were looking at the photo. We're always more forgiving with our own photos. I think our minds fill in blanks (dark areas, etc) without realizing it.
I struggled with this too -- now I calibrate. Since I'm using only LCDs now, I still struggle due to the backlighting of the monitor with dark shots. They are still 100X better than my aging CRT.
Anyway, I think the first shot is good, but for me it was very difficult to pick out the person. In fact, unless I looked close, all I could see where the legs.
The second one is quite bright. Not necessarily too bright, but definitely does change the feel of the image and I'm not sure it's what you were going for.
Fotomanns version is good. I'd possibly make it just a slight bit brighter, but it clearly shows the size of the space (what's missing from the dark version in my opinion) and the subject without it looking like there were headlights lighting the whole thing.
Try looking at it from another computer if you can.
Good luck! Colors / brightness is a pain in the butt when you're trying to make your images portable...
