monitor brightness and web design??????/

monitor brightness is an issue i am having a hard time dealing with. i usually have mine around +50% because i play games that come out too dark with the brightness at the default 0%. im trying to design a website but when i finished i forgot that my brightness level was so high and when i turned it back to the default, everything dissappeared.

now, my question is, how do i deal with this issue when there is no way to know what the user monitor brightness levels are?

I have no Idea... Make sure the contrast on the website is good... anyways... I have a similiar situation only it is the reverse I have an old monitor and it is way too dark. So I can't play a lot of games because of this, even with the game's gamma all the way up... Also because of this when I go to some Digital Artist websites that like dark crisp (sometimes light) colors I don't see the whole image, and when I go to my friends house and look up the same site I see a lot of new stuff...I just felt like saying that... And that I need a new monitor....

You obviously need to get into a workflow habit of setting your monitor properly before doing work on your images. Which is more improtant to you...playing games or generating decent graphics? You need to make that call for yourself.

One thing I always do when saving images that will be presented online is to use ImageReady's previews to see how it'll look on both Macs and Windows machines. If necessary, I adjust the gamut of the image while I'm viewing the optimised version, trying to find a happy medium that looks as good as possible on both platforms. It's always a place for compromise.

Having said that, keep in mind that for every person viewing your images online, you'll find a different viewing experience, because of differences in hardware, software and preferential settings. Do your best, and hope for the best from those viewing your stuff.

which one of these looks best in your monitor?

www.killersales.net/1.jpg
www.killersales.net/2.jpg
www.killersales.net/3.jpg

well we need to know what you want it to be.. number 2 is the brightest and i can see the two guys pretty well.. number one and 3 are almost the same brightness on my screen but i can tell them a part. guys are kinda hard to see but you can make them out... if i was using that layout i would go with number one because it is inbetween 2 and 3, 2 is a bit to brigtht to have text over it and 3 is darker so its harder to make out the guys... i hope i made sense, any way for that layout i would say number 1

For easier comparison, those 3 images (just the 2 left boxes on the Black BG) should be sitting side-by-side all on the same page.

If all your darker colors look exactly the same on your monitor, then its time to brighten up your monitor. I usually go by numbers to determine how bright/dark an image is in photoshop. Use the eyedropper, if the RGB values of what you want falls into double or single digits for all three values, you're going to get a dark image. The higher the RGB values, the brighter an image is, which is a pretty good cross platform/monitor indicator on brightness of an image.

And the 2.jpg you have is the brightest and best looking of all three you're showing.