Use this eleven step gray scale to properly adjust your monitor to view the photos in these galleries as they were intended. This is of particular importance with astronomical photographs. Adjust the brightness and contrast so a continuous range of tones are visible, especially on the far left and right of the scale. For most CRT monitors, you will need to have the contrast at 100% and reduce the brightness to achieve the desired effect. For most LCD monitors, you will need the brightness at 100% and reduce the contrast so there are no washed out light tones on the right end of the scale. For PCs, the gamma should be at 2.2. If the gray tones on this scale are not neutral, you should adjust your gamma.

On laptop screens the contrast and brightness are often highly dependent on the viewing angle of the screen. Normally the best viewing is with looking straight on to the screen.

The Color Temperature of the display should normally be set to 6500K or sRGB. Too high a color temperature will result in a blue cast to images and too low a color temperature will result in a yellow cast.

CLICK THE THUMBNAIL BELOW FOR A FULL SIZE IMAGE OF THE GRAY SCALE