JPEG photos darker than when originally saved

[gamar]

Hi all.

Here's a troubling one. I've looked at JPEG files of scanned photos from 1999, and 75% of them are appearing MUCH darker than when originally saved. Is this a software issue, or has there been some degradation (on my hard drive...???) of the files?

I know for a fact that I have not saved and resaved these files, so the usual JPEG compression process isn't the culprit (I think...).

I'm using WIN98 on a Pentium 2 - 466.

Has anyone ever heard of this?

GA

 

[GRMorris]

I've never heard of this, the images should not (dare I say will not) change.

I would imagine that you are either dealing with a software issue, or your machine gamma/brightness settings are different.

Is this per chance a new machine?

 

[kippy13]

Hi,
This can be any number of factors.
1. A different graphics card or monitor.
2. Some one has changed graphics card or monitor settings since they were saved.
3. Bad memory(maybe they were exactly like that)

"Sometimes I do not know but I try hard"- R.F. Haughty 1923

 

[cbs604]

If you have benn viewing these jpegs on the same monitor since 1999, it may be that your monitor is on its way out.

Cheers,
Brodie

 

[MakeItSo]

It can also be the viewing software.
If you've saved the images with let's say Photo Editor and open them with PSP or Photoshop or ... now, they can appear different.
This has to do with color encoding then. However, normally it's only the colors changing (more hue, a bit more reddish or similar).
Check the histogram functions of your sw. Perhaps it is set to some strange default...

Cheers,
Andy

Andreas Galambos
EDP / Technical Support Specialist
(andreas.galambos@bowneglobal.de)
HP:

http://www.andygalambos.de

 

[gamar]

Thanks very much for responding, all of you.

It may be a different machine and monitor, although I need to check my records. What I'm understanding from your responses is that no colour info has been lost, so tweaking the gamma/brightness etc. settings for each photo using my current photo software and resaving (without compression) should do the trick.

I prefer not to change my monitor / graphics settings because my more recent pix are fine.

GA