I have a Toshiba PDR-M5. I love the camera, but when I download the pics they all look slightly dark. I have to use Image Expert to adjust the brightness on every picture. Is there something I can adjust on my camera so I don't have to "tinker" so much? I get the same results on flash pic indoors and outdoor pics. I use the auto mode.

-- Deborah Cortez (blueyz6315@aol.com), June 26, 2000

Answers

I have a Pdr-M5 and just got a new Pdr-M70 this past week. I've viewed most of my M5 images on a laptop and find that I need to boost the LCD brightness a bit for viewing, but that most print fine without messing with them. The M70 images print even better due in part to the increased resolution. The M70 images I've taken so far seem to look even better(as you'd expect), but are still a bit dark on an unadjusted LCD. In fairness, that's to be expected on an LCD since the dynamic range of the display is considerably less than that of a typical image. It's very tough to adjust the display because you either blow out the highlights or lose the shadows or settle for something in between. Are your monitor's brightness, contrast, and gamma adjusted to any particular standard? The better graphics programs have some method of helping you calibrate your monitor.

In automatic mode there's not a lot you can do, since you really don't have any in-camera adjustments. Have you tried switching to the manual mode and adjusting the white balance and exposure compensation to match the lighting conditions? It really can make quite a difference, but doesn't just make things brighter.

If you need to apply the same changes to all your images, then you could use something like Photogenetics to do it for you in batches. Have a look at: http://www.imaging-resource.com/SOFT/PGEN/PGEN.HTM It's a pretty impressive program that can make startling changes to your images. Worth a look.

Have you installed the Ver. 2.08 firmware upgrade available from Toshiba's site? It's well worth it, only requires a minute or two to do once you have it downloaded, and isn't a very large file to download. You do need to have USB, a flashpath adapter, or some other means of copying the file onto a smartmedia. You can't do it with a serial port.

Good Luck!

-- Gerald M. Payne (gmp@francomm.com), June 26, 2000.