filmscanners: Photoshop 5 LE files darker than they look

["Peter A. Klein" <pklein@2alpha.net>]

Hello!  I'm a relative newcomer to the list, although I've been lurking
in the digest for a while.

I use a Nikon LS-2000 with VueScan.  I'm running a Pentium 166 (don't
laugh), 128 megs RAM, Win98 original edition.  At the moment, I'm only
posting photos on the  Web, both B&W and color.  (Printing will come
later, and I'm primarily interested in printing my own B&W.)  Up until
recently, I was using Irfanview to crop and adjust levels.  I recently
started editing LS-2000 scans with Photoshop 5 Limited Edition (PS 5
LE).  

My problem is that tones in PS 5 LE display about half a "zone" lighter
than in anything else on my system.  I've displayed a 20-step grayscale
side by side in PS 5 LE, Irfanview and IE 5 or Netscape.  Irfanview and
the browsers match.  On the darker half of the scale, PS 5 LE's step #3
matches step #4 in any other program, PS's step #4 matches the other
programs' step #5, etc.

This means that if I edit a file in PS 5 LE for Web purposes, it ends up
looking a little too dark on the Web.   This holds true for any file
I've tried, including several from other people's Web sites.  On both my
home and work computers.  Photoshop 4.01 Limited Edition does the same
thing (although the differences are slightly smaller).  This makes
editing in PS 5 LE a pain, because what I see is not quite what I'm
going to get.

I've gotten a variety of advice on the Leica User's Group, which boils
down to 
- Buy the full Photoshop version
- Adjust your midtone/gamma slider in "Levels" to be about 0.22 lighter
than you like, while still in 16 bit mode
- Ignore it, you can't tell how things are going to look on the Web
anyway, because of color space and gamma differences.

I think PS 5 LE is using either a default gamma, or a default color
space that you can't change.  Or both. Regardless, PS 5 LE is operating
in a different universe than everything else on my system, which is just
sending RGB pixels to the monitor unadulterated.  And unlike the full
version, there are no obvious adjustments to make everything the same. 
There's no Adobe Gamma, and no File, Colors menu.

At any rate, I really don't want to pony up $600 US for full Photoshop
at the moment.  I'd just like PS 5 LE to show things the way that they
look in everything else on my system.  If I really have to get the
full-version Photoshop for things to be acceptable, I'd seriously
consider Paint Shop Pro.  

I know I can't expect everyone will see my pictures the same way without
universal color management of everything.  But I should at least be able
to have consistency on my own system, which is adjusted so most Web
pictures look fine.

Any help would be appreciated.

--Peter Klein
Seattle, WA
www.2alpha.net/~pklein
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