Replying to myself, here is a good page for explaining the differing "gamma"
settings on Macs and PCs and how to work around this when designing graphics
on a Mac using Photoshop:

http://www.cgsd.com/papers/gamma.web.html

Chuck Evans
Captura, Inc. 
(425) 803-6455 
http://www.captura.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeanne A. E. DeVoto [mailto:jaed(at)jaedworks.com]

At 10:23 AM -0800 2/8/2001, Chuck Evans wrote:
>What is the term for the difference in monitor brightness between Macs and
>PCs? I can't remember. Is it Gamma correction? At least in the "old days"
>(1995-1998) I remember having our graphic artist design graphics on his Mac
>that would appear much darker when viewed on my PC. The reason was the
>default settings for the "gamma" or whatever it's called.
>
>Can someone with a Mac tell me if this is still a concern in the wonderful
>new future of iMacs, G3's and G4's?

It is gamma.

Most PCs still use uncorrected gamma to my knowledge, so yes, it's still a
consideration. If you're designing on a Mac, you can change your monitor
gamma temporarily to preview, via the Monitors & Sound control panel. (I
think there's also a control strip module floating around that will do it
in one click.)

Not sure whether there's an easy way in Windows to switch gamma values.

The PNG format has the ability to store a gamma value, but that doesn't
help if you're using GIF or JPEG.

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