I have a Canon Rebel XT and it seems like almost all of my pictures are just a little too dark for my liking, especially when on Automatic or Program mode.. When editing with Gimp, I use the Levels tool, and I used to always drag the white slider over to the left until it was just before the histogram starts rising. This worked in most pictures, but sometimes got the white looking a little unnatural. Then I discovered the middle slider, which is referred to as the gamma slider or middle gray slider. When adjusting this slider only, my pictures look much closer to what I'm expecting the camera to do. How can I get the camera to adjust to always take with the gamma look that I'm after? In GIMP I change it from 1.0 to 1.15-1.22 almost every time.
From my understanding those three sliders represented the highlights mid-tones and shadows . id like to learn more about that if there is more to learn so i am afraid i cant help you there. As far as the reason why your pictures are too dark has to do with exposure when taking the picture.Try shooting on manual and play around with the aperture and shutter speed till it is to your liking. Then again what you set your camera settings on depends on the lighting conditions of what and where you are shooting.
@canon4life Thanks for the reply. I know I can get around it by going into a manual mode, but I would like to find a way to make my camera change how it automatically exposes the pictures to be more what I'm wanting it to do. Maybe I just need a new body. I've tried Program mode and set it to overexpose by 1/3 or 2/3 stop by still not quite what I"m looking for.
could it be your monitor and not the camera? The difference between my work computer and my home lap top is noticeable in vividness and brightness. And remember I lean towards being blue green color blind so it really may not be the camera at all. Also a lot cheaper to fix than a camera.
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But like Paula said, you should consider your monitor first. Maybe even calibrate it with an EyeOne Display or Spyder3.