When viewing with a cathode ray tube monitor its not too bad as you can turn the brightness and contrast right up to levels that you simply cannot achieve with a flat screen monitor. Its the newer flat screen monitors that have the issue with contrast that require a brighter image. This is based on my personal experiences with both types of monitor.
With in excess of 50% of current PC sales being laptops and nearly all new desktop PC's sold having a flat screen, websites with old dark images will be next to useless in the near future.
If you are plonking images on a website using CRT monitors and you believe they are bright enough then find a PC with a flat screen and have a look for yourself!
If you turn the contrast setting and brightness setting down several knotches on your CRT monitor then you will see how the images look to us poor sods who have invested in the latest technology!
When it comes to DCC I do want to see right close up at the detail and at this time I simply cannot on any website!
Here is a perfect example of how it should be from Model Rail
Forum:-
I can see this and its one of my images. Fantastic!
Dougs Class 20 DCC conversion review at MRF also has pretty bright images.
Here is the Hornby M7 example that I cannot see from John's site and this is one of the improved
images:-
I can see the wiring and the chip but nothing else as its all a black mass. Maybe I don't need to see anything else however I cannot answer that question because I cannot see it! I cannot see where that red wire goes for example and there are some black wires that merge into nothingness.
I think John is using a flash and that may contribute to the issue. You need a good set of photographic spot lights matey if you are going to use macro settings.
This example should make the difference easy peasy for all to see.
You have a great resource there John and anybody who is converting a new Hornby M7 should drop by even so.
And the fact is the professionals are rubbish at this sort of photograhy aswell. DCC wiring images in Model Rail and other rag mags are equally useless!
I think its all a big conspiracy by DCC experts to not give too many secrets away!
Happy modelling
Gary