A very confusing issue for newbie

Hi all, I'm new to the forum. I used to lurk a wee bit and now, since purchasing my new XTi, I have to introduce myself and seek some opinions of the seasoned photographers.
My name is Lana and I've always loved to take pictures. I'm not really into photography although, some day I hope to take the million dollar picture. I think it could be this incredible Xti that does it too but first I have to figure something out.
Maybe you people can offer up some adivce.
Okay, I've taken some great shots with this camera and was nothing but happy until today. I took a bunch of outdoor shots that were so overly dark. Like there was just way too much saturation. Not dark as in shadows but dark as in too much vibrancy. Like overkill. Skin colors don't look the same as they do on th lcd screen. They look normal on the camera but not my monitor. I'm just viewing these in windows photo gallery.
So, I went back to my pictures that I first took with this camera and yep, they were the same way, I just didn't notice before.
I'm viewing these on my new monitor. All internet pictures and everybody elses pictures look perfect.To me, the colors are perfect. Except in my own pictures. I've tried all settings that I can think of. The pictures are pretty good, just the colors are too deep. So, just out of curiosity sake, I opened up corel and viewed them from there and they are completely different. They almost look perfect. They seem to match what the lcd screen on the camera shows.
How is it that the same monitor can change the pictures so drastically?
And the other question is, what do I do about it?
The other problem is my shots that are meant to be dark, look too light with corel and are perfect with windows photo gallery.
What is going on?
Which one is more accurate?
I know, so many questions but I'm pretty discouraged. I can't tell if I'm getting a good picture or not.
Okay, maybe some of you can sort this out and I would appreciate if you even try.
Thanks so much...waiting for your replies.
Lana

You should post some examples of the pictures, that way some of the more experienced users can pinpoint the problem. Hopefully the pictures have the exif intact, if not, try and tell us the details of the picture. What mode were you shooting in, aperture value, shutter speed, iso, white balance, anything else you can think of.

Well, you see, the problem with that is that you are only going to see it on your monitor. You won't see that my monitor shows me the same picture differently with corel and windows media. I would have thought that no matter what program I use to display a photo, it would look the same. How is it that I'm getting different "looks" to the same picture according to different programs.
I know this is all so complicated but I won't be able to show you the difference by posting the same picture twice. it'll probably look the same way in both of them on your monitor because I'm not changing anything to view it. I'm just pulling them up in 2 different programs and they don't look the same.

Hi Lana;
You have a great little camera and once you've figured it out I'm sure you'll be taking great pictures.
There are two possible issues here - 1.)the pictures the camera is taking (i.e. "the settings") and 2.) the pictures you are viewing (the monitor and "colour space" or settings)
1.) With the XTi, for now you should make sure you have "AWB" (Auto white balance) set for tone and probably "sRGB" for colour space and "Standard" for Picture style (which will give you average colour saturation settings and other values.
2.) This is a very complex subject and setting/calibrating can be difficult - this is why making sure your camera is set for sRGB will help at the beginnning. Hope this helps...
This is my opinion for you, others may differ...

I will try to upload a screen shot of both pictures so you can see the difference in them.

This is how the corel program shows my picture
(now this is not as good as what I get since it's only a screen shot)
<a href="http://smg.photo​bucket.com/albums/v14/​mypics/?action=view&cu​rrent=corel.jpg" target="_blank"></a>

This is what windows photo gallery is giving me. (notice how dark the colors are)
<a href="http://smg.photo​bucket.com/albums/v14/​mypics/?action=view&cu​rrent=Windows.jpg" target="_blank"></a>

Same picture, same monitor...why the difference? Does anyone know?

Try going here for detailed info: https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=296149.

Zoodles wrote in post #5680539
Hi Lana;
You have a great little camera and once you've figured it out I'm sure you'll be taking great pictures.
There are two possible issues here - 1.)the pictures the camera is taking (i.e. "the settings") and 2.) the pictures you are viewing (the monitor and "colour space" or settings)
1.) With the XTi, for now you should make sure you have "AWB" (Auto white balance) set for tone and probably "sRGB" for colour space and "Standard" for Picture style (which will give you average colour saturation settings and other values.
2.) This is a very complex subject and setting/calibrating can be difficult - this is why making sure your camera is set for sRGB will help at the beginnning. Hope this helps...
This is my opinion for you, others may differ...

Thank you so much and this definately helps. I read a little bit about some programs using color enhancement or something to that effect and I believe a calabration would be the only perfect solution but I'm not that big time at this yet for that. So for now, I wil use one or the other and have several printed and see which is more accurate.
That being said, I wonder if they would both print the same way or would they print different if you selected "print" from that program.
Anyway, I didn't understand what you meant by sRGB (red/gree/blue/??) Anyway, if you could tell me what that is, I'd be appreciative.
Thanks for your help. It's more what I was looking for than to have to read a novel to learn about what's going on.
Lana

I wouldn't use the Windows Picture Gallery to view your photos critically...using it to sort through folders to find a photo is fine, but I don't like the way it displays images. When I want to view my photos I use something like ZoomBrowser, DPP (Digital Photo Professional), IrfanView, Picasa, FastStone Image Viewer or Photoshop Elements 6 instead.

Samanax

You should also check to make sure you don't have exposure compensation accidentally set on your camera. That would cause underexposure.

also the LCD on the back of the camera cannot be used to judge exposure or color - only the histogram can be believed. Your cmoputer monitor may also be not adjusted accurately (.e.g too bright).