Brightness issue: not sure if it is LCD monitor or what!

Hello,
I need some help here. I've taken some shots and edited them on my PC. They looked fine to my eyes. However they seem to show up quite dark using my office' workstation. Being unsure what's what, I went back and modified 2 images to gain some brightness. Now they look a bit bright on my own home PC but looked fine at work.
So I need your help to tell me which looks good. It will help me determine whether my home monitor is calibrated correctly or not.

pic 1:

IMAGE LINK: http://alai.zenfolio.c​om/img/v4/p611926750-4.jpg

IMAGE LINK: http://alai.zenfolio.c​om/img/v4/p483500834-4.jpg

pic 3:

#1 and #2 have too much clutter in the background even though the autumn colors are very nice and the car has too much of its surface hidden by specular highlights or being too dark.

#3 - Even though it has a cluttered background, it sort of becomes ... uh ... background and the central theme of the image is enhanced by the curved lane which leads the viewer into the scene. The slightly visible sun coming through the foliage provides subtle justification for the reflections on the car's surface without either the sun or reflections being obtrusive.

#4 - this is what happens when #3 is taken a bit later as the sunlight gets too bright. The timing was perfect on #3 and this one appears to be just past the peak only because the reflections seem to be too bright and the background foliage seems to look a bit washed out in comparison to #3. I think that seeing #3 first has biased my opinion of this one.

Bill,
Pictures 1 and 2 are the same picture, as are 3 and 4. The time of day is not affecting the differences between the pictures. It's PP that has done it.

Anyway, to the question asked, to my eye, and on my uncalibrated monitor, I think that the 1 and 3 are too dark... detail in the car itself is lost. Perhaps turn down the brightness on your home PC?

Hope this helps.

~Peter

I don't think that I can turn the brightness down much lower on my Samsung XL20. When I calibrated and profiled it last night, I set the maximum luminance at 75 cd/m^2 which is a bit lower than most people use for a calibration point (typically 85 to 95 cd/m^2).

The difference in what you and I prefer probably has more to do with personal preferences than with monitor calibration.

#'s 1&3 have more "pop" but they are dark, maybe a little fill light.

I know this is off-topic, as we're critiquing the shot and not your monitor calibration settings. but i agree with chauncey. the brightened up ones bring a little too much distraction from the background. one other thing i see is that the crop is too tight on the sides to take advantage of vignetting in pp.

Thanks for the feedback. So it seems that the general consensus is lightening up the image results in less pleasing image which means my office monitor is indeed calibrated on the dark side.

subjective...
How are you calibrating your monitors?
Are you using the same software in viewing the images?
If you have 2 calibrated monitors displaying the images in a different way you might not want to modify the images.

Regardless of how having the pictures darker may effect the feel of the image and make them more or less likable.

The brighter of each look much better from a proper exposure standpoint than the darker.