Adjusting Gamma With IrfanView

To see how adjusting "Gamma" using Irfanview affects the image, download the original image, available on the Call Of The Wild stock photography cd "Discover America, Volume I," by clicking on the thumbnail view of the "normal" image to the right. A new window will open with the full size image, gamma1.jpg. Save the image to your computer desktop, and close the window to return to this page.

Now open gamma1.jpg in Irfanview. To adjust the Gamma, click on "Image", then "Enhance colors". An adjustment window with several color enhancement "sliders" will open. For now, ignore all but the "Gamma" adjustment. (See a screenshot here.)

Move the slider around and watch how it affects the preview image. Notice how decreasing the Gamma makes the image darker and increasing the Gamma lightens the image. Click on the "Apply to original image" button after making a change to preview the effect on the original image. If you click on the "Cancel" button, the effect will not be applied, and the window will close. To start over without closing the window, click first on the "Set default values" button, then on the "Apply to original image" button.

As you can see, adjusting the "Gamma" of the image allows you to control how the image looks on your monitor. While this adjustment cannot "restore" details that weren't in the original digital image, or were lost in the editing process, it can optimize the image for your monitor and bring out all the existing details in the image.

Continue to adjust the "Gamma" and "Apply to original image" until you are happy with the resulting changes to the image. Now click on "OK". The "Enhance colors" window will close. Now select "File" then "Save As", rename the file and click on the "Save" button.