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SandmanNinja · March 10th, 2008

Good day,

I've attached 4 graphics with this to illustrate my problem:
beer_bottle_0005a.jpg - no extra Gamma - looks washed out in 3DS but fine elsewhere
beer_bottle_0005b.jpg - Gamma 2.2 applied - looks ok in 3DS but too dark elsewhere
screenshot-photoshop.jpg - side-by-side in Photoshop cs2
screenshot-ramplayer.jpg - side-by-side in ram player

I render a scene in 3DS Max 2008 (Mental Ray, Log Exposure Control) and it looks a bit washed out.
I save it as a .HDR and take it into Photoshop CS2 and it looks fine. Well, not perfect, but not nearly as washed out as in Max.

I view the image again in Ram Player and what looks fine in Photoshop and ACDSee looks washed out in Max.

I take the .HDR back into Photoshop CS2 and apply a Gamma of 2.2 (I read that somewhere - I think a V-Ray tutorial from Gnomon that tried to explain the Gamma correction). It looks too dark in Photoshop and ACDSee, but looks fine in 3DS!?

I suppose my ultimate, primary goal is to have a final image that will look good on the web and a secondary goal of looking good in print.

I've gone to my Preferences -> Gamma and LUT tab and a Gamma of 2.2 is applied.
Should I not be using it? I don’t recall turning this option on, so I assume that Max shipped with it turned on.

Thanking you...