Editing with External Monitor

Hey guys!

I'm having a problem with quality consistency when viewing my edited photos on different platforms. I edit with Lightroom 4 and Photoshop CS6 on a MacBook Pro. When I edit, I have my screen set to highest brightness and edit my photos to look color rich and on the bright side. I can get them to look good on my Mac display, however when I pull up these edits on the Windows computers at school (with Dell LCD monitors), they look really dull and dark. It seems that they have a certain luster on my Mac that I can't get them to retain for Windows viewing. I think it may have something to do with my MacBook screen being brighter than your average LCD monitor.

I should add that these photos that look dull are outdoor photos taken on a cloudy day, but I am able to get them looking good on my MacBook. And it's not a problem with color mode (I don't think)--I always convert to sRBG for saving.

I have two monitors here that I'm thinking about using when editing in the hopes that it'll solve my dullness problem. I have a VIZIO VX200E television and an Envision H1781 LCD monitor. I've tried out both with my MacBook, and I found that the VIZIO TV's colors are rich and bright, while the Envision is dull and blueish--kind of like the Dell LCD monitors I have in mind.

Which of these monitors would I be better off using? And any tips on what I might be doing wrong/how I can make my photos look rich and contrasty on both Windows and Mac?

Usually monitors are more precise, and almost always have higher resolutions. No matter what you choose, color calibrating your display will ensure higher consistency.

I'm a relatively new editor here though I do have a fair bit of experience with monitors and brightness levels. I think part of your problem may be that the Macbook that you are editing on is set to maximum brightness, while the Dell monitors you are viewing the photos on are probably somewhat less than that. I just checked the defaults for the 2 Dell monitors in my office and brightness is set to 75%. On the iPad that I do much of my rough editing on these days, the brightness is closer to 50%. Just for kicks, I took one of the photos from my editing queue from yesterday and edited it with the iPad brightness cranked all the way up. Once I had an acceptable edit, I dropped the brightness back down to 50%. The photo that looked great at maximum brightness was a bit more dull at 50% brightness, while one that was edited at a 50% brightness setting on the iPad looked only slightly brighter when the display brightness was cranked up to full. Here are the 2 examples:

Edited with display at 50% brightness:
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8507/8...74a303a5b6.jpg

Edited with display at 100% brightness:
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8519/8...2dcfc3105d.jpg

I also edit on an external monitor. A 27" LED monitor hooked to my MacBook. My issue is that my photos are rejected a lot due to over sharpening. The external display takes a bit to get used to.