pictures are too dark - monitor?

I have a Hansol 710E/710A/710Aplus monitor and use winXP. photos (jpegs) are always too dark and need brightening, whereas when sent to friends (over messenger or email) they are fine. help?

 

Sounds like a bad monitor. There are only 2 places where you can increase the brightness. On the monitor itself, or you can try increasing the brightness on your video card through the drivers. (Right click on your desktop, select properties, select the settings tab, click advanced) Somewhere in there you'll be able to increase the brightness/contrast/gamma for your video card. Beyond that, there's nothing you can do besides buy a new monitor.