Windows 7: Low colors in Windows Picture and Fax Viewer

On my computer, if i open a picture in the default "Windows Picture Viewer", my pictures look horrible because its not in full color or something... it kind of reminds me as if you were to save a picture in 16-bit colors rather than 32-bit, however, if I open it in Paint, it looks just fine... is this a normal thing in Windows 7? An example from one of my pictures is below, same picture, but the left is Paint, and the right is Viewer.
Edit: I guess on Windows 7 its called Windows Photo Viewer... I must have gotten the other name from Vista or something...


notice how grainy the on the right is compared to the left?

It's barely noticeable form the pics, but yes, it's there. Unless you already have the newest GPU drivers, update them.

Yeah it's pretty hard to see on here... haha, however some of them can get so bad that at first I thought there was something wrong with my lens or camera... until I opened it in Paint. And as far as I know the drivers are up to date... however, I'm planning to get a new video card soon so maybe that will take care of it.

Here is a really good example... notice the greenish hue above the dust from the sun in the right picture?


I'm a storm chaser so this is a real annoyance when you don't have the right colors showing up, haha.

Yeah, I can see it clearly.

Have you tried another software for viewing pictures? Like Windows Live Photo Viewer, Microsoft Office Picture Viewer, or something like Picasa?

Office Picture Viewer, Quicktime Picture Viewer, Media Center, and even IE all display it correctly.

Totally weird... I have never even heard that someone experienced such an issue. Perhaps you're better off with using one of the viewers that work. As to what's causing this, I personally have no idea :/

it could be a faulty monitor profile.

windows update gave me one once for my samsung monitor, and it affected the colours when viewed in windows picture viewer.

you can try 'uninstalling' your monitor from device manager, or type color in your start-menu search-box and have a look at your color management settings.

try setting things to default, and see what happens.

it worked for me, good luck.

No offense, but it makes no sense to me since it only happens in Windows' default Photo Viewer.

it may not make any sense to you, but that doesn't mean it's nonsense.

an old screenshot taken when i had my problem: on the left, photoshop. on the right windows photo viewer.

the op may not have the same problem, but i thought it was worth mentioning.

I see.