Pictures look bad on one computer and not the other

My desktop computer (windows 7) shows some pictures (generally photos with a lot of white or bright parts in them) really badly, its like theyre 256 colors or something like that. I thought all my photos had been saved wrong or something then i looked at them on my laptop (vista) and they were all ok. Ive tried viewing them in several diff programs and they all look the same.

I updated my monitor driver and my video card driver, im not sure what else to do! I dont know if its the OS, the video card or the monitor (or something else??) I installed windows 7 recently (2 months ago i guess) and i hadnt looked over the pics til now so i dont know if its been like this the whole time or if its a new problem. Same problem with viewing these same pics on the internet (had some saved to my myspace page - they look fine on my laptop and wrong with this desktop) so im sure its not the way they were transferred to this computer, its definitely a viewing problem.

video card: radeon 4870
monitor: viewsonic vx2235wm

its set to 32 bit, and most images look fine, it only shows up with bright/white photos.

all the settings were already the same as yours ):

Excuse me if i had missed this, but, is it just with specific pictures or the whole screen, like anything bright on the monitor?

Awaiting response :)

yes it does happen with anything bright, but its not quite as noticeable as it is in the photos, i dont know why


to clarify, i notice it in other pictures on the internet, not just ones that belong to me, but this here text box is white, and seems to display no problems, its only noticeable along the gradient if you know what i mean, its like the colors dont blend well, im going to arrange some pics to show what i mean!

I use a fairly old Graphic Card, nVidia Geforce Fx 5500, when i got Windows 7 and downloaded the driver update I had the same problem, what i did was reduce the Screen Refresh Rate from 75 to 60 and the screen looked regular again, maybe you can try that?

Here are the steps:
-Right Click on the Desktop and Choose Screen Resolution.
-Click on Advanced Settings.
-Click on the Monitor Tab
-Under Screen Refresh Rate change the number to 60

Please remember these steps though so in case it does not help you would be able to go to your older settings.

Hope it all works out for you!
-Ray95

i tried to change it, the only options were 59hz and 60 hz. it was on 59, i changed it to 60, it made no diff, i went back to check i did it correctly and it was on 59 again! i made sure to choose apply before choOsing 'ok' this time. But it still went back to 59! craziness!

im also having a hard time getting a pic to show, i can get a pic that looks bad to me but i know it will look fine to you, so i was going to take a screenshot to show what it looked like to me, but when i saved the screenshot and viewed it on my laptop it looked fine too! I dont know what else i can do lol, but but in case it helps to understand, all the photo looks normal, but the bright spots on the face from the flash are WAAAAY too bright, they stand out as being very abnormal, whiter than paper on otherwise tan skin.

But like i said, its not just pictures of people that are like this.