Pics appear dark when transferred to PC

Very newbie to digital photography so here's hoping there will be a simple answer to this. When viewing images (mostly taking using flash, auto settings) on my Optio 555 LCD screen they appear bright and of reasonable quality. However, when these are transferred and viewed on a VDU screen that appear dark as if the they are underexposed. Not sure if I've got the terminology correct here so i hope you know what I mean.

Penciltax,

I suggest you calibrate your monitor

Go to www.praxisoft.com and download WiziWYG (it's free). Calibration takes about ten minutes. Here's a link: http://www.praxisoft.com/pages/support.downloads.html#wizi Download the application appropriate to your operating system and go from there. You don't need the WiziWYG reference files at all.

Obviously, you can set the monitor to any brightness/contrast setting you feel like - but this will affect how your photos are presented on screen. In addition, the characteristics of the monitor will make a difference. WiziWYG will get you most of the way there

Hope that helps,
Matt