I hope someone can help me!

I didn't know where else to ask to be honest, so~! My old laptop recently just died on me so I got a new one. Unforntunately, the contrast on the monitor is so high, my graphics from before look like crap! (Actually pretty much any graphic looks weird)

But I do not know how to change my contrast! Usually there's a button on the keyboard, but all there is in a brightness control. I tried using this calibrater, but all it tells me "Using the contrast tool, adjust..." and I'm like "WHAT TOOL?!!?!?!??!??!!!"

So is there any way anyone knows of to help?

Er, I have an HP G42 I guess? Hmm...i'm not really sure....

Thank you so much to anyone who can help me ^u^

All right, so one of my icons is an animated .gif that I made from a flash file. I did not make the original flash file (in fact, I do not know the maker of the original flash file, however, I do have a "original artist unknown" note underneath the icon). However, I did decompile the .swf into frames, and I shrunk these frames/compressed them so they were icon size.

That being said, do I have the right to ask for credit for this icon? Or should I just leave it alone, since I did not make the flash I took it from?

I'm starting to think that there needs to be a community for people to post icons that they've made and are unsure about. Like... basically, "Am I out of my damn mind or is this actually decent?", haha. I've made two or three icons like that just in the past couple of weeks and I feel weird about posting them anywhere. :( Useful: Y/N? I'm thinking it could be pretty helpful.

Recently I've had quite a few members of my icon comm ask whether I would be willing to take commissions for icons and banners if they paied me. As I make icons and graphics for fun generally, I was wondering what the going rate was that people charge in money or paied account time for that kind of service?

I know this is a real newbie question, but what is the best file format to save icons as? I've heard that you're supposed to save them as PNGs, but I've seen a lot of JPEG icons. I'm very confused.

Does it make a difference, which file type you should them as, if you put text on an icon?

What makes a trendy icon right now?

You see, I want to get out of my icon making bubble (which consists of making, essentially, bases) so I'm probably making a claim at 10x10variated, since I'm forced to follow rules and do things I'm not used to doing in Photoshop.

Well, one of the rules is to make 10 icons using the popular trends at the time... and since I'm in an icon making bubble (and just put icon_tutorial back on my f-list), I have no idea what they are right now!

I'm pretty sure selective coloring (until skin is radioactive and lips are orange lol) is still in, but what else?

I just found this comm so I'd thought I'd ask a question that has been bothering for a while.

Does the display size of a monitor really make that much difference with icons? Does a monitor with a display size of 1024 x 768 (that's the size of my monitor) make an icon look different than a 1280 x 1024 monitor?

I was just wondering if many people used laptops to make icons or graphics in general? I just switched from a regular desktop screen to a laptop and the brightness is rather jarring. If anyone has any pointers on making icons and not making them glaringly bright or really dull on other monitors, it'll be appreciated. =)

But what exactly does "anti alias" and how do you use it?