With Snow Leopard’s installation, OS X users will see their monitor gamma changed from Apple’s 1.8 standard to the long standing PC 2.2 setting. Photography professionals have likely had their monitors configured to the higher contrast setting for some time (among other specific color calibration, to be sure), but for designers it may be a new matter entirely. Assuming that most web designers work on Macs, what will be the effect of the gamma change on new and existing design decisions?

It could be difficult to poll the adoption rate of Snow Leopard amongst designers. Will early adopters forge ahead with color and contrast decisions based on the new settings, accepting that their choices will now appear equal on PC and a slim percentage of Macs — or develop a design process that retains the 1.8 Apple standard?

Mac OS X Snow Leopard – Enhancements and Refinements, Apple