I've had this problem since day one with skyrim, namely, the game is just so dark that I can hardly see anything in it! For example, I can barely see my khajiit's face in broad daylight! Oftentimes I have to use the "light" mode on my gamecompanion. But having to do that all the time gets annoying and I'm hoping for a more permanent solution

Anyone know how to fix this?

And please don't give me "obvious" solutions like "turn up your monitor's brightness" (It's not my monitor, everything else I run, including oblivion, is just fine. It's just skyrim that's overly dark.) Or "turn up the brightness/gamma setting" (As I mentioned, I use GameCompanion for fake fullscreen which means I run windowed mode, so that doesn't do me any good.). Or use Candlelight (then I'd be using that everywhere and that doesn't really solve anything.)

For a while I've combated this by using ENB, but now i'm trying to get away from that or other FXAA injectors (I hear it may be causing some CTD issues i'm having, PLUS it makes nighteye not work either.)

Anyone have a better solution?

Have you played with the Gamma setting at all?

yes and as I mentioned I run the game in windowed mode (fake full screen) so that has apsolutely no effect.

Ok, are you using any mods and have you refreshed the INI files?

yeah I'm using mods, but that doesn't seem to make much difference (as I still have this problem without the mods, ENB aside)

and I would assume yes to the ini file question since I just resinstalled the game yesterday hoping to fix CTD issues (though thats a different topic entirely)

Reinstalling does not touch the (My) Documents/(My) Games/Skyrim folder as far as I know.

Also, I'd get rid of the mods completely and try again anyways.

Like I said though this has been a problem from the start, even before adding any mods.

Check your monitor, perhaps your contrast and brightness are set too high? Try to set them lower.

Sorry nevermind. Just re-read the op..

Do you have the same problem without gamecompanion in fullscreen mode?

If not, it may be your driver color settings. Especially the monitor specific gamma settings (check both for desktop and video playback). I had this issue a while back with another game.

Since you're using GameCompanion, have you tried using Alt + Shift in-game to try the different gamma profiles?

Maybe try using the Simple Borderless Window mod instead of GameCompanion.
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=4

yeah I have actually MTDEW, and that works rather well...

...only problem though. It gets kinda irritating when I have to do that every time I play skyrim (and even more so when I switch back from skyrim to normal screen, because using it on light or especially "bright" setting makes skyrim veiwable and wonderful, but everything else suddenly becomes too bright transversely)

But I suppose unless i can find a way to simulate the light or bright settings that gamecompanion brings or make it change to that automatically when playing skyrim (and change back to normal when switch out of it) that seems that's the only option I have (apart from going back to ENB. I'll go out on a limb and say if it's not for the crashes (which I admit I can't speciifically put on ENB, as ever since 1.4 installed itself i've been having a lot more random and concentrated CTD problems than I ever did in 1.3) And the fact that Night Eye doesn't work with it, I wouldn't have a reason in the world not to use ENB still.)

yes it works without gamecompanion in fullscreen mode if I crank the brightness way up (which, again, has no effect if i'm not using "real" fullscreen mode.)

enb mod gives me a very dark game, the houses and where the rocks are is just dark even if i put the bright all up is almost the same

Alright, i'm just about at wits end here.

Two days ago I took ENB off, and after some time and playing with the Nvidia screen settings i got it to where it was very good and very playable yet it wasn't an eyesore to look at my desktop/other games. Had to turn the screen up some (Brightness 65%, Contrast 65%, gamma 1.0) and it was pretty good.

THEN today I get some bull about steam cloud and I choose "upload files to steam cloud". And THEN I get that stupid ass message when I launch the skyrim launcher (to update my steam workshop mods I'm subbed to) and it reverts my graphics settings, and when I play the game (though SKSE) BAM!!! The game is even DARKER than before, and I can't even see Alea's face at 4pm (game time) in the middle of pelgia farm!!

Not only that, but they really cranked down the saturation as well. A room that used to be alive with the warm orange glow of the fireplace is now rather lifeless and dull.

Quite frankly, I'm getting pretty damn pissed at beth/steam for constantly screwing around with my [censored]. I'd really like to know how to return the game's brightness back to where it was before this steam cloud nonsese, because otherwise I'm going to have to turn my nvida brightness so damn high that i'm going to have to choose between having a dark game where I can't see crap, and hurting my eyes every time I look at the desktop.

Have you got the game to make new INIs? Sounds like some bad INI settings. INI files won't refresh if they are 'read only'. Even if not locked, I would advise removing them and making new ones.