What complicates the issue of image display even further is that the provider of the image database has no way of knowing what the specifics of a user's computer display are, and the user generally has no way of knowing what software will show an image to its best advantage, what compression scheme to expect, and what image qualities are due to hardware differences rather than scanning procedures, original appearances, or compression artifacts. Obviously image display suffers from a lack of standards. Unfortunately, many of them are not easily solved. Old monitors will lose brightness as components age. Closely related is the issue of refresh rates.
Laptops are notorious for their pale displays.
The more colors that can be displayed at a particular resolution, the more video RAM is required. Ideally an image should display the same on a screen no matter what viewing software is used. Different degrees of compression can be used, and the higher the compression ratio gets, the more information is lost. Of course, this is a mute point if the end user does not know to expect JPEG compression and does not have the requisite software. Thumbnails also complicate the situation.