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Question about monitors:

So when I scanned and uploaded a few of my pencil sketches onto computers and the interwebs, I pay great attention to the quality (or more technically, the intensity and/or gamma). For most monitors, the image in my siggy looks like the original, where the centerpiece has the most darkness while everything else is kinda like soft fill.

However, when I'm looking at certain monitors in college, the whole image is washed out. Tinkering with the monitor's settings don't really help. You can hardly see the foliage of the tree.

So when you're looking at monitor specs, what should you look out for that will tell you if the display will have issues of being too light or too dark? (And yes, looking at reviews is always an option.)

With monitors you have the DCR (dynamic contrast ratio). When this is higher, you'll see faint dark colours easier. On my monitor it's currently 20 million to 1, so anything that is dark will show up. (I can clearly see your sig right now)
Having an HD monitor helps as well.
My monitor has IPS (in plane sight). IPS is an LCD monitor-only technology. This allows you to see the images on the screen from any angle, without the glare of sunlight bouncing off it.

When looking at reviews, note that what they say about the images from the monitor are highly subjective, as the images on new monitors these days are very similar in quality.