Monitor Annoyances

So this new monitor kicks serious ass except for one thing: I can't see really faint colors. Say I scan a pic and its background is slightly greyish, but since it looks fine to me I keep working on it. I cut and paste and move the image around a bit. Now, if I hit the "auto" button on the side of the monitor, it cycles through several settings, and for a second I suddenly can see big white lines all over the picture from where I cut things out and moved them. I haven't been able to find anything like that setting with manual adjustments, and it's driving me crazy.

(Edit: I'm calibrating as we speak. Hope this fixes it...)