Solved Display issue

Recently completed an upgrade from Win 7 to 8, which was generally successful, except my desktop displays appear to be 8-bit color and extremely flat looking. My video card is ATI Radeon HD 5670 with resolution set to 1,920 X 1,080. Cataylist Control Center shows 1080P with 60hz. Color quality set to High 32-bit. Have gone through the Personalization setting several times to identify the problem with no luck. Should mention that some applications with their own display functions, i.e. videos, etc. are using the high bitrate. But anything that relies on Windows for display (Firefox, Thurnderbird come to mind) are flat, while the Metro screen and its subsets look appropriate until I launch an application. Where did I go astray? TIA

I've not experienced your problem before, so I may be waaaaay off the mark.

I wonder if the programs you're having problems with are colour managed programs and are using a corrupt ICC monitor profile? You can temporarily disable the monitor ICM profile in Control Panel > Colour Management to see if it still happens (Windows Photo Gallery is a good reference program as it's colour managed), but as I may be way, way off the mark, I'd wait to see if anyone else comes along with a better solution before you start messing with the colour profiles.

Still, it could be something to try if you run out of ideas and hit a dead end.

What type of processor do you have.? How old is the “Cataylist Control Center “ app.?
You may need the latest drivers for “ATI Radeon HD 5670”

I am running an AMD Athlon X3 435 CPU with 4gb of RAM. Video is ATI Radeon HD 5670 and managed by its Cataylist Control Center, all of which are up to date with Win 8 drivers. Following on ARC1020's suggestion above, I rechecked some applications, particularly as they relate to photo/video. When I bring up Adobe Lightroom for example, its interior display along with all photos look as expected, however the window "frame' around it is clearly 8-bit color and very flat. So I conclude my video card is doing its best, but something is astray in the desktop configuration settings. Going on suggestions from another tread, I cycled through each of the different resolutions my LG monitor supports, starting at the highest which is my default, to the very lowest resolution. While the lower ones made the screen brighter, none corrected the flat frame appearance. It looks like an old 16-color pallet. Which reminds me, I also changed to a couple different pallets, but not all. No noticeable change there either.

Windows 8 does not have (Aro like win 7) that gives it a glassy look.
Win 8 has flat edges…

Well folks, thanks to your suggestions, I have been able to improve my desktop display along to where is it passable - not where I expected it to be, but usable. I utilized the Color option under Personalize to at least get some color in the frames. But it does appear to be more constrained than my older Win 7 Desktop configurations. Anyway, thanks for your help.
Jack