I have a problem with faces being cast in too much shadow during conversations/close ups. The rest of the game has relatively appropriate brightness, although bodies/models of the generic NPC's do sometimes fall into too much shadow as well. I've been using OpenGL for rendering, and comparing with Direct3D 9 and 10, OpenGL appears the best to my eye. However this issue is basically present in all three.

Some screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/Pvq4OKJ

Manderley is mostly okay, but all renders have Gordon Quick's face in too much shadow unless I have the flashlight on. This has basically been the general experience with OpenGL, rather than Gordon Quick specifically being extra dark. From the comparisons here the other two fare no better. I notice that 10 in particular is more washed out than the others, and is why I tried the comparison with brightness at .40. Frankly, .70 is actually too washed out for the most part. I suppose I could always turn the flashlight on prior to conversations, but you don't always have a ton of recharges readily available and I'd rather not lose all the power for my mods on this.

Another oddity is that Direct3D 10 for some reason crops itself into widescreen while playing, despite me having the resolution set to 4:3. If anyone knows how to fix that, or has suggestions for better renderers/options, I'd appreciate it.

Presumably you have tried increasing the gamma property in the graphics menu and disliked the ambient result?

I guess there's no way around it, so flashlight it is. Yeah, that's the .40 and .70 I was referring to in my post.