Additional Information
NI-IMAQ, NI-IMAQ for 1394, and NI-IMAQdx specify the bit depth for the images they acquire, and when the bit depth for an image is known, the IMAQ Image Display uses this bit depth. When loading a file from disk, the file format may not specify the bit depth, in which case the display falls back to the settings specified by right-clicking and selecting 16-Bit Display Mapping.
If you want to use the user settings for an image with a known bit depth, use the IMAQ Image Bit Depth VI to set the bit depth for the image back to zero which indicates that the entire range for that image datatype should be used. The mapping settings will then map your pixel values accordingly.