lcd screen too bright brands

Those might as well have been the days of horses and buggies. Today? We have 8K resolution, if you want it. Flatscreen liquid crystal display (LCD) and organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays can be lifted by one person, and they’re easy to tile. We now have flexible displays that can wrap around surfaces. LCD TVs and monitors are dirt cheap now, selling for 1/20th of early-2000s prices—and they’re twice the size.

Wondering about brightness? Well, how does 3,000 candelas per square meter (cd/m2) from LEDs strike you? On a 120-inch, 16:10 screen, that would be the equivalent of 135,000 lumens from a projector! Even half that brightness would require a 67,500-lumen projector for the same size screen. Although that’s impractical for projection, it’s just another day’s work for LED displays.

Several companies are now selling “outdoor” LCD screens with brightness ratings from 700cd/m2 to 800cd/m2. High-dynamic-range (HDR) ultra-HD TVs easily exceed 1,000cd/m2 small-area/peak luminance. Prototype “micro” LED displays have been shown with brightness specifications in the tens of thousands of candelas per square meter.

You get the point. When it comes to displays, brightness isn’t an issue anymore. But anyone who has walked through Times Square or strolled the Las Vegas Strip at night could tell you that. On some city blocks, it almost feels as though it’s daytime with all those photons showering down on us. And, under normal daylight, with light readings ranging from 10,000cd/m2 to 100,000cd/m2, you can still read those signs without much effort.

Even cinemas are experiencing a revolution with respect to screen luminance. Two years ago, I described a trip to Richmond TX to see the second Samsung Onyx LED 4K cinema screen in operation. (The first is in Chatsworth CA.) I thought to bring along a spot meter, and I took measurements of the screen, as well as the chairs, walls and clothing articles of my fellow viewers when high-luminance content was being shown. With white backgrounds onscreen, those readings hit 52 foot-lamberts (fL), or 178cd/m2. At that point, the theater was lit up more brightly than when all the house lights were turned on.

Yes, we’ve finally reached a point in time when displays are bright enough—indeed, in some cases, they can be too bright. OLED TVs—I own one of them—are often derided by LCD TV brands for “not being bright enough,” as they have a maximum small-area brightness level of 700cd/m2. Yet, having taken some measurements with my spot meter, I found that the average luminance levels for TV programs with my 55-inch OLED TV in ISF Day mode ranged from 70cd/m2 to 150cd/m2. And those levels were plenty bright enough to view with indirect daylight illuminating the room, and they were very bright at night.

Even in HDR mode, small-area/peak luminance exceeded 600cd/m2—no complaints there! TV programs with sustained luminance levels exceeding 170cd/m2 (50fL) can seem too bright in a semi-darkened room. With the lights off, those levels are high enough to fully light up the viewing space, and high luminance content is difficult to watch for sustained periods under those conditions.

My proposal in the HPA presentation was to change our way of thinking on two counts: 1) stop worrying about “brightness”; 2) instead, focus on contrast-ratio targets. I’ve taught several classes on display setup over the years, and I’ve adopted some useful contrast-ratio guidelines from other industry experts. Those would be 15:1 for classroom and meeting-room presentations, 50:1 for analytical decision-making, and 80:1 and up for true immersive viewing. Those ratios are calculated by measuring the ratio between screen luminance and room ambient-light levels.

Intriguingly, in my travels and measurements, I’ve found that it’s often difficult to attain a screen/ambient contrast ratio exceeding 50:1, especially with high-luminance content. In my own home theater, a circa-2007 full-HD LCD projector, fully calibrated, puts out a measly 330 lumens onto a 92-inch, 1.0-gain screen. But, at that light level, other objects in the room reflect light and become visible, even with a 51:1 contrast ratio. Even the walls, which are painted a dark, neutral gray (Sherwin-Williams’ “Gray Matters” color), are lighting up. Gain screens (remember those?) could mitigate the light-scattering problem, but the tradeoff is accepting narrower viewing angles.

This situation was observed in the Richmond TX Onyx theater demonstration. With bright screen content measuring peak levels of 170cd/m2, you could easily read a book or newspaper, navigate your way to and from the snack bar, and see the sound-absorbing tile patterns on the wall. White and light-colored shirts absolutely popped out, as did white athletic shoes. You’d have to drape everything—walls, floor, chairs and even patrons—in light-absorbing black stipple velvet to realize a significant improvement in the ambient contrast ratio.

Outdoors on the Strip, or in an airport or at a mall, screens are intentionally super bright to catch your eye. They’re competing with other screens and lighting, and you usually give them a brief glance. In a movie theater, however, you shouldn’t be seeing and watching anything but the theater screen. (There are exceptions, of course: an occasional glance at your snack, drink or meal; a turn to your companion to make a snide comment; a glare as if to say, “Stop looking at your @#$%^ phone!”)

I still have most of the “Angles of View” collection. In one installment (“By Different Lights—Contrasting Among Brightness Levels,” pp. 17-18), Milliken stated, “In an earlier article [Vol. IV, #11], we observed that 50 was a kind of upper-threshold number for brightness and that, if a screen were, in fact, to exhibit a luminance level of 50 foot-lamberts, it might actually be too bright for all but unusual environments.”

Industrial LCD"s and HMI"s don"t typically have a brightness problem when it comes to being too bright. Most of the time it is the case where there is not enough brightness, and additional means for increasing brightness and contrast are required. VarTech Systems has a complete line of sunlight "high bright" LCD solutions, but this is not what I write about today.

The question posed "is your LCD/HMI too bright?"; was a thought after my office display switched into a dynamic super high contrast/brightness mode and my eyes began to feel the pains of a "too bright" LCD. Keep in mind this is a standard 250nits (luminance measurement) monitor that should not make one wish for a way to drastically reduce the brightness, and do so with expediency!

During my tenure here at VarTech Systems I have learned the importance of a balanced backlight level to ensure an operator is not straining to see the GUI"s or other critical information being displayed on their HMI. The negative effects of LCD backlights is being written about on other website and techguru forums, so there is no need to be overly redundant on eye strain, fatigue, performance, etc... But how does one get the ideal backlight brightness? There is a great deal of science and engineering involved in providing a smooth linear backlight brightness adjustment. Resistive Elements and electrical travel, Resistance Range with Logarithmic Taper, and of course Limiting Element Voltage with Linear Law all come into play here.

Please call or email Mark Frakes, Technical Sales Manager, to discuss your industrial LCD and Panel Computer needs. 800.223.8050 x 218 or mfrakes@vartechsystems.com

How does the song go?My future’s so bright I need to wear shadesI"ve got a job waiting for my graduationFifty thou a year, buys a lot of . . . coffee??????

This article is limited to monochrome since they perform better in direct sunlight and can still be read when the back light is off. Also, the tooling cost, if necessary, is much lower.

Swap out the transflective polarizer with a transmissive polarizer. This increases the brightness without increasing the amount of power necessary or decreasing the half-life of the LEDs. The one downside is the display will be a bit more difficult to read when the back light is off, but it is still readable.

Every monochrome display with a LED back light contains a current limiting resistor. The lower the resistor value, the higher the current draw. Hence the brighter the back light. The down side is the back light draws more power (not always good for battery powered products) and it reduces the half-life of the LED back light.

For the video display developer LCD panels are available in many sizes and resolutions, they are also available with many choices of maximum brightness. The following considers the topic of LCD panel brightness, the choices, the methods for adjusting brightness and some brightness adjustment scenarios.

LCD panels are generally rated as to their maximum brightness level which is expressed in Nits, it is equal to Candela/sqm (cd/m2), and this will be at a particular color temperature as noted in the specification, usually 10,000 K. In terms of a practical understanding, the following is a rough guide:

Outdoor displays range from a low end of 700 nits to typically 1,000 or 1,500nits and up with 2,000~2,500nits and even up to 5,000nits seen with some models. This may include standard LCD panels, custom LCD panels as well as custom cut LCD panels.

Virtually all LCD panels have a LED backlight these days, these are powered by an LED driver board. Brightness control via the driver board will be by one of two methods:

PWM (Pulse Width Modulation): This varies the duty cycle of the backlight “on time” – it is predominant in modern LCD panel LED backlight designs to enable support for digital brightness controls.

Analog: Uses a simple variable voltage to adjust brightness, for example this might be a dial or slider type potentiometer / variable resistor. To see how to enable analog backlight adjustment visit: https://www.digitalview.com/blog/brightness-adjustment/

One of the advantages of LED for the backlight is the range of adjustment that is possible, however it is important to note that the range varies significantly from model to model. Some industrial panels can be turned to very low light levels making them suitable for use in special environments such as at night. Lower cost panels limit the range of brightness to what might be required for typical usage, whereas panels with full range dimming from full off to full on require more complex backlight drivers.

Backlight lifetime: Many LCD panels have a backlight lifetime rating of 50,000 hours (typically measured to half brightness), this can be extended by running the LED backlight at a lower brightness level. Some panels may only offer 30,000 hours as a lower cost solution while other panels may offer up to 100,000 hours for high end applications.

An LCD panel backlight may be constructed so the LED’s are mounted directly behind a light guide diffuser, or they may be mounted along one or more edges of the light guide.

Active backlight: This is a function of some LCD panel backlights to automatically adjust the backlight brightness in response to the image. For more advanced systems there is an LED array making up the LED backlight, this adjusts the brightness in areas localized to the image being shown. This can greatly enhance the brightness across the display and is being used primarily with video, for example on consumer TV sets. It is not useful to all image types, for example a spreadsheet or content like maps or data is not likely to benefit.

Local dimming: Some LCD panels with direct LED may support local dimming so the LED’s are dimmed in response to the image close to them. This will not be at the same resolution as the LCD panel itself but will help greater contrast over the display by enhancing the brightness in bright areas of the image and darkening the image in dark parts of the image.

For the LCD monitor manufacturer it is important to consider that any covering over the LCD panel will reduce the brightness. For example the protective glass over a digital signage display, or a touch screen, or a semi-silvered mirror. So if a specific brightness is required the measurement should be taken with these in place.

There are various relatively low cost brightness meters available, typically in the couple of hundred dollars range. It is difficult to comment on the accuracy of these but we have found them to be within 5% of each other, though more importantly they do appear to be quite consistent in measurement so good for measurement comparisons. For more accurate measurement there are light meters from companies such as Minolta that can be calibrated, the cost may run into several thousand dollars.

Examples of light meters costing a few hundred dollars include SpyderX by Datacolor (needs a PC), a handheld meter is the SM208 by Sanpometer (search SM208 meter). Note: Many light meters, including smartphone apps, will be meters used for photography and not give readings in nits (or candelas). LCD panel specifications are typically measured using nits.

PWM and Analog: Most Digital View LCD controllers support PWM and Analog as a method for adjusting the backlight brightness level (this is noted in the column headed “Other” on the controller board summary table: https://www.digitalview.com/controllers/lcd-controllers-home.html. Also see https://www.digitalview.com/blog/brightness-adjustment/ for a guide to using a dial or slider type variable resistor to adjust the backlight.

Ambient light sensor: The backlight is adjusted for brightness or powered off depending on ambient light conditions. This uses a light sensor attached to the LCD controller board, see https://www.digitalview.com/blog/light-sensor-app-note/ for more details.

The specifics of the backlight control are documented separately for each LCD controller model (product summary here) in the product manual available for download on the product page.

Note: There are two ways to adjust the perceived brightness of a LCD panel or LCD monitor, the backlight and the black-level. Very often, particularly in the past, the monitor brightness setting adjusted the black-level, this adjusts the LCD but not the backlight.

Color, color temperature etc: In addition to adjusting the brightness other settings may be adjusted as well. For example the color temperature or for example a switch to green monochrome for night vision.

Night-safe lighting (update) : Dual-rail backlights can also be supported. These special backlight enable normal brightness and extreme low level brightness with custom night-safe lighting. Contact us for details.

Note: We have a blog on methods for implementing an ambient light sensor with Digital View LCD controller boards to automatically adjust the backlight or system power, see: Ambient Light Sensor

Update March 2019: Most of the above remains unchanged except for the increased availability of high bright LCD panels of around the 1,000 nit to 2,500 nit range. AUO for example has a number of large size LCD panels with 1,500 nit brightness for the digital signage market. Tianma has panels under 20″ with 1,000 nit to 1,500 nit brightness for various outdoor applications.

The other change is that high bright panels are now increasing edge-lit, this makes the panels thinner and these panels tend to use less power than the previous models. One of the benefits for monitor designers is easier heat management and reduced overall display system costs.

We test peak brightness for both SDR and HDR. We take measurements of a custom real scene peak brightness video and multiple slides, ranging from 2% to 100% coverage of the screen. From those measurements, we also calculate the monitor"s ABL, or Automatic Brightness Limiter, which is a measurement of how much the sustained brightness of the screen changes with different window sizes.

We start by warming up the display by displaying a series of video clips for at least 30 minutes. Our SDR measurements are all taken from a PC, using our calibrated settings, but with the brightness at "Max". If the monitor supports local dimming in SDR, we set it to our recommended setting based on the results of our "Local Dimming" test. We take our measurements using a Colorimetry Research CR-100 Colorimeter, using Octave to gather the results for the peak and sustained window tests and CRIapp and Excel for the Real Scene measurements.

We measure the real scene brightness using a custom video clip. We measure the brightness of the lamp at the upper left corner of the screen for 30 seconds using a CR-100 colorimeter. The real scene clip is designed to be more representative of real-world usage than the window tests since most people don"t watch test slides all day long. Since this measurement is the closest to the real user experience, it makes up the bulk of our SDR Peak Brightness score. A peak brightness above 300 cd/m² is considered good, and enough to overcome glare in most instances, but you might need higher if the monitor doesn"t handle reflections well or if there"s direct sunlight shining on the screen.

We perform the SDR peak and sustained brightness tests to see whether there"s any brightness variation when displaying different scenes. The peak windows show how bright the monitor can get in the 2%, 10%, 25%, 50%, and 100% windows when the image is only displayed for a short time. The sustained windows show the brightness in the same windows, but for a longer period. Although it isn"t as indicative of real-world usage as the real scene measurement, the peak and sustained windows show exactly how bright the display can get and whether there"s dimming in any particular window. Generally speaking, a monitor with consistent brightness is best, especially when image accuracy is required, like content creation.

The HDR real scene test is the same as in SDR. We use an HDR version of the same video clip, which gives us a more realistic representation of the monitor"s brightness in HDR content. We set the monitor to the appropriate HDR mode with brightness at max and enable local dimming (if applicable). We play the video clip and focus on the lamp in the upper left corner to take the measurement. Most games allow you to adjust the dynamic range of the entire engine, so a real scene peak brightness over 550 cd/m² is considered good enough for gaming in HDR. Movies are a bit different, though, and for a true cinematic HDR experience, a peak real scene brightness of at least 1,000 cd/m² is best. HDR movies can still look good on displays with lower peak brightness, but bright specular highlights don"t stand out as much as they should.

Automatic Brightness Limiter, or ABL, is a feature that changes the brightness according to the content displayed on the screen. It"s intended to prevent damaging internal components when displaying large, bright images. The ABL test shows the amount of brightness deviation in the sustained window slides. We calculate the coefficient of variation using the measurements in the sustained windows. Because the human eye is better at noticing luminosity changes in a dark environment than in a bright one, we first linearize the measurements for any noticeable differences in luminosity using the Perceptual Quantizer (PQ) EOTF, making the results more representative of what"s perceived. For example, a change of 20 cd/m² is much more noticeable when viewed in the dark than in a bright setting. Most monitors have low or no ABL, so this test accounts for a small percentage of the overall score.

We also test for the lowest possible brightness the monitor can reach in SDR. It"s done with a checkerboard pattern, using our recommended settings in SDR. We decrease the brightness setting to its lowest setting and measure the brightness of the screen in the center. This test is important if you plan on using the monitor in a completely dark environment and are sensitive to light. Most monitors should be well below 100cd/m² at their lowest setting, but some people prefer to set their monitors as low as 10-20cd/m².

There"s not much that you can do to improve a monitor"s peak brightness other than increasing the brightness and choosing the picture mode that gets the brightest, although these picture modes tend to sacrifice image accuracy. Some monitors have an "Eco mode" intended to reduce power consumption, so you need to ensure that it"s disabled if visibility is an issue. 300 cd/m² is usually enough to provide good visibility in most environments, but if there"s sunlight or the monitor doesn"t handle reflections all that well, then you might want to find one that"s closer to 400 cd/m² or brighter. As for HDR, the brighter the better, although there are very few monitors that get bright enough for a true HDR experience. Lastly, when looking at specifications, the advertised brightness can be in "cd/m²" or in "nits", which are the same thing.

Except for some budget options, most monitors get bright enough for use in well-lit environments. However, keep in mind that brightness can vary slightly from one unit to another, and the manufacturer"s advertised brightness is an estimate that tends to be on the optimistic side. If you"re in a room with sunlight or want a better HDR experience, then you should specifically check the monitor"s SDR and HDR peak brightness measurements to make sure it satisfies your needs.

At midnight, when your bedroom is pitch black, a text comes through that you just can’t resist. So you grab your phone, unlock the screen…and screech in horror as the blazing light sears your eyes. Sometimes, even the lowest brightness setting is too dang vivid. Here’s how to change it.

Most phones have a built-in Night Mode, but this doesn’t actually change the brightness. Instead, it adjusts the color temperature: Whites appear “redder” at night, blocking the blue light that can wreck your sleep. This is great for using your phone in the evening, but won’t soothe the pain of a too-bright screen in a too-dark room.

For that, you’ll need a different set of tools. While you can’t technically dim the backlight lower than the device allows, these software solutions add a black filter over the image on your phone. This gives it the illusion of lower brightness—and saves your eyeballs in the process.

Open the Settings app on your phone and head to General > Accessibility > Display Accommodations. At the bottom of this screen, you’ll see an option to Reduce White Point. Turn this on and adjust the slider until the screen brightness suits your preferences. Counterintuitively, the higher you make the percentage, the lower the brightness will seem.

If you head back to the main Accessibility menu, you can create a shortcut to turn this on and off a little more quickly. Scroll down to Accessibility Shortcut option and tap it. Hit Reduce White Point so a checkmark appears. From now on, you can triple-click the home button to enable the feature, which will dim your phone when it’s just too bright. While you’re in this menu, you can also check some of the other options. If you do so, then triple-clicking the home button will pull up a menu with all the Accessibility options you’ve assigned to that shortcut.

Every Android phone is a little different, but most lack a built-in white point setting like the iPhone’s. Instead, you’ll need to download a third-party app that can overlay an image on the screen—in this case, a transparent black filter that gives the appearance of lower brightness. There are plenty of apps with this feature, but we like Screen Filter for its simplicity.

Just open the app, set the filter brightness—the lower the slider, the dimmer the screen will become—and tap the Enable Screen Filter button. Your screen should immediately appear dimmer. If you have Android Oreo or above, you’ll notice that Screen Filter can dim everything except for the notifications drawer, but in my experience, that doesn’t make a huge difference.

There are a few small catches here. First of all, if you accidentally lower the screen brightness so far that you get a black screen, you’ll have a hard time finding the settings to undo that. In fact, you may have to reboot your phone by holding the power button until it resets. After a reboot, Screen Filter should be disabled, so you can go back and adjust its settings accordingly.

Second, since Screen Filter is using Android’s built-in overlay permissions, you may not be able to install some apps or use certain features while the app remains active. If you ever see an Install button that’s greyed out, try disabling Screen Filter to see if that helps.

If you want quicker access to Screen Filter, you can press and hold on the home screen to add its widget. You can also make your phone automatically enable Screen Filter’s dimmer settings at nighttime, by using the popular Tasker app. Just don’t forget to get some sleep, okay?

Since the introduction of digital photography our cameras are provided with a nice LCD screen to see the photo we’ve just taken, or to see the photo that we’re about to take. But be careful with these screens, they can be misguiding in some situations.

Camera LCD screens have become larger and brighter over the years, showing us the photo even before we take the shot. The last couple of years some cameras even have a second screen; the electronic viewfinder. It is wonderful to have those bright and large LCD screens on our cameras. We are able to review our work and correct our exposure or composition right at the spot. The screens are packed with information about our settings, the AF point and even a histogram. We can zoom in, look at it in high magnification and in some occasions it even give us the opportunity to post-process a raw file without transferring it to a desktop computer or laptop. LCD screens on cameras are so handy that we even wonder how the photographer in the previous millennium, when digital was still science fiction, managed to get the images right. Well, they did. And as a matter of fact, I did – which gives a pretty good idea how long I have been into photography.

The use of a LCD screen or viewfinder may be very convenient, it also has a few downsides that you have to be aware of. Especially for those who use their digital camera to make photos of the night sky in very dark locations. When photographing the stars and Milky Way in a dark locations, it is good to have your night sight. This means your eyes have to get accustomed to the light level to have the best possible sight. It takes approximately twenty minutes for your eyes to get accustomed to the dark. Can you image what happens when you activate your camera and stare into that bright LCD screen?

When I go out to take pictures of the night sky, I prepare myself and set the brightness of the LCD as low as possible. This way the screen doesn’t blind you completely when you are on location. I noticed that not only the LCD screen can be destructive for your night sight, an electronic viewfinder (EVF) that is found on the modern mirrorless cameras can also be too bright. Looking to it will also ruin your night sight. I found out the hard way when I reviewed the Leica SL and the Sony A9 during a nightly photo session, and I noticed it also with the newer Canon EOS-R.  Even reducing the brightness of the EVF is often not enough to maintain night sight.

Above is the difference shown of the LCD screen brightness of a Canon EOS-R, with brightness set to default and set to minimum. You can image what happens when the screen is set to maximum brightness.

The comparison above gives a good idea how much light the electronic viewfinder of the Canon EOS-R gives. It can definitely ruin your night sight when looking into the viewfinder. Of course, I only used this camera as an example. Every LCD screen and electronic viewfinder has this effect, no matter what brand or type of camera you use.

But not everyone is active in night photography. So perhaps most of you don’t care about losing night sight because you’re never photographing under these conditions. Still, the LCD screen brightness can also work against you in normal daylight situations when judging the exposure of an image. Let me explain.

I think every photographer nowadays looks at his or her screen to check if the exposure of the image is correct. This is a good habit, unless you are scrutinizing the image while losing contact with your subject in the process. Just a fast glimpse should do fine. But be aware of the brightness of your screen; this affects the way you see the image. If the brightness is of the LCD screen is set too high, you might be mistaken that the image is over exposed. If the brightness of the LCD screen is set too low, the opposite can occur and you may think the image is underexposed.

The example above shows the effect of screen brightness on a Canon EOS 5D Mark IV. When the screen is set too bright, it even looks  like an over exposure.

Not only the brightness of the screen can affect the way you interpreted the image, also the brightness of the surroundings have an effect on the way you see the image on the screen. In bright sunlight an image may seem underexposed even if the exposure is correct and in the darkness of night that same correctly exposed image may seem over exposed. The solution to this problem is very simple, but often forgotten in the heat of the photoshoot; look at the histogram for exposure.

I already wrote about checking the histogram for exposure in my previous article. The screen brightness may affect the way you interpret the image you’ve just taken, the histogram does not lie. The histogram is never affected by the screen brightness and is the only trustworthy way of checking exposure. Don’t get fooled by how an image looks in the electronic viewfinder of a mirrorless camera also. Again, the brightness setting will affect the interpretation of what you see.

So, what then is the best setting for the screen brightness? That depends of the ambient light. In bright sunlight you can benefit from a bright setting to check composition and other details, while in low ambient light a lower setting can work better. But always be careful and check the histogram for the correct exposure. Luckily the gigantic dynamic range of most modern camera’s is so large, it gives us a bit of room to correct a faulty exposure, even when we thought it looked great on the LCD screen or electronic viewfinder.

Dimmer is a little free application designed to help control the brightness of your computer screen, specially to help reduce the brightness beyond what the hardware alone is capable of. This becomes very useful when you are in total darkness and the minimum brightness from your display is still too much. It can dim LCD, TFT and LED screens. Dimmer will not damage your screen, if anything, it will save the backlight and consequently, energy, by emitting less radiation. To note is the fact that most desktop screens are actually capable of reducing the brightness levels quite low, the same is not true on 95% of portable screens. Dimmer was conceived to work on all versions of Microsoft Windows.

The need for this program came about because I do allot of work at night and with minimum ambient light in the room, or (more often than I would like) in bed and my laptop (all of them) still output a great deal of light even in the lowest setting, this was damaging to my eyes and I couldn"t work well. So one day I decided to develop Dimmer and solve the problem. I can now dim the laptop display to suit my needs and can finally work through the night without a problem. Your monitor brightness can be easily adjusted and the program sits in the system tray for your convenience.

Dimmer has been much acclaimed as the best dimming software for portable displays, screens or monitors and it will be even better in the next version. Feel free to recommend it to your friends and family and you may link to this page if you wish. Contact me and let me know if you like or dislike it."

TVs have an intimidating number of picture settings and adjustments, and sadly new TVs tend to come set to the wrong ones. You may be tempted to just leave them be, but that will prevent your TV from looking its best. You could get your TV calibrated by a professional, but that’s expensive. Making a few tweaks to specific settings will produce not only a better image but also one that’s probably more comfortable to watch, too.

Ideally, you should set up your new TV using a disc like Disney’s World of Wonder, which shows you how to properly adjust basic picture settings such as brightness, contrast, and sharpness. It’s available only on DVD, but that should be fine for most of the adjustments you need to make. If you have a 4K Blu-ray player, another option is Spears & Munsil UHD HDR Benchmark, which is a bit more advanced than the Disney disc.

Before you get started with the adjustments, make sure your sources are set correctly. Media streaming devices, Blu-ray players, and even satellite or cable boxes should automatically adjust their settings to output the proper resolution to match your TV, but it’s not a given. You can check this in the player’s settings menu, or you can usually hit the Info button on your TV’s remote control and get an onscreen display that shows what resolution the TV is receiving. Make sure it says 1080p or 2160p (if you have a 4K-capable TV and sources). Also, if you make these adjustments while watching cable or satellite content, make sure you’re watching a high-definition channel, not a standard-def one.

Contrast and brightness are two sides of the same coin. The contrast setting adjusts the bright parts of the image, while the brightness setting adjusts the dark parts. If you set the contrast too high, you will lose the fine detail in bright images. If you set it too low, the whole image will appear flat and lifeless. Set the brightness too high and blacks will get lighter, causing the image to look washed out. Set it too low and all the details in shadows will disappear into a murky mess.

Next, find some dark content with lots of shadows. Turn the brightness control down enough that the shadows look dark, but not so far down that the details disappear into blackness. Again, this may take a few tries with a few different shows. Shadows and contrast in shows on CBS, ABC, Fox, and NBC tend to have a more traditional, straightforward aesthetic. In shows on HBO or Netflix, shadows and contrast may have a more artistic look, which will make them less desirable for setting up your TV. However, once you have your TV set correctly, everything you view will look even better.

These three images show what happens when your brightness control is set correctly and incorrectly. This image is an example of a brightness control that’s set too high: The detail revealed may not be what the director had intended you to see, and, worse, the image looks flat and washed out. Photo: Geoffrey Morrison

These three images show what happens when your brightness control is set correctly and incorrectly. This image is an example of when the brightness control is set too low; see how the rooftops toward the bottom of the image have lost all detail as the shadows are “crushed” by the TV. Photo: Geoffrey Morrison

If you have a Sony LCD TV, be aware that Sony often uses the term “black level” for the functional brightness control and the term “brightness” to describe the control that adjusts the intensity of the LCD backlight—that is, how bright the TV is. (Many other TV manufacturers use a term such as “backlight level” to describe the control that adjusts the TV’s overall light output.) Although Sony’s terms are technically more accurate descriptions of what is being adjusted, they can cause confusion, because Sony is one of the only companies to use this terminology.

These three images illustrate how the sharpness control affects the picture. This image shows the edge enhancement and noise that are a result of a too-high setting. Photo: Chris Heinonen

These three images illustrate how the sharpness control affects the picture. This image shows how the picture can look soft if you set the sharpness too low on some TVs. Photo: Chris Heinonen

Ideally, you also want your TV to match this as closely as possible so that at home you’re seeing what the filmmakers had intended for you to see. Professional calibration is usually required to set the color temperature perfectly, but most TVs now include a few presets from which you can choose—oftentimes, they’re labeled “cool,” “medium,” and “warm.” On most TVs, the preset called “warm,” or “6500,” is the closest to D65. This is the preset that most Movie and Cinema modes will switch to. After giving your brain a day or two to adjust to the “warm” setting, if you still think the picture is too red, you can go to the next highest setting, often labeled “medium.” But you should avoid the “cool” setting.

Most TVs on the market today are LCD/LED TVs, which use a backlight that shines through a layer of liquid crystals to form the image you see. You can adjust this backlight to be as bright or dim as is appropriate for the situation. In a very bright living room with lots of windows, you may need to push the backlight level near its maximum. For nighttime viewing in a dim to dark room, the backlight level should be set much lower to avoid eyestrain and headaches.

You can usually adjust the brightness of a projector, too. In addition to high and low lamp modes, many projectors have an automatic iris that adjusts itself to suit the intensity of the onscreen image. Unless you see this iris working (pulsing with bright and dim scenes), you can leave it in auto mode. The eco or low lamp mode will extend the life of your lamp, and you should generally use it, unless you really want or need the extra light.

Today, the majority of TVs feature a sensor that can determine how bright your room is and then automatically adjust the TV’s light output accordingly. There are different names for this (for instance, LG calls it Automatic Power Saving, or APS). There’s a lot of variation in how effectively this function works. We recommend that you turn it off while you’re adjusting the other settings. Once everything else is to your liking, you can turn this on and see if you notice and like its effect.

Most TVs have settings labeled “dynamic” that analyze the video signal and adjust, on the fly, how the image looks. Generally speaking, you should turn or leave these off. Once you’ve got your settings adjusted correctly, the TV shouldn’t need to adjust anything on its own based on the video. These features will often do more harm than good. For instance, they could sense a dark scene and crank the brightness. Sure, you’ll get to see what’s in the shadows, but you could also end up seeing something the director hadn’t intended to show yet—for example revealing Pennywise or Jason before the scare was supposed to happen. Not to mention that the image will briefly look washed out and then return to “normal” in the next scene, which can be distracting. The one exception to this is Dynamic Tone Mapping for LG OLED TVs, which we discuss below.

Finally, you shouldn’t need to adjust your TV’s HDR settings, beyond perhaps choosing among a few preset HDR picture modes. Some settings may be locked, and trying to adjust things like brightness or gamma can do more harm than good. You may have the option to enable or disable Dynamic Tone Mapping, which affects how the TV handles HDR signals that are too bright for its light-output capabilities. You can adjust this to your preference.

If all of this is still too daunting for you, or you really want to eke every last photon out of your TV, consider hiring a professional calibrator. For a fee (which could be several hundred dollars), a trained tech will come to your house, make sure your TV is connected correctly, and use thousands of dollars of specialized test gear and software to make sure all of your settings are correct.

Tru-Vu Monitors Inc., a supplier of industrial-grade LCD monitors and touchscreens, has released a 21.5-inch waterproof sunlight readable LCD display designed to operate in direct, bright sunlight or in other high ambient light conditions, according to a press release. Features of the SRMW-21.5Z monitors include:1920 by 1080 full HD resolution and 1,000 nits of brightness, four times brighter than a standard monitor or TV.

If your laptop screen is too dark even when it is at full (100%) brightness, then you’ve come to the right place. In this post we look at the different causes and fixes for a dark screen at full brightness.

If uninstalling and reinstalling the display driver still hasn’t fixed the issue, you can roll it back or update it. The screen darkness may be caused by a bug in the current driver. Rolling it back or updating it may solve the problem.

If the above tips did not work at all to fix your screen brightness improve, it is likely that the LCD inverter in your laptop is failing or has failed. This little piece of hardware is in charge of the backlight on your screen (i.e. the thing that makes your screen bright).

The LCD inverter, like any piece of hardware in your computer, can fail for unknown reasons. The best thing to do is take your laptop to a professional to have the LCD inverter replaced.

It is our recommendation that you take your laptop to a professional if the screen darkness continues after you try these fixes. They may be able to locate the exact cause of the issue and give you a better idea of what the possible fixes are.

Mac does not appear to have this issue as often as Windows laptops do but if you do find that your Macbook screen is dim at full brightness, one solution is to reset the System Management Controller (SMC) which, among other things, controls the backlit display of your Macbook.

A dim screen can be frustrating and difficult to troubleshoot when it occurs. Hopefully, some of these fixes worked for you. If these fixes did work for you, let us know which ones were most helpful in the comments.