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Adjusting Brightness and Contrast on LCD monitors

Everyone who works at the computer for more than 3 hours a day can strain his eyes, especially if the monitor is not properly adjusted!

Prolonged staring at your monitor can hurt your eyes if it is not properly adjusted!

Adjusting the monitor will also lead to more pleasurable and crisper images whether surfing the web, writing a letter, playing a game or watching a movie!

Adjusting the monitor should be easy and straightforward, provided that you are supplied with a proper test image. Such an image will be given below together with the necessary explanations on how to adjust brightness and contrast controls.

We should also mention that we were surprised by the multitude of ill recommendations and outdated, flawed test images and procedures that we found elsewhere on the web. We assure you that, given our best knowledge, the instructions below represent the most accurate and simple way of adjusting your LCD (thin-panel) monitor.

Contents

1. Test image explanation

So, let's get on with it! Below, on the left, is the test image which should be used to adjust brightness and contrast. It is likely that your monitor is not well adjusted at this point, so at this moment you will not able to see all the features present in the image. On the right is the same image with all the features grossly enhanced, so that they can be observed even with a completely unadjusted LCD monitor.

You can click on the image to view it in your browser. The left image is the test image! There is a slightly better way for viewing this image, if you have enough knowledge to do it: download the image to your computer and view it using an image viewer (like: IrfanView) in full screen mode.

Before starting, we would advise you to disable any image-enhancing option on your monitor (like: 'MagicBright' on Samsungs, MagicColor, ImageEnhancer or whatever. Your monitor should be set to something like: sRGB colors, normal mode (DV mode, Image mode) ).

And there is something you should do first, which will immediately enhance the monitor image quality and make better results: Clean your monitor! Use soft wet clothes for cleaning the panel.

2. Basic contrast adjustment

First, let's attempt to adjust the contrast. At the middle bottom of the image, there are two test features (the bright one on the left and the dark one on the right) consisting of several rectangles. It is quite possible that, there, you can't see what you ought to. We will mark the two test features on our enhanced image on the right, so that you know what we are talking about.

On this feature, there are some edges, which, at this moment, might not be noticeable to you. In the image to the right, the most important edges are pointed at by green arrows.

You should adjust the contrast until all the edges are visible to you, and you can see all the rectangles. The edges and rectangles will not be as visible as on our enhanced picture, they will be barely visible. If you can see how big the rectangle is, that means that you can see its edges. Also, don't just glance over dark and bright feature, give your eyes some time to adjust. When looking at the dark feature, gaze at it for some time so that your eyes can get accustomed to low light levels. And the same advice goes for bright feature. (Note: you should be looking at our test image given at the beginning of the article, not at the enhanced version given here!)

Don't move your head around! Keep it straight in front of the monitor!

Here are some more detailed instructions: first, try to adjust the dark feature (on the right). You can do this by increasing the contrast. Perhaps you will need to increase the contrast to 100%. And, if even that doesn't help sufficiently, try increasing brightness until you are satisfied with the result on the dark feature.

This will probably make bright feature indistinguishable. Now, reduce the contrast until you can distinguish edges on the bright feature. If necessary, increase the brightness even more. Perhaps you will need to decrease brightness, but this is less likely, anyway, play around a bit. You should set the contrast so that you can distinguish edges on both the bright and the dark feature. Again, you might need to play with the brightness also, possibly by increasing it, perhaps even to 100%. On many LCD monitors, good results can be obtained by setting brightness to 50%. Anyway, the point is to find such settings where the edges are most easily distinguishable.

Ok, so let's say, that at this point, you have succeeded: Congratulations, you adjusted the contrast, now let's move on!

3. Basic brightness adjustment

How to adjust the brightness? Well, brightness control should be set depending on viewing conditions in you environment. If you are in a well light room, it should be set higher. If you are in a dark room, watching a movie, it should be set lower.

But, have this on your mind: LCD monitors have serious trouble displaying the black properly. And even worse, LCD monitor manufacturers, by default, tend to set the brightness control high, way too high! This is one of the primary reasons why your eyes can hurt: too bright monitor.

Now, reduce the brightness until you can barely see the edges on the dark feature.

If you have good and expensive monitor, you might want to keep the brightness on a level where you can see the edges more clearly.

What you have achieved at this point is an optimal picture on your monitor. So now, by following this guide, you can tell how good your monitor really is. Look at the gradient at the top of the test image. It should not have any bands, vertical or horizontal stripes, or grain. It should just be a smooth, linear gradient. If there are any defects in the gradient, think of buying a better monitor!

Also, please read on because you might want to adjust your monitor differently depending on what you use the computer for.

4. How good is your LCD monitor?

If you were unable to set brightness and contrast in such a way that all edges and squares are clearly distinguishable, than you have a really bad monitor.

Now, some bad news. Most LCD monitors sold today are based on the so-called TN technology. Those monitors have serious trouble displaying any kind of picture correctly. Companies usually buy them for their employees because they are so cheap, and those monitors can display sufficiently good picture for working in Word and similar applications. TN monitors can be immediately recognized by the following test: Have some medium-bright photo-realistic picture displayed on the monitor (like: a photo or similar, but not too bright photo). Now look at the monitor from a bit below. If the top of the monitor turns darker, it is a TN. If you re working with a TN monitor, you will have trouble adjusting it using the procedure above, because of its bad picture quality. I would suggest that, if you can, you should buy a monitor based on PVA/MVA or IPS technology. PVAs and MVAs aren't so expensive anymore.

Also, you might try this: Darken your room. Perform the adjusting process again. Look at your brightness setting. The higher it is, the worse monitor you have.

Now, for the folks with a keen eye and good monitors: instead of looking at dark and bright features in the middle bottom of the test image, try the adjusting procedure using features on the sides! (In the image on the right, marked in green.)

Those features are much finer, and most inexpensive monitors will not be able to display them.

5. Additional setup for different usages

How you adjusted your monitor so far is probably the best if you want to view pictures or play games.

But there are other usage scenarios that might need different setups. Those are outlined below.

6. Conclusion

Well, we hope you will be satisfied with your new adjustments. For all the comments and suggestions, please write to

monsetup@galacticmag.com

Have a crisp picture!

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Copyright Kresimir Cosic 2008.