How to Check Your Monitor's Brightness, Contrast and Uniformity

You do not need a calibrator to spot the big problems. A few solid screens in a dim room tell you a lot about your display.

Set up

• Let the monitor warm up for about 20 minutes.
• Dim the room lights and avoid reflections on the screen.
• Reset your monitor to its default picture mode before testing.

Brightness and contrast

Open Brightness Calibration. Adjust brightness until the darkest steps are just visible, and contrast until the brightest steps are still distinct. If they all merge, you are clipping detail.

Black level and backlight bleed

Open the Black Screen in a dim room. On LCD screens you may see light glowing at the edges or corners. A small amount is normal. On OLED screens black should look completely dark.

Uniformity and tint

Open the Gray Screen and then the White Screen. Look for darker or brighter patches and for any area with a color tint. Slight variation is common, but large or distracting patches are worth reporting if the screen is new.

Limits of this test

This is a visual check. It cannot measure color accuracy. For accurate colors in photo or video work, use a hardware calibrator.