When you are like me, sitting behind your computer several hours a day, you might want to tune your computer monitor a bit. You sure can make it a lot easyer on the eyes.
On most computer monitors, you can manually adjust the brightness and contrast, and on the keyboard of any modern laptop you will find the option to manually set the brightness of the screen.
In addition, there are some handy tools that give you extra capabilities to tune your computer monitor.
I tested some of these for you.
ScreenBright
ScreenBright is a very simple program that gives you a number of sliders with which to adjust the screen characteristics, including brightness, contrast, color and warmth.
This freeware tool does not require installation; just download, and it’s ready to start.
Unfortunately, it has a somewhat crappy layout.
Please note! This program is not compatible with evry type of monitor.
Display Tuner
Display Tuner does have to be installed, but this tool is small, efficient and free. With this, it’s possible to adjust the brightness, contrast and resolution, among other things.
Tip: You can save multiple “profiles” – e.g. for night work, for your desk with artificial light, for watching movies… – and these link directly to handy “hotkeys”.
Note: Display Tuner also lets you customize the sound and the volume of your speakers.
Computer Monitor Brightness Reducer
Monitor Brightness Reducer is a bit older and very compact tool with which you can quickly adjust the brightness of your screen.
Caution! In my test, Monitor Brightness Reducer used an annoyingly high amount of RAM memory on our PC.
F.lux
Your computer screen is designed to be as bright and clear as possible. Thus, if you sometimes work late at night, then you’re actually looking at artificial daylight.
Over time, that can disturb your biological clock, with possible consequences of burning eyes, headaches and sleep problems.
The free program f.lux – which after a long beta period is now finally available in a stable version – can help.
It automatically matches the color warmth of your screen to the time of day. As a result, the lighting in the evening is softer, and it’s brighter during the day.
This results in a somewhat yellow glow, but it works well. Regular breaks remain necessary though.
After the quick installation, f.lux sits in the system tray of your PC. In my test, I had to specify my location (because the tool takes into account the time zone in which it is located).
With a click on the Change Settings button, I was able to set my location.
To do so, I had to manually copy and paste my coordinates. That’s somewhat cumbersome, but once that’s done, you don’t need to even look at this tool again, although you can customize some settings.
Henk van der Wijk
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