Change Contrast/Brightness on Monitor Via Software

[Music Image]

Hey guys,
I have a CRT Philips 107E5 about 4 years old. Monitor is still excellent to use except the front panel buttons are becoming tetchy through a lot of use. ( Daily I have to adjust my monitor between huge variations between daytime and nitetime. My room is exceedingly bright during the day to the point of needing these ..... ) If things totally turn to custard with my buttons the only work-aound is to errrr ummm pull the curtains during the day. :|

I was wondering if anyone knows of any freebie software whereby I could change the settings that way. Its mainly just simply the Contrast/brightness settings I'm wanting. I've tried one called 'monitor calibration wizard' but I can only succeed in making it a hazy white.

Appreciate any advice or suggestions
Music Image

 

[Grandad35]

Music Image,

You might want to read these links:
http://www.drycreekphoto.com/Learn/monitor_calibration.htm
http://www.normankoren.com/makingfineprints1A.html
http://desktoppub.about.com/cs/colorcalibration/a/cal_monitor.htm

If I understand your question correctly, I am not aware of any free, generic tools that adjust the brightness/contrast in software. In theory, it should be possible for to do this with a special monitor profile, but there are several major problems in doing this (e.g. your display will suffer from severe "posterization" { http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posterization } when the brightness is turned down). The proper solution is to darken the room so that the lighting is consistent throughout the day (and between sunny and overcast days, etc.).

If you want accurate colors, you will have to use a hardware monitor calibration device. There are some software calibration programs (e.g. Adobe Gamma), but they are unreliable at best - Adobe abandoned support of their program several years ago. Once your monitor is calibrated you should never touch its adjustments, since this changes its calibration.

 

[Music Image]

Grandad35, thanks for your info and thoughts on this.

"The proper solution is to darken the room so that the lighting is consistent throughout the day (and between sunny and overcast days, etc.)."

Mmm, this is why I thought of the pulling curtains idea. It somehow (thou so 'untechnical' ) just seemed to be the practical thing to do. I'm not knowledgable at all in this area, and so pardon my ignorance about calibration and such terminology. I have just seen from these articles, unsurprisingly, that this is all indeed an involved thing. For me though, I am not professionally involved in printing and my needs are relatively basic. Still, I think it's important to look after your eyes as much as possible. Nobody likes eyestrain.

Thanks again for your very informative input!

Music Image.