How to reduce monitor brightness in Win10

tinyitx

Shrink Ray Wielder
Original poster
Jan 25, 2018
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Win 10 Pro (Build 1803) is making my monitor too bright, especially the white which is straining my eyes. My monitor is a Dell U3011 and I have already reduced its brightness down to '0' but it is still too bright.

It seems Win10 's native/default brightness is too bright.
This is not a laptop but a desktop computer.
Anyone knows how to adjust/reduce the brightness within Win 10?

P-l-e-a-s-e help!
 

Necere

Shrink Ray Wielder
NCASE
Feb 22, 2015
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3,281
Try playing around with these settings:

 
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tinyitx

Shrink Ray Wielder
Original poster
Jan 25, 2018
2,279
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Thanks ASCii and Necere both.
I admit I am a little baffled as monitor brightness and monitor colour seems to be 2 independent things.
Nonetheless, I will look into both suggestions more carefully.

Anyone can shed some more light into this issue.
Much thanks in advance.
 

ASCii

(ツ)
Jan 7, 2017
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I have been aggravated by this since Windows 10 came out, it really comes down to the UI color choices or lack there of, and to much white space.

And we’re not alone

Once upon a time the Windows UI directory back ground along with many other UI elements could be customized, which brought a better viewing experience.

There was an insiders build with a cobbled together dark mode interface that wasn’t bad, and it improved the usability quite a bit.

f.lux will make your experience 200% better
 
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Choidebu

"Banned"
Aug 16, 2017
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Anyone can shed some more light into this issue.

Yea I think you need less not more light... I see what you did there ^^

Anywho... try enabling dark mode. Explorer won't be affected by this setting however, so you can try manually install build 1809 to get dark explorer.

I've done this, while I like it, the contrast is low so it's not super usable on my washed up screen. If you have a decent monitor with reasonably good color gamut it looks a lot better. I had to disable it cause my wife thinks it's hard to discern overlapping windows (people with glasses, sigh..).
 
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Choidebu

"Banned"
Aug 16, 2017
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I personally think it is a combination of flat (metro) design and poorly thought color scheme that is the root of this issue. They ought to take a page out of ubuntu UI these days..
 
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tinyitx

Shrink Ray Wielder
Original poster
Jan 25, 2018
2,279
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Thanks, Choidebu.
Even though I am using Win10 Build 1803, somehow under 'Colours' setting it still gives me the option to choose between a 'light' mode and a 'dark' mode.
Unfortunately, this only switches the title bar/menu bar...etc of a window from ''black characters on white background'' to '' white characters on black background''. Also, as I use Firefox as my main browser, I discover that Firefox has a dark mode which does the same effect to the browser too.
This helps a little bit but I want to retain ''black characters on white background'' but with less light intensity, and not just for the title bar/menu bar...etc but for the entire monitor screen.

ASCii, may I ask, does the software f.lux only changes the colour warm and cool? Or, is it able to change the light intensity as well? I am really looking for the latter feature.

Actually, I am trying out Necere's suggestion and fiddle the monitor's built-in settings for preset modes. Among all the modes, there are 'Game' and Movie' modes which increases the monitor screen light intensity/brightness dramatically. This is, of course, opposite to what I am looking for. Then, there are modes for 'Warm' and 'Cool'. 'Warm' gives a yellowish look across the whole screen and 'Cool' gives a bluish look. Perhaps this kind of effect is more or less similar to what f.lux can do?

(This is certainly not a limitation of my monitor as it does not give me an over-brightness under Win 7.)
 

ASCii

(ツ)
Jan 7, 2017
73
55
Literally you can change the color spectrum to almost anything that your eyes desire with f.lux, however the auto mode that takes in to account the time of day also works quite good.

The application is free, light, and is riddled with options for customization.

 
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tinyitx

Shrink Ray Wielder
Original poster
Jan 25, 2018
2,279
2,338
In Nvidia Control Panel, there is a place where the monitor brightness can be adjusted.
I am experimenting with this method and it seems this might be the best way to go.