Do You Need To Adjust Your Display?

Test Your Monitor settings

1. Look at the test picture above and adjust the knobs or buttons on your display monitor.
2. The white bar on the right is pure white on the top half and very slightly darker on the bottom half.
   Adjust your "Contrast" knob until you can just see the difference. Contrast is often set to 100%.
3. The black bar on the left is pure black on the top half and very slightly lighter on the bottom half. Adjust
   your "Brightness" knob until you can just see the difference. Brightness is often set to about 50%. You
   may now have to readjust the contrast.

Test Your Display Software settings

Size Test

This test will show if your display software is set to show an 800h X 600v pixel picture area.

At 800 X 600, the 2 778 pixel lines below almost span the browser window in Microsoft Internet Explorer 3, 4 or 5

At 800 X 600, the 2 758 pixel lines below almost span the browser window in Netscape Communicator 4 or 5

At 800 X 600, the 2 748 pixel lines below almost span the browser window if you use Netscape Navigator 2 or 3

The image below will test your display software palette setting

Number of Colors Available Test

If your display software is set for 24 bits or more (sometimes called  "True Color" or "17 million colors") you
should see a perfectly smooth transition from white to blue. Any "banding" of colors will show that your display
is set for less than 24 bit color and should be changed.

How To Change Display Software Settings In Windows

Why bother?
24 bit "True Color" and 800 X 600 screen size (or Macintosh/Unix equivalents) are the minimum requirements for
good viewing of photographs.

To set Windows 95/98:
Right-click on the desktop background (not on an icon), then choose:
  "Properties / Display Properties / Settings".

To set Windows 3.1 or Windows for Workgroups:
Use your display vendor's icon (probably found by double-clicking on "Control Panel"), or exit to DOS and type
"setup" in the "C:\Windows" directory.

You may need the software drivers which came with your display card, or the Windows 95 CD. Software display
drivers can also be downloaded from your display vendor's Web site.
These are the standard settings for most multi-media (although some games may require switching to
8 bit (256) colors).

For you media types, all photos on this site were processed on a monitor having a gamma of about 2.0.

Last fine art photos page update: June 18, 2000
Copyright © 1996-1999 jim coe. All rights reserved.