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I usually just use Fn + Left or Fn + Right to adjust my screen's brightness but the minimum settings are still too bright for me (especially when I'm working at night). I tried going through the Power Options in the Control Panel (plan brightness already at the lowest settings). Is there a way to dim my laptop's screen beyond the minimum?

I'm already using Fl.ux. I was wondering if there was a utility similar to it that adjusts my screen's brightness/contrast instead of its color temperature.

Ellesa
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  • Can you still buy filters for screens? They were around in the old CRT days. I suppose sunglasses would make it difficult to see the keys at night. – pavium Jul 09 '11 at 09:43
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    I have considered buying filters. And I do have my sunglasses on standby. I was hoping for something similar to Flux. – Ellesa Jul 09 '11 at 09:46
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    Mentioning the used software will help out the answers not to be redundant. – avirk Jun 21 '12 at 04:48
  • iBrightness is the only one I can remember. – cutrightjm Jun 21 '12 at 05:11
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    Sunglasses might be a solution. I wonder if you could get one of those old glare screens and cover it with something that reduces transmitted light as well. Might help to state, desktop or laptop, and if its the former, the model of the screen in the question.Some things i can think of deal with things specific to monitor and software – Journeyman Geek Jun 21 '12 at 05:17
  • Although that is not really the answer to your question: Did you think about buying a Monitor which fits your needs? Maybe reading some reviews, going to the store for demonstration etc. It seems you are spending quite some time with it, so it might be the best solution all in all. – StampedeXV Jun 21 '12 at 11:36
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    sunglasses can't do it for me coz I already wear glass to correct my sight – shashwat Aug 04 '13 at 15:01
  • I know this may be a bit off topic, but @Shaswat: There are 3 sunglass options for people who wear glasses. Clip-ons and flip-ups have been around for years. (I use the latter for driving, coz even though I have Transitions lenses, they don't work in the car coz the windows block the UV rays that cause the lenses to darken.) The third option is sunglasses that fit over the glasses. (I saw those in Costco recently.) There's also a fourth option, but you have to do that when you get your glasses: some frames come with a pair of sunglass lenses that go on over the regular lenses using magnets. – RobH Jul 10 '14 at 16:45
  • may be relevant http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1193925 a "neutral density filter" a vinyl sheet that reduces brightness. – barlop Jul 07 '15 at 09:49
  • For Windows 10 users on a device with Intel, the solution by @Netti via Desktop > Intel Graphic Properties works fine: https://superuser.com/a/1234481/. – Rantanplan Jan 08 '21 at 11:00

20 Answers20

63

Flux doesn't really dim the screen, just changes the color temperature (I like it, but you have to be careful with photoediting etc).

Dimmer does dim (by the looks of it it's very similar to the above mentioned DimScreen) and it's free.

From the site:

Overview

Dimmer is a very small and free piece of software designed to provide brightness reduction on LCD screens, TFT screens and LED screens when it either don't have, or lack proper brightness control. A must have if you work on your computer at night with very low ambient light. The reason I mention LCD's, TFT's or LED's is because these are the flat panels we all have on our laptops or notebooks and usually are limited and can't be dimmed very low. The desktop versions and the old CRT type monitors did not suffer from this limitation.

JoshP
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user1692094
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    I tried everything but Dimmer is the best! – aalaap Oct 19 '12 at 12:05
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    Dimmer is nice and clever, except it's just a black box that overlays your desktop. I'd really like a solution that lets me actually dim the backlight further than the OS allows, but it sounds like that's a limitation of the LCD backlight technology. – Walter Stabosz Nov 02 '14 at 01:05
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    On multiple monitors, both Dimmer and DimScreen only dim one of them :( – Aximili Apr 03 '15 at 10:49
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    Flux actually can dim the monitor. On windows the hotkey Alt + Page Down will dim the screen until the next sunrise. Alt + Page Up to brighten. – HighlandRat Oct 15 '15 at 13:38
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    @HighlandRat Indeed, I never thought Flux is capable of controlling brightness, but why the devs didn't promote this feature enough ? Flux works great for me. – Rockr90 Apr 24 '16 at 15:34
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    @HighlandRat Your response works 100% and doesn't require installation of additional software. On top of that, it works on both monitors! Currently experimenting with circadian darkness settings (I suppose ~0-2% daylight). I'm using a Windows 7 PC, if that helps. – Paul T. Aug 11 '17 at 04:00
  • Is there any corresponding feature for Flux on OSX? Command + Page Down does nothing, and I don't see an option or preference for this. – Aaron Sep 11 '17 at 05:42
  • @HighlandRat you are a hero! – nipunasudha Feb 01 '19 at 16:19
  • be aware that Dimmer doesn't actually dims, it changes the colors (It messed up my auto-hotkey scripts based on color). I guess it whiten/darken the pixels colors. – JinSnow Oct 03 '19 at 04:43
  • Open source alternative (using autohotkey): https://www.autohotkey.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=70871&p=317763#p317763 To use custom shortcuts to trigger dimemr.exe: https://www.autohotkey.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=68645&p=295451#p295451 – JinSnow Mar 16 '20 at 08:00
  • I love how I can google things that some would think is a waste of time and find software solutions – Shadoninja Aug 30 '20 at 13:05
  • @WalterStabosz: "it's just a black box that overlays your desktop" -- is that true and if so, why is that bad? –  Dec 16 '22 at 05:45
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You can get more control over the display colors when using the Display color calibration utility :

( from the run box, type: dccw.exe )

enter image description here

the problem is there is no shortcut to toggle between different profiles.

I just come up with this little utility dispcalGUI, (with endless options) pretty neat !enter image description here

it can be the solution.

  • +1 Wow, thanks for sharing the utility! I'm going to download it and play with the settings. – Ellesa Jul 09 '11 at 17:59
  • I didn't succeed to make it work on my machine (port thing), however there is complete instruction on how to deploy it, tell me it you get something –  Jul 09 '11 at 19:19
  • lower the gamma, red, green and blue to the minimum level did a great job I think +1 – shashwat Aug 04 '13 at 15:06
15

Took me a while but I found this portable app called DimScreen through this site, which does exactly what I need.

After launching it, it shows an icon on the System Tray that gives "dimness" levels for me to choose from. The higher the value I pick, the darker my screen gets (beyond the minimum that Fn + Left gives me).

enter image description here

Ellesa
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  • Hmm just downloaded this and when I tried to install the screen dimmed but no installer started up... – hippietrail Aug 01 '11 at 10:00
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    That's why it's called a **portable app**. It doesn't install. – Ellesa Aug 01 '11 at 14:31
  • Hmm good point put it certainly looked exactly like the dimming an installer does (90% ish) and I couldn't find anything in the system tray to control it. PS in my day all apps were portable d-; – hippietrail Aug 01 '11 at 14:56
  • I see. The icon looks looks like a black box. When I ran it the first time, the icon was hidden. I had to set it to "Only show notifications." I wish there was a better app though. But I guess it still helps keep eyestrain at bay for me for a while. – Ellesa Aug 01 '11 at 15:04
  • OK it worked when I tried it now thanks for making me give it another go. I'll have to wait for my "stuck dimmed" problem to recur though to see if it works to resolve that though. – hippietrail Aug 01 '11 at 16:42
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    It turns out not to solve my problem, which is probably at the driver or firmware or OS level. It can only dim from the hard brightness setting but cannot go brighter than it. – hippietrail Aug 21 '11 at 08:34
  • I think this one is as good as any other - it works, works with f.lux, has a quality dim overlay, and is hotkey-settable! N.b. for some reason one of the in-built `Ctrl +` hotkeys didn't work for me but I set them to `Alt + ` + and -, and it works perfectly. Thanks for the Q AND your answer, Ellesa! –  Jun 28 '14 at 09:44
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    Dims most of the screen, but popups in firefox end up higher in the z order, so occasionally I get these bright white boxes on a dimmed screen. – Paul Brannan Nov 18 '14 at 23:24
  • How about a computer connect to two screens, this only dim one screen – an offer can't refuse Oct 23 '17 at 02:57
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I know this is an old question, but I figured I'd put my two cents in. I actually use f.lux, and it's a great piece of software. It supports (though I don't know since when) screen contrast dimming with use of the Alt+PgDn and Alt+PgUp hotkeys (Down for dimmer, up for brighter) and it's an eyesaver.

NikolaTeslaX
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7

I've heard good things about f.lux. It's a piece of software that dims your computer screen according to the time of day, to help simulate natural light. That sounds like it's exactly what you're after, as it'll keep things dim at night, while having considerably less of an effect during the day.

Alternatively, use it as my (exceedingly photosensitive) partner does on her laptop: crank up all the settings to their extremes, disable the timer, and just use it as a global setting for dropping the brightness on your monitor

me_and
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I suggest DimScreen (different to one already mentioned) created by Robert Gentry.

It's free and open source so I've created a fork of the project to support multiple-monitors.

enter image description here

Note: requires .NET 4

Jay Wick
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4

Have you tried Dimscreen from the donation coder? http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Skrommel/index.html#DimScreen

Remko
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I have extremely sensitive eyes, hence I developed DimScreen. It will appear as a black box in the notification area and you can adjust dimness far beyond the allowed minimum set by your function keys. Its features are the following:

  • Change the brightness by selecting a `% in the tray menu.
  • Or use the hotkeys Ctrl++ and Ctrl+-.
  • Change hotkeys using Settings in the tray menu.
  • Doesn't work properly with video windows.

Could be used for nighttime map reading if your laptop is missing dimming controls.

Doktoro Reichard
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user345123
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Since you have already installed f.lux which have function to Dim the screen using key combinations

Alt + Page Down - Dim the screen

Alt + Page Up - Brighten the screen

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Ashwani
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You can get the biggest possible dim range with Iris.

Here is a normal screen with Brightness on 100% enter image description here

If you set Iris to 50% brightness the screen will look like this

enter image description here

You can go as low as 10% if you enable Extended values, but this is really dark screen

enter image description here

Aside from going down you can also go up to 150% brightness. Here is how brightness on 110% looks like

enter image description here

This over the maximum brightness is really useful when watching movies for me

enter image description here

Looking at the other answers most programs lower the brightness by placing a transparent overlay filter.

This method reduces contrast quite a bit and may cause eye problems.

Iris and f.lux should work fine because they change the white point of the screen which is better.

One plus of Iris over f.lux is that you automate the brightness reduction based on day and night just like most blue light filter programs do with the color temperature and blue light.

Iris can do this also but this is not related to the question.

One thing to note is that I don't recommend changing the brightness via monitor buttons if the monitor is LED. Most LED monitors change the brightness via a process called Pulse-width modulation which is really bad for the eyes.

I have some explanation about PWM here: https://iristech.co/pwm-flicker/

Technically you can also lower the brightness by wearing sunglasses in front of the PC.

This will also block some UV and blue light if you don't want to use software or use some strange Linux on which no software works at all :)

Daniel Georgiev
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  • This really is best solution for me .. I was looking for an app where I could take screenshots without ruining the screenshot original colors. This is possible with Iris by activating the "low-level Color API" from settings. – Omar May 31 '20 at 05:46
  • Shareware - be aware – Fusseldieb Jun 15 '20 at 00:26
2

I looked quickly and didn't find any info if your monitor is a led based one or not. Some older monitors have fluorescent tube for lights (I think) and those probably have a pretty high lowest brightness setting. So if you have that type of monitor you are probably not going to have any luck making it darker through settings.

So you alternative is probably a privacy filter. I have one for my computer at work. It made the screen quite noticeably darker. Although those filters will make the screen harder to read from certain angles, it might still be what you need.

Smetad Anarkist
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there is a program PowerStrip that let's you set many visual configuration profiles and you can add shortcuts to them. I find it very useful in games or movies. The program does more than that so it's very useful.

Maxx
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PangoBright works for multiple monitors

Aximili
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If you have intel graphics, open up the graphics properties and set the brightness lower. My default was set at 0, and went to -60. I also use f.lux and dimmer.

jay mac
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Assuming that it is not a limitation of the hardware and/or driver, then you can use Nirsoft’s NirCmd to adjust the screen brightness up or down to whatever the video-adapter is capable of.

Synetech
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I have sensitive eyes as well and do a lot of work at night so looked into getting a screen protector like the kind used on the old CRTS, but they were too bulky, somewhat costly, and did not work well on my 17.3" laptop. What I finally came up with that works great is getting a roll of tinted privacy window film from Home Depot and cut out a section to fit my exact screen dimensions. The result is fantastic as it filters out the rays causing eye strain, can be peeled on or off in seconds, and reused as many times as you like (it clings to the screen and doesn't need adhesives or hardware to work. I simply place it on the back of the screen where it clings until you need to use it again! The roll I bought was enough to cover two large windows, so would be enough for 25-35 laptop screens, and I think I paid $15 for the whole thing! Some friends of mine liked it so much they have it on their TV's that were too bright in their house, their car windows, and one guy used it to darken his prescription eyeglasses and loves it! Its so simple it borders on stupid, but I love it and will put it against the "Pet Rock" and Chia Pets" on QVC any day!

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user362553
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  • This is great! Can you tell us the specific name of the privacy stuff so we can find it easily at Home Depot? –  Nov 18 '14 at 09:13
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I'd suggest you try to change your system's color metrics now, since you're already using it at lowest brightness possible. I used to have this trouble too, but then I moved on to working in evening time(from 4 to 12).

Otherwise, as StampedeXV mentioned, buy a newer screen(maybe even a LED TV which may perform as per your needs?).

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hjpotter92
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I think the best program for this purpose for Windows is Gapa. I downloaded it somewhere long time ago and now I can't find any download link or web page. The Publisher is Tomasz Porosinski.

Anyway, I can share my Dropbox link with you.

Ashildr
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icl7126
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I suggest DimScreen Skrommel 1-Hour software.

But if you run Desktop Lighter 1.4 first and choose lowest bright, exit and then run DimScreen you get even better results. Much less brightness.

It´s AutoHotkey script program and you can access to source and modify it.

Edu
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Function key bottom left of my keyboard Fn and press F5 at the same time dims the screen. To brighten press Fn and F6 at the same time.

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Sheri
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    But how does that answer getting the brightness *below* the minimum (which you get when pressing Fn+F5 multiple times)? – Arjan Jun 28 '14 at 14:03