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Brightness Test
Gray-ramp, PLUGE near-black, near-white, and ANSI contrast patterns to calibrate monitor brightness, shadow detail, and highlight clipping.
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How to use the brightness test
Set your monitor to your preferred brightness and open each pattern mode.
- Color Ramps: smooth gradients reveal banding in RGB channels. On a 10-bit display these should be completely smooth.
- 16 Gray Steps: discrete gray steps. No step should appear identical to its neighbor, and the darkest steps should be visible.
- PLUGE: near-black and near-white patches calibration reference. You should be able to distinguish all patches from 0-50 (darks) and 200-255 (lights). If the lowest black patches merge together, your blacks are crushed.
- ANSI Blocks: ANSI/C contrast reference. Read text in each quadrant to check black level and white clipping.
How to set monitor brightness
1. Open the PLUGE pattern. In a dark room, lower brightness until the 5 and 10 patches barely separate from black. In a bright room, raise brightness so text stays crisp. 2. Open the steps pattern. All 16 steps should be visible. If the top steps merge into pure white, brightness is too high. 3. Set contrast (not brightness) so white patches look clean without appearing yellow or blue.
For more calibration, see our Gamma Calibration and Contrast Test tools.