Gray screen
Fill your entire screen with mid-gray — the field where uniformity problems, tint patches, and the dirty screen effect are easiest to see. Click or press Esc to exit.
More color screens
Gray screen FAQ
- What is a gray screen used for?
- Gray is the most revealing single field a display can show: the dirty screen effect, tint patches, vignetting, and backlight unevenness all hide on white and black but stand out on mid-gray. Photo and video editors also keep a gray field handy as a neutral surround, because judging colors next to a saturated background skews perception.
- I see blotches or colored patches — is my screen broken?
- Some unevenness on a full gray field is normal, especially on large LCDs — perfectly uniform panels essentially don't exist. What matters is severity: patches you notice in normal content, not just on this page, are worth acting on. Run the dedicated uniformity test, which steps through several gray levels to show how consistent the flaws are.
- Is 50% gray the same as photography's 18% gray card?
- Confusingly, roughly yes. The #808080 signal on this page is 50% of the digital scale, but display gamma turns that into about 22% of maximum light output — close to the 18% reflectance card photographers meter against. The numbers describe different things: one is the signal, the other the light that comes out.