lcd panel test patterns free sample

This selection contains several patterns that enable you to check your monitor’s calibration. The gamma patterns (left and middle) must be viewed on a monitor; they do not work in printed media. Reset pattern restores the default values, H = 0, S = 0, L = 1, and Gamma = 2.2.

This chart enables (shown below) you to set the black level (brightness) and estimate display gamma over a range of 1.2 to 2.8 with accuracy close to ±0.05. The gamma pattern is on the left; the black level pattern is on the right. Before using the chart, CRT monitors should be turned for on for at least 15 minutes. For flat screen (LCD) monitors, Screen resolution should be set to the monitor’s native resolution (right-click on the wallpaper, Properties, Settings).

Your monitor’s gamma should be set for 2.2 (for Windows systems).Gamma = 2.2 for the Internet-standard sRGB color space and the popular Adobe RGB (1998) color space. 1.8 was the standard for older Macintosh systems and prepress file interchange (Mac users, see Ian Lyons’ Mac Calibration page.). Many laptop LCD screens cannot be accurately calibrated because gamma is extremely sensitive to viewing angle (though my 2018 Asus Zenbook is better than I expected).You can adjust gamma using Quickgamma (a great free program) or a hardware calibrator (details here).

The image on the right shows the middle gamma pattern enlarged 4x. The upper part of this image, to the right of Standard, uses the same black-to-white sinusoidal variation as the Gamma and black level chart. The color patterns appear when the Alt pattern colors (T & B) box, located just to the right of the Gamma slider, is checked

When this image is displayed normal size (not enlarged; below) on a good quality monitor, the R-C, G-M, B-Y, and Standard patterns appear nearly identical.

Right: HSL rainbow patterns. These patterns are used for a rough visual estimate of the monitor’s color performance. They should appear well-saturated and have smooth color and tonal gradations (no abrupt changes). Laptops typically look very different from well-calibrated LCD or CRT monitors.

The circles should be complete and round, the lines in the frequency patterns should be clear and defined, and the color gradients should not have any breaks or banding.

Check the extent to which your monitor can display similar colors while keeping them differentiable. You can create two color patches to do so. The more similar the two colors that can still be differentiated from one another are, the better your monitor can differentiate between the colors. This test is also well suited for making a direct visual comparison between two different monitors.

This test allows you to determine whether your monitor can reproduce text sharply and without any shadows, independently of other influences, such as text smoothing.

Test the monitor’s viewing angle stability. When you increase the viewing angle, the size and shape of the circles displayed should remain almost the same. Slight changes may appear. Less is better.

Use the slide bar to change the logo’s grayscale until the logo blends into the background to the greatest possible extent. The value shown corresponds to your monitor’s gamma value.

This test primarily serves to compare the response times of two monitors. Start by selecting a speed that creates clear streaks on the rectangles. However, you should still be able to clearly follow the rectangles visually. Then vary the distance between the rectangles until the lower edge (streak) of the one on the right no longer overlaps the lower edge of the one on the left. The smaller the distance, the shorter the response time. When comparing several monitors, select the same speed.

This report examines the gamma relationship between a display’s pixel input values and its luminance output values. We examine how a display’s gamma is specified and how it is normally measured. We see how a display’s gamma measurement and/or adjustment is complicated by dynamic luminance changes that are based on average picture level. We also examine the latest standard for measuring the gamma performance of these displays with dynamic luminance levels.

We then present a type of test pattern that maintains a constant APL, despite changes to its measurement stimulus level. We present an innovative method of maintaining constant APL at any desired window size or APL, as well as constant chromatic, to maintain accurate gamma measurements not only for grayscale levels, but for all colors.

Many display technologies dynamically adjust the luminance levels of the display, depending upon the average picture level (APL) of the currently displayed image. These displays include plasma panels with ABL, LCDs and PDPs with global and local dimming, and projectors with auto iris.

To measure a display’s gamma, we typically display ten or more test patterns, with the stimulus levels (pixel values) of the individual patterns distributed across the grayscale range of interest. We measure the luminance that the display produces with each test pattern and chart the results, to produce a visual representation of the display’s gamma performance (Figure 2).

For this type of display, the luminance of a full white area of the image dynamically changes as the average pixel level of the entire image changes (Figure 4). These displays, that dynamically change their luminance as the average pixel level changes, include all plasma display panels (PDPs), LCDs with global or local dimming enabled, and projectors with auto iris enabled.

Because plasma display panels generate significant heat and a high power supply load when producing high luminance across a significant area of a scene, all plasma displays include an Automatic Brightness Limiter (ABL) to protect their power supplies, to reduce phosphor aging, and to limit their energy consumption.

During a scene with a high proportion of bright elements, the ABL circuit limits the panel’s luminance (dims the entire picture) to limit power consumption. During a scene with a lower proportion of bright pixels there is less limiting effect. Depending upon the proportion of bright pixels in the entire image, this changes the amount of light a plasma panel produces at any particular pixel drive level (Figure 5).

Global or local dimming in LCDs and PDPs, and auto iris in projectors also have the effect of dynamically changing the luminance produced at a particular pixel drive level, depending upon the proportion of bright pixels in the rest of the image. This has the effect of dynamically changing the gamma performance of a display, depending upon picture content. So, what is an appropriate method to measure or adjust the gamma performance for a display that dynamically changes its luminance with picture content changes?

Both full field and window (partial field) test patterns have been used to test display gamma. The APL of both full field and window test patterns changes, though, as the measurement stimulus level changes.

A full-field test pattern produces 100% APL at 100% stimulus, with proportionally lower APLs at lower stimulus levels. The APL varies from 100% to 0%.

This extreme APL change is okay when testing LCD panels with dimming disabled or projectors with auto iris disabled, but is not appropriate for testing displays that dynamically change their luminance levels, depending upon the APL of the currently displayed image.

Window patterns with a black background have been in use for a long time for display measurements. These patterns minimize the APL change when switching between different stimulus levels, as compared to full field test patterns.

You can see that smaller size window patterns, with a black background, result in a smaller APL change as the measurement stimulus level is varied from maximum to minimum. But, any window pattern with a constant background level is not a constant APL test pattern.

Window test patterns have long been thought to be appropriate for measuring displays with dynamically changing luminance levels. However, a window pattern with any constant background level still has a changing APL as the measurement stimulus level changes. This still results in dynamically changing measurement conditions.

The International Committee for Display Metrology (ICDM), part of the Society for Information Display (SID) Definitions and Standards Committee, was charged with updating the Flat Panel Display Measurements Standard that had been used extensively by the industry since its publication by VESA in 2001. The ICDM published its Information Display Measurement Standard (IDMS) in May of 2012, with recommended procedures to quantify electronic display characteristics.

To measure the gamma of display technologies that dynamically adjust luminance based on image content, the IDMS standard specifies test patterns that maintain a fixed average pixel level (APL) (page 86). One IDMS implementation of fixed APL is a test pattern with a center stimulus window and a background that changes pixel level to counterbalance the luminance changes in the center window (Figure 10).

When you are measuring a display that dynamically adjusts its luminance based on image content, you don’t get meaningful gamma measurements with test patterns that each have a different APL. Each test pattern, each with a different APL, causes the display to exhibit a different dynamic luminance characteristic.

A constant APL test pattern maintains the same APL across the measurement stimulus range. As the stimulus level in the center window changes, the background level changes to compensate, keeping the total light output constant.

The center window for the four constant APL test patterns is at the currently selected stimulus level, ranging from 100% white to 0% black. The window size is approximately 5% of the area of the total image frame.

CalMAN also provides a Constant APL test pattern that can be user-defined. The user can select the Pattern Size, to select the size of the center stimulus window, and the Pattern APL, to set the APL of the overall pattern.

As well as maintaining a constant average pixel level for the Constant APL test patterns, CalMAN also maintains the test patterns as constant chromatic.

If you are unable to totally disable either dimming or auto iris, use a constant APL test pattern to minimize their effects on any display measurements.

For plasma panels, to constrain the effect of ABL to the average picture level of the expected content, use constant APL test patterns. We want to measure or adjust gamma in the picture condition that is most prevalent.

You don’t want a different APL for each different test pattern. That would mean that both the stimulus level and the APL are changing during the gamma measurement. We want to test gamma at one or more fixed APLs. Each gamma test will involve only one variable, the stimulus level.

If you want to test multiple variables (i.e. stimulus and APL), test only one variable at a time. Use a constant APL pattern (e.g. 50 APL) to test a display’s gamma at that APL across the stimulus range. Then, switch to another constant APL pattern (e.g. 25 APL) to test the display’s gamma at that APL.

Many display technologies produce different luminance at black, gray, and/or peak white levels, depending upon the average picture level (APL) of the image. These display types include plasma and LCD panels with global or local dimming, plasma panels with ABL, and projectors with auto iris.

A display’s gamma performance, which is critical to accurate image rendering, is determined by measuring test patterns at various stimulus levels. If the test patterns also change average picture level as they change stimulus levels, many displays produce a different luminance, not only in response to the changed stimulus level, but also due to the changed

Because a frame of picture content is always at a single APL and because most picture content averages out to an APL within a moderate range, we normally want to test at one, or possibly two different, APLs to accurately characterize a display’s gamma performance.

A constant APL test pattern allows us to stabilize the ABL effect in plasma panels, stabilize any dimming or auto iris action that can’t be disabled, and test at an APL that is representative of average program content. This allows a gamma test to measure only the effects of stimulus (picture) level changes.

CalMAN constant APL test patterns are available at a number of fixed APLs and at user-defined APLs. The CalMAN test patterns are also constant chromatic, minimizing any display changes due to any effect other than the desired stimulus level change. This enables the most accurate gamma measurements and adjustments that are possible, on any display type.

Graphics professionals will pick up serious color accuracy test tools for the job, like the Datacolor Spyder5Elite S5EL100 Monitor Calibration System. Some of you will go with the default monitor calibration software built into the OS. But we can also take some online help from these simple monitor calibration websites that have existed for a long time.

Conveniently, Windows comes with its down display calibration tool. Previously part of the Control Panel, Microsoft moved it to its own standalone app in Windows 11.

The Lagom LCD Monitor Test Pages are a far more comprehensive set of tools than Photo Friday. The site includes a series of test patterns that start from checking contrast to checking for response times of your monitor. It is recommended to go through the tests in the order they are placed.

For instance, use the first few images to check brightness, contrast, and sharpness. With those set, use a latter test like the “Viewing Angle” to see if the display changes brightness or colors in the corners.

For a beginner, it might seem overwhelming. But, the test patterns come with helpful explanations. The developer also states that you can put the images on a USB drive and try them in the computer store when shopping for an LCD monitor. A 120 KB ZIP file download is included.

The Online Monitor Test website has a range of interactive tests to fix your screen colors. The menu appears when you move your mouse to the top. It starts off with a test that checks the brightness and contrast across the B/W tonal spectrum. It is similar to the test we covered on the Photo Friday website.

Next, the Color Range test checks if your monitor can smoothly produce color gradients. From the menu, you can pick different color charts. Look for “ghost images” or image trails in the Trailing test. Move the box across the screen and check if any trails are produced. The controls and options to change the color and shape of the box are placed at the bottom.

The Homogeneity test helps to pinpoint damaged pixels and faulty monitors with backlight bleeding. 1:1 Pixel mapping and testing for a blurring of Text are the last two tests on the lineup. While the former is not so much an issue with LCD computer monitors, the latter is worth a tryout if you feel that screen text is not crisp enough.

Note: We linked to the test version that requires JavaScript above. Most browsers won"t support the Flash versions of the test, but if you"d prefer to download the executable (no browser plugin required), visit the Online Monitor Test homepage

Remember, we were talking about Gamma values just a while back? Well, this whole page and the test associated with it is devoted to it. The importance and process are clearly laid out, and it"s helpful for any tyro. The most important takeaway is that color saturation and hue change with gamma values.

The author also provides a series of “Gamagic” test patterns you can use to calibrate your monitor. Fall back on your eyes and adjust the gamma setting with the monitor controls until all the squares match up with their backgrounds as closely as possible.

This single page screen calibration chart has few of the test images we have already covered in the earlier tools. Go through the color, gray scale, and gamma adjustments.

Windows 10 comes with the Windows Calibrate Display Color. You can access it from Start > Control Panel > Appearance and Personalization > Display. Or, simply search from the Cortana search box with a keyword like “calibrate.”

The patterns labeled HSL show the color in rows (left to right) from 100% saturation (full color) to no color (greyscale). The columns (top to bottom) show the color from 100% luminance (white) to 0% luminance (black).

The patterns labeled HSV show the color in rows (left to right) from 100% saturation to no color (greyscale). The columns (top to bottom) show the color from 100% luminance to 0% luminance (black).

The patterns labeled RGB start with a specific color patch in the upper left corner. As you look at the patches from left to right or up or down the color is changing in hue. Diagonally from upper left to lower right the color changes in saturation.

Capabilities vary according to monitor type. For example, the maximum screen quality differs for CRT and LCD displays. There"s also a noticeable quality difference between IPS LCD and TFT LCD monitors.

Macs and Windows PCs have built-in, free monitor-calibration tools that are a great first step to testing a monitor"s settings. For more advanced help, online monitor-calibration tools provide in-depth analysis and setting guidance.

If you use your monitor for professional purposes, you may want to take some extra measures to ensure perfect video and image quality. Free online monitor-testing tools such as Lagom and Eizo Monitor Test can help you tweak the settings using objective source material such as color diagrams and test patterns.

If you"re looking for more in-depth monitor calibration, there are paid professional monitor-testing programs, many of which offer a free trial version.

The Passmark MonitorTest software gives a full-screen view of various tests. It generates 35 test patterns and covers touchscreens and HDR while offering support for all available resolutions and color depths. MonitorTest works with all resolutions as well as multiple monitor setups. It also supports looped testing.

The Indian-head test pattern is a test card created by RCA of Harrison, New Jersey, which became the standard image of the RCA TK-1 monoscope. It features a drawing of a Native American wearing a headdress and numerous graphic elements designed to test different aspects of broadcast display. The card was introduced in 1939 and over the course of the black-and-white television broadcasting era was widely adopted by television stations across North America.

The Indian-head test pattern became familiar to the large baby boom TV audiences in America from 1947 onwards; it would often follow the formal television station sign-off after the United States national anthem. The Indian head was also used by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC)Canadian national anthem sign-off in the evening, and during its final years in the late-1970s and early-1980s it was shown before sign-on in the morning, after the showing of the SMPTE color bars.Rhodesia Television (RTV) during British colonial times (varying between Northern and Southern Rhodesia) following the playing of "God Save the Queen" at closedown. This test pattern was later used by the Venezuelan TV channel Venevision, in conjunction with the RMA Resolution Chart 1946, until the late-1970s before signing on with the Venezuelan national anthem. Telesistema Mexicano (now Televisa) stations also used this test pattern until the late-1960s immediately after playing the Mexican national anthem at sign-off. In the Dominican Republic, the Indian-head pattern was used by its public broadcaster Corporación Estatal de Radio y Televisión (CERTV) in the late-1960s and 1970s (in conjunction with the EIA 1956 resolution chart test card) after playing the National Anthem of the Dominican Republic at sign-off. In Sweden the Indian head was used in test transmissions from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm alongside the RMA Resolution Chart 1946, Telefunken T05 test card, as well as other experimental test cards from Televerket and Chalmers University of Technology from 1948 until November 1958 when it was replaced by the Sveriges Radio TV (now Sveriges Television) test card.Saudi Broadcasting Authority in Saudi Arabia also formerly used a modified version of the Indian head test pattern, with the Emblem of Saudi Arabia replacing the Indian head drawing,Philips PM5544 test card. The Indian head was also used in Brazil by Rede Tupi, both as a test pattern and as part of a television ident, from its launch in 1950 until it became the first Brazilian television network to adopt colour television in 1971–1972. The Indian head pattern was also used by Kuwait Television in Kuwait from its launch of television services in 1961 until it adopted colour television in the mid-1970s.

From the late-1950s the test pattern gradually began to be seen less frequently, after fewer sign-offs, on fewer stations, and for shorter periods in the morning, since new and improved TV broadcast equipment required less adjusting. In later years the test pattern was transmitted for as little as a minute after sign-off while the transmitter engineer logged required Federal Communications Commission-US/Industry Canada transmitter readings before cutting power.

By the end of the Indian-head TV era in the late-1970s/early-1980s, there was no nightly test pattern on stations where automatic logging and remote transmitter controls allowed shutdown of power immediately after the formal sign-off. After an immediate transmitter power off, in lieu of the Indian-head test pattern and its sine wave tone, a TV viewer heard a loud audio hiss like FM radio interstation noise and saw the video noise. Audio and video noise received on Indian-head era TV sets respectively indicated the absence of analog aural and visual broadcast carriers. Home-use TVs typically did not have a no-signal noise muting and blanking feature until the late analog TV period.

When US broadcasters switched to color television, the SMPTE color bars largely superseded the black-and-white test pattern image although a few station owners employed colorized versions of the NBC/CBS "bullseye" test pattern, in some cases lasting until as recently as the early 1990s.

The Indian-head test pattern was not generated by pointing a camera at a card, as many older test patterns were. Rather, it was generated directly as a monochrome video signal by means of a monoscope tube, a specialized video camera tube with the pattern built into the tube.

An RCA TK-1 test pattern generator (monoscope) is a 19-inch rack-mounted chassis, which contains a monoscope tubecathode ray tube (CRT), but instead of displaying an image, it scans a built-in image, producing a video signal. The tube has a perfectly proportioned copy of the test pattern master art inside, permanently deposited as a carbon image on an aluminum target plate or slide.television studio and production control room video monitors, and home television sets, to be identically adjusted for minimal distortions such as ovals instead of circles.aspect ratio was exactly four units wide by three units high.

The graphic of the Indian and all of the patterns on the chart served specific purposes. With the chart, many typical daily (sometimes hourly) adjustments on cameras, home, and studio monitors could be made. An experienced broadcast engineer could glance at the drawing of the Indian Chief and quickly know if everything was working correctly or if more careful adjustment was needed. Within the chart, the tools necessary to adjust perspective, framing, linearity, frequency response, differential gain, contrast and white level (brightness) are all provided. The grid and circles were used for perspective, framing and linearity. The tapered lines (marked with 20, 25, 30, and 35) were used for resolution and frequency response. The thin lines marked from 575 to 325 on one side and 300 to 50 on the other side referred to lines of resolution. The gray bands emerging from the center off to the lower right and upper left were for differential gain, contrast, and white level.

Only after the monitors were adjusted was an actual Indian-head test pattern used. A cardboard mounted lithograph of the test pattern was typically attached to a rolling vertical easel in each TV studio, to be videographed by each studio camera during test time. Then the cameras were adjusted to appear identical on picture monitors, by alternately switching between and comparing the monoscope image and the test card image. Such adjustments were made on a regular basis because television system electronics then used hot vacuum tubes, the operating characteristics of which drifted throughout each broadcast day.

Test patterns were also broadcast to the public daily to allow regular adjustments by home television set owners and TV shop repair technicians.pincushioning, and image size.

The test pattern was usually accompanied by a 1,000 or 400 hertz sine wave test tone, which demonstrated that the TV aural receiver was working. If the tone was pure-sounding rather than a buzz or rattle, then transmitted speech and music would not be distorted. 400 Hz is somewhat less annoying for technicians to hear for extended work periods.

An actual Indian-head test card, the pattern as printed on art-grade white cardboard, was only of secondary importance to television system adjustment, but many of them were saved as souvenirs, works of found object art, and inadvertent mandalas. By contrast, nearly all of the hard-to-open, steel-shielded, vacuum glass monoscope tubes were junked with their hidden Indian-head test pattern target plates still inside. The monoscope target plates were also small, a few inches in size, while the camera test cards were 1.5 by 2 feet (0.46 by 0.61 m), appropriate for picture-framed wall display.

The original art work for the Indian chief portrait was completed for RCA"s research engineers by an artist named Brooks on August 23, 1938. The original portrait was done in pencil, charcoal, ink and zinc oxide. For about a year said portrait was televised in the laboratory as the entire test pattern. Only from 1939 onwards was said portrait incorporated into the current pattern of calibrated lines and shapes. The original portrait measures eight inches (20 cm) across as a circular image containing several identifiable shades of gray, and some detail in the feathers. There is also some Zone 8 texture in the white feathering and some Zone 2 texture in the black hair. The master art for both the portrait and the pattern design was discovered in a dumpster by a wrecking crew worker as the old RCA factory in Harrison, New Jersey was being demolished in 1970. The worker kept the art for over 30 years before selling it to television engineer and collector Chuck Pharis.

The Indian-head test pattern became obsolete in the 1960s with the debut of color television; from that point onward, an alternate test card of SMPTE color bars (and its immediate predecessors), or colorized versions of the NBC/CBS-derived "bullseye" patterns became the test card of choice. Since the 1990s, most television stations in the United States have broadcast continuously without regular sign-offs, instead running infomercials, networked overnight news shows, syndicated reruns, cartoons, or old movies; thus, the broadcast of test patterns has become mostly obsolete (though they are still used in post-production and broadcast facilities to check color and signal paths). Nevertheless, the Indian-head test pattern persists as a symbol of early television. A variant of the card appeared on theatrical release posters for "Weird Al" Yankovic"s 1989 film Archie McPhee company,

In October 2022, a 4:3 monochrome test card that resembles the Indian-head test pattern was discovered in an EPROM chip of a Philips PM5644 PAL generator purchased by a British television repairman from a European scrap dealer.

Kay, M. S. (January 1949). "The Television Test Pattern" (scan). Radio & Television News. Ziff-Davis. 41 (1): 38–39, 135–136 – via Wikimedia. "Every television station, prior to its actual broadcasting period, transmits a test pattern for the purpose of permitting set owners to adjust their receiver controls for optimum reception." The article also states that television programming (in 1949) was only a few hours each evening. The Indian-head test pattern was built into the RCA "monoscope" tube, a 2F21, which acted as a complete replacement for the TV camera.

The Indian-head test pattern night light was included in a set of three novelty night lights with test pattern lamp shades: RCA TK-1 Indian head (1950s), SMPTE color bars (1960s), and an Emergency Broadcast System (EBS) TV-test slide image ("This is a test! This is only a test!") from the middle Cold War era.According to the customer service department of Archie McPhee company, Seattle, Washington, the set of three, as Item #10480, was sold from 1999-01-11 to 2005-06-17. Their representative said these lamp shades were created by the company, and not obtained from an outside source. (Source accessed by phone on 2007-11-07).

"The Indian Head Test Pattern original master art". Archived from the original on June 15, 2015. Retrieved May 18, 2006.link) – rescued from an RCA dumpster in 1970