# Difference between Brightness and Contrast?



## awildgoose

SO I have been wondering what the difference is between the two, it seems stupid and/or simple, but I just don't know.
On my LCD, I have a sun (brightness?) and a half colored moon (contrast?), I can turn each one up and down separately and they both just seem to make it darker or brighter. 
Well, using the sun makes it brighter even further and with the brightness down all the way and contrast up it's still kinda bright (well it's not dark).

So, what exactly do each of these do?


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## aviation_man

awildgoose said:


> SO I have been wondering what the difference is between the two, it seems stupid and/or simple, but I just don't know.
> On my LCD, I have a sun (brightness?) and a half colored moon (contrast?), I can turn each one up and down separately and they both just seem to make it darker or brighter.
> Well, using the sun makes it brighter even further and with the brightness down all the way and contrast up it's still kinda bright (well it's not dark).
> 
> So, what exactly do each of these do?



You must have a crappy LCD or you don't notice it that much.. 
In simple terms, contrast makes the lighter colors more lighter, and the darker colors darker.. Brightness just lights up the whole thing, without making dark/light colors darker/lighter. Make sense? Without a lot of contrast, the picture would be bland; nothing would stand out.

See the difference? 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





Look at how well the sun/blue sky shows up in this picture; lot of contrast


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## awildgoose

aviation_man said:


> You must have a crappy LCD or you don't notice it that much..
> In simple terms, contrast makes the lighter colors more lighter, and the darker colors darker.. Brightness just lights up the whole thing, without making dark/light colors darker/lighter. Make sense? Without a lot of contrast, the picture would be bland; nothing would stand out.
> 
> ...



Alright thanks, so the higher the contrast the easier to identify different things, in short.

And for further notice, please do not refer to anything of mine as crappy, because it may as well be, but I don't get anything/everything I want (and I'm not saying you do either), but I do work for the things I want.
Plus, my two monitors were given to me after my brother got them from a client who didn't want them anymore and then he fixed them up.


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## bomberboysk

awildgoose said:


> Alright thanks, so the higher the contrast the easier to identify different things, in short.
> 
> And for further notice, please do not refer to anything of mine as crappy, because it may as well be, but I don't get anything/everything I want (and I'm not saying you do either), but I do work for the things I want.
> Plus, my two monitors were given to me after my brother got them from a client who didn't want them anymore and then he fixed them up.


Basically, contrast is the difference of white/black(or grey depending on display quality hehe). Thats why when you see contrast ratio is shows how white the whites and how black the blacks are. Brightness, overall just makes everything show up brighter.


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## awildgoose

bomberboysk said:


> Basically, contrast is the difference of white/black. Thats why when you see contrast ratio is shows how white the whites and how black the blacks are. Brightness, overall just makes everything show up brighter.



Yeh, thanks. I did notice difference in the colours on my screen, but I just wanted to be sure.
And I did figure that brightness did just make it brighter/darker and such, but just wanted to be sure.


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## bomberboysk

awildgoose said:


> Yeh, thanks. I did notice difference in the colours on my screen, but I just wanted to be sure.
> And I did figure that brightness did just make it brighter/darker and such, but just wanted to be sure.


Yeah, if a display has poor contrast ratio though lowering the brightness can help make the blacks a little truer, so it does a little bit more than brighter/darker


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## mreccentric

pretty difficult to visualise, both of them seem the same when i change the brightness/contrast of my comp monitor.
If i decrease any 1 to 0%, it blacks out the screen.

Consider your screen with a white image in full screen. you can't see any color other than white. so contrast(diff b/w bright color and dark color) should be ZERO?


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## claptonman

r.vittalkiran said:


> pretty difficult to visualise, both of them seem the same when i change the brightness/contrast of my comp monitor.
> If i decrease any 1 to 0%, it blacks out the screen.
> 
> Consider your screen with a white image in full screen. you can't see any color other than white. so contrast(diff b/w bright color and dark color) should be ZERO?



Just so you know, this thread is about 3 years old...


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