Better picture for TV

The first rule is simple: don't leave your TV in the picture mode it was set to when you first turned it on. The default mode may be called something like Standard, Dynamic, Vivid, Bright, or Vivid. The names vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, but the idea is often the same. The picture is made more impressive by increasing brightness, contrast, color saturation, sharpness, and motion processing.

This type of image may look good at first glance. Whites are very bright, colors appear vibrant, and the image feels sharp. As you look at it for longer, problems become more apparent. Skin tones may appear too red or bluish, details may be lost in dark scenes, and motion may appear too smooth or artificial.

For most users, a better starting point is Movie, Cinema, Movie, Filmmaker, or ISF mode, if available on your TV. These modes are generally designed to be calmer and more natural. They don't look as harsh in store lighting, but they are often a better base for adjustments at home.

The TV picture cannot be adjusted independently of the viewing environment. The same TV will look different in a bright living room, a dark home theater room, and a room lit by the evening sun. That's why it's a good idea to adjust the picture in the lighting where you watch TV the most.

If you watch a lot of movies in the evening, it's a good idea to make adjustments in the evening lighting. If the TV is on a lot during the day, it's a good idea to make sure the picture works in a bright room as well. Some TVs allow you to save separate day and night modes. This is often a more practical solution than one compromise setting for all situations.

Reflections are often a bigger problem for picture quality than the settings themselves. If the screen reflects off a window, a light fixture, or a light-colored wall, blacks won't look black and contrast will suffer. Closing curtains, moving a light fixture, or changing the angle of the TV can improve the picture more than any menu adjustment.

Choosing a picture mode is the most important single adjustment. A good starting point is a mode that aims for a neutral picture and does not emphasize everything as much as possible. For example, choose Filmmaker Mode, Cinema, Movie, ISF Dark or ISF Bright on your TV.

Filmmaker Mode is often a good choice for movies and TV shows because it removes a lot of the extra image processing. It may not be perfect on every TV, but it usually gets the picture in the right direction. If the picture initially feels too warm or less bright than the default mode, it's worth giving your eyes a moment to adjust. Often, it's not a matter of a worse picture, but rather that the previous picture mode has been overemphasized.

In a bright room, Movie or Filmmaker mode can sometimes be too dim. In such cases, instead of switching to Dynamic mode, you should moderately increase the backlight, OLED light, or panel brightness setting. This will keep the basic nature of the image more natural, but will increase the light output.

Many TVs have an energy-saving mode or automatic brightness adjustment turned on by default. This can be good for power consumption, but the results vary in terms of picture quality. If the picture looks strangely dim, the first thing to check is the Eco setting.

Energy saving mode can limit the screen's brightness so much that even a good TV looks dim. The automatic light sensor, on the other hand, adjusts the picture according to the lighting in the room. It can work well, but in some situations it makes the picture too dark or changes the brightness in a disturbing way.

A basic user should try the picture with both automatic mode on and off. If the picture is clearly better without Eco mode, it can be left out or set to a milder level. If the automatic mode works unobtrusively, it can be used, especially in a room where the lighting varies a lot.

Brightness is one of the most confusing TV settings because it doesn't always mean the same thing as it does in everyday language. On many TVs, brightness affects the black level. If the setting is too low, dark areas turn into a solid black mass. If it's too high, black turns gray and the picture looks flat.

A good setting will make black look black, but you can still see details in the dark areas. In a night scene in a movie, you need to distinguish, for example, the folds of clothing, hair, or shapes in the background. If everything disappears into darkness, the brightness or black level is too low. If the entire image looks gray, the setting is too high.

On an LCD TV, the overall brightness is usually adjusted by setting the backlight or panel brightness. On an OLED TV, the equivalent adjustment may be OLED brightness or pixel brightness. You should use these settings depending on the lighting in the room. The black level adjustment should not be confused with how bright the entire screen is.

Contrast affects how bright areas are reproduced. Too low a contrast makes the image dull. Too high a contrast burns out bright details. This means that the tonal differences in clouds, snow, lamps or white clothes disappear.

Good contrast makes the image bright but doesn't flatten a light head. A white shirt should show fabric, clouds should show different shades, and bright lights should have shape. If light areas turn into just a white patch, there is too much contrast or the TV's brightness control is processing the image too strongly.

Many TVs look too cold by default. A cold picture basically means bluish whites and cool skin tones. In a store, such a picture may look bright and clean, but in your home it is usually not the most natural option.

When it comes to TV color temperature settings, Neutral may not be the right choice. Often, a more natural picture can be found in the Warm 1, Warm 2, Warm 1 or Warm 2 settings. At first, the Warm setting may look yellowish if your eyes are used to the blue image. After watching for a while, it often looks more natural, especially on faces.

Skin tones are a good place to check. If the face looks red, orange, or grayish, you may need to adjust the saturation or color temperature. If the face looks pale and cold, the image is often too blue.

Saturation affects how vivid colors appear. Too high a saturation can easily make an image look like a postcard. Grass becomes unnaturally green, the sky too blue, and faces reddish. Too low a saturation can make an image colorless.

For the average user, it's best to avoid color enhancement-type settings if you're aiming for a natural image. They may look impressive for a moment, but over time they will change the tone of the content.

The sharpness setting sounds useful, but it should be used with caution. It does not increase the actual resolution of the image, but rather emphasizes the edges of objects. Too much sharpness will appear as light or dark edges around people, text, and buildings.

If thin white borders, halos or graininess appear in the image, the sharpness is set too high. A good 4K image usually needs almost no additional sharpening.

Televisions often have motion enhancement, which makes motion smoother by adding extra frames calculated on the television between frames.

In sports, motion enhancement can be useful. Fast camera movements, the ball, and players can look clearer if the processing works well. In movies and many series, it is usually best to turn it off or keep it very low. Otherwise, the cinematic motion can become too video-like.

Strong motion enhancement can also cause errors. You may see ghosting, jerkiness, or strange edges around fast-moving objects.

An HDR image is not just a brighter version of a standard image. It includes a wider range of brightness and often a wider range of colors. Your TV will usually automatically switch to HDR mode when it detects HDR content.

For HDR, it is recommended to use your TV's native HDR Movie, HDR Cinema, HDR Filmmaker or Dolby Vision mode. It is not a good idea to forcefully copy the settings of a regular SDR picture to HDR, as the TV processes the picture differently.

When it comes to gaming, the most important thing is low latency. When you press a button on your controller, the action needs to appear on the screen quickly. That's why it's a good idea to set your TV to Game Mode for gaming.

Game mode removes some of the heavy image processing and reduces lag. The image may not look exactly the same as in Movie mode, but it will be more responsive.

Basic adjustments can go a long way, but more precise calibration can improve the picture even further. Calibration involves measuring the TV with measuring devices and adjusting it as close to standards as possible. This allows for more precise adjustments to color tones, grayscale, and brightness in the room in question.

If you are more interested in the topic, AVPlus.fi also has a separate article about television calibration and picture adjustments.

Read also: Television picture calibration – Benefit or scam?