lower screen brightness on PowerBook

[stoid]

When the brightness is turned all the way down, the backlight is off and the screen cannot be seen. With only one notch of brightness in a room at night with no other lights, it still throws out a lot of light. Too much in fact. At times, it hurts my eyes to have it so bright in the dark room sitting on my lap chatting with friends or posting in awesome message boards .


Is there anyway to set it to a brightness somewhere in between off and one bar? Some hack or something? thanks guys!

 

[Counterfit]

I wish they could go darker too, it was a real pain during the school year when my roommates were asleep and I was up at 2-3 AM with my PB giving off too much light.

 

[Abstract]

Too much light? Any darker and you'll strain your eyes! Actually, I wish my rev B 12" Powerbook would go brighter! Most rev A and B 12" owners know that the screen isn't bright enough for use on sunny days, even when indoors. Opposite problems, I guess.

I know you want it darker, but I don't think the screen can go darker and allow you to see much. As long as the LCD shows an image, it'll luminesce, and your roommates will still be able to see the faint glow coming from it. If it didn't luminesce, you wouldn't see anything in the dark.

Although I'll agree with you: its weird how the zero notch is black, but one notch up, and its so much brighter than before, but there isn't much you can do to make it dim and visible.

 

[titaniumducky]

When the brightness is turned all the way down, the backlight is off and the screen cannot be seen. With only one notch of brightness in a room at night with no other lights, it still throws out a lot of light. Too much in fact. At times, it hurts my eyes to have it so bright in the dark room sitting on my lap chatting with friends or posting in awesome message boards .


Is there anyway to set it to a brightness somewhere in between off and one bar? Some hack or something? thanks guys!

Actually, when the brightness is all the way down, the backlight is off but the LCD is still on. If you look closely during the day you can just make out the outline (not that this part is important).

It is probably possible to hack it, but I have no idea of where to go for resources. It wouldn't be easy...

It's odd - I usually like the brightness all the way up...

 

[aswitcher]

Yeah a dimmer setting would be nice.

What annoys me also is that my keyboard backlight seems to spring to life of its own accord when I leave my machine on all night. I have fiddled with all the settings but it persists even after I use F8 to turn it off...it just seems to turn itself back on later...

 

[jacobj]

Too much light? Any darker and you'll strain your eyes! Actually, I wish my rev B 12" Powerbook would go brighter! Most rev A and B 12" owners know that the screen isn't bright enough for use on sunny days, even when indoors. Opposite problems, I guess.

The sun is out outside and I am inside because my PowerBook is completely useless out there. Darker? Maybe for anyone worried about their eyesight and planning on making a trip into a black hole, but for the rest of us that want to have true portability (i.e. can use it anywhere), more brightness is the thing.

 

[mkrishnan]

I'm almost sure there's a terminal command that adjusts the brightness of the screen, but I can't find it, so I'm not sure if it has finer gradations than the keyboard buttons...anyone remember what it is?

 

[seamuskrat]

I know many LCD backlights have an off command and then a minimum brightness. I imagine the lowest setting on an iBook is that minimal dimness. The light itself cannot go any lower. Its a special type of bulb that may not have the flexibility of a regular voltage filament type bulb that can dim infinitely.

 

[MoparShaha]

You should cover up the lit Apple logo. That will curb some light. You can also try putting something over the screen that will tint it darker. Find a clear piece of plastic (transparencies from an office supply store for instance), then go to an automotive supply store and buy some window tint. You could then easily construct a tinted filter that you could just place over your laptop's screen. I know that isn't as elegant as fiddling with the terminal and getting the screen dimmer on it's own, but it would work.

 

[aussie_geek]

Create a custom colour profile

One thought - go into Monitors system preferences and then click colour. Make sure you are in the dark when you are doing this though. Set your brightness on the keyboard to as low as you like and then open the preference pane and start calibrating. Make sure you turn on the expert settings so you can play around with other functions in your calibration file.

aussie_geek