Monitor Gamma Test
Estimate your display's gamma with the classic matching chart: sit back or squint, and the patch whose center square blends into its stripes reveals your gamma. The sRGB standard is 2.2.
Gamma-matching chart
Sit back about an arm’s length or squint slightly. The patch whose centre square blends into its stripes is closest to your gamma.
For accurate results keep browser zoom at 100% and view on the display you want to test.
Fine-tune your gamma
Adjust the slider until the centre square disappears into the striped surround, then read your gamma below.
Banding & grayscale
Look for visible steps or stripes in the smooth ramp — a clean panel shows a seamless transition.
Shadow & highlight detail
You should be able to tell each swatch from its background. If the dark ones merge into black your gamma is high or brightness low; if the bright ones merge into white, highlights are clipping.
Gamma is the tone-response curve that maps a pixel's signal to the light your screen emits — a power function, so a 50% signal doesn't give 50% brightness. Because the eye is more sensitive to dark tones, it packs finer 8-bit steps into the shadows. Gamma controls how light or heavy the midtones look, separate from brightness (the overall level) and contrast (the black-to-white range).
Each patch is one-pixel black-and-white lines that average to half brightness, wrapped around a solid gray square. For each gamma, one 8-bit gray — 255 × 0.5^(1/gamma) — emits that same half-brightness; we show squares from 1.8 to 2.6. Sit back or squint until the lines blur: the patch where the inner square vanishes into its stripes is your gamma. The 2.2 patch is flagged as the sRGB and Rec. 709 target most content targets. Keep browser zoom at 100%, or the one-pixel lines break.
Too low and midtones wash out flat; too high and shadows crush to black with lost detail. It matters most for photo and video editing and for gaming, where detail in dark corners appears or vanishes with the curve. Use the ramp below to spot banding, and the near-black and near-white patches for crush or clipping. To recalibrate, search Windows Settings for 'Calibrate display color' or open macOS System Settings › Displays › Color — though a browser check is no substitute for a hardware colorimeter.
Common gamma values
| Gamma | Where it is used | How the image looks |
|---|---|---|
| 1.8 | Legacy Macs (pre-2009), some print work | Pale, washed-out midtones on a modern display |
| 2.0 | Some editing setups, brighter rooms | Slightly light midtones, softer contrast |
| 2.2 | sRGB, Rec. 709, web and most content | The standard target — balanced midtones |
| 2.4 | Rec. 1886, video and cinema in a dim room | Deeper shadows and punchier contrast |
| 2.6 | DCI-P3 digital cinema, dark rooms | Very dark shadows; needs controlled lighting |