<title>Using the human eye to characterize displays</title>

Monitor characterization has taken on new importance for non-professional users, who are not usually equipped to make photometric measurements. Our purpose was to examine some of the visual judgements used in characterization schemes that have been proposed for web users. We studied adjusting brightness to set the black level, banding effects du to digitization, and gamma estimation in the light an din the dark, and a color-matching tasks in the light, on a desktop CRT and a laptop LCD. Observers demonstrated the sensitivity of the visual system for comparative judgements in black- level adjustment, banding visibility, and gamma estimation. The results of the color-matching task were ambiguous. In the brightness adjustment task, the action of the adjustment was not as presumed; however, perceptual judgements were as expected under the actual conditions. Whenthe gamma estimates of observers were compared to photometric measurements, pro9blems with the definition of gamma were identified. Information about absolute light levels that would be important for characterizing a display, given the shortcomings of gamma in measuring apparent contrast, are not measurable by eye alone. The LCD was not studied as extensively as the CRT because of viewing-angle problems, and its transfer function did not follow a power law, rendering gamma estimation meaningless.