Color & Calibration Test
Check for color banding, monitor bits (8-bit vs 10-bit), and black level visibility.
What to look for?
Banding Test: Gradients should look smooth. If you see vertical lines or "steps", your monitor might have poor bit depth or compression.
What is Color Banding?
Color Banding appears when your monitor cannot display enough distinct shades of color to create a smooth gradient. Instead of a seamless transition, you see visible lines or "steps".
This is often caused by low bit-depth panels (6-bit + FRC), aggressive video compression (streaming), or incorrect GPU settings.
Gradient vs. Black Level Tests
This tool offers two modes:
- Gradients: Looks for banding behavior. A perfect monitor shows no vertical lines.
- Black Level: Checks deep shadow detail. You should barely be able to see square #1 or #2. If you can see all of them easily, your "Blacks" are too gray (milky). If you can't see up to #5, your "Blacks" are crushed (too dark).
How to Fix Banding
- Enable 10-bit Color: In NVIDIA Control Panel or AMD Settings, change specific output color depth to 10 bpc (if supported).
- Use DisplayPort: HDMI can sometimes default to "Limited RGB Range" (16-235) instead of "Full" (0-255).
- Calibrate Gamma: Use Windows "Calibrate Display Color" tool to fix washed-out blacks.
Pro Tips
- Turn off "Dynamic Contrast" or "Black Equalizer" on your monitor for accurate color work.
- Dim your room lights. Glare makes it hard to see the black level squares.
- If you see banding here but not in games, it might be a browser rendering limitation, not your hardware.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is my monitor 8-bit or 10-bit?
Most standard monitors are 8-bit (16.7 million colors). HDR monitors are often 10-bit (1.07 billion colors). Using 10-bit significantly reduces banding.
Why does my VA panel have more banding?
VA panels have great contrast but can suffer from "black crush" and viewing angle shifts that exaggerate banding compared to IPS panels.