Reduce eye strain by changing monitor settings

True colours
Another thing to investigate is the colour depth, otherwise known as the number of colours that can be displayed. In most cases, the options available on the Display Settings dialogue box will be 16-, 24- or 32-bit. This essentially translates to tens of thousands, millions or billions of distinct colour shades.

Common sense would suggest that choosing billions of colours is the way to ensure the best image and this is right. However, things are a little more complicated than that. More colours require more processing power, which in turn can slow down a PC.

What’s more, selecting 32-bit colour could be a waste, as cheaper flat-panel monitors, which get sold with new PC packages, can’t truly display that many shades (they use a dithering effect to cope, if they have to).

So, if you’re using a flat-panel monitor and the option is available in Display Settings (its presence will depend on your graphics card), then it might be worth trying to run at 24-bit colour to see how things look. Chances are the image will look just as good as running in 32-bit colour (if that’s what it was set to before), and you should notice a small performance boost as a happy bonus. Conversely, if the colour depth is currently set to 16-bit, then you’d be well advised to increase this to 24- or 32-bit as available.

Better text
Another consideration is the look of text displayed by the monitor. This applies to everything from the descriptive labels under icons on the Windows Desktop to the characters you type into applications like Microsoft Word. It is easy to overlook how often you read displayed text, yet you may never have thought about making it easier to decipher.

In fact, Windows offers several ways to alter the look of displayed text. For starters, you can increase or decrease the standard Windows font size to suit your monitor size or personal taste. This will alter the size of all text made by Windows eg icon labels and menu headings.

To do this in XP, bring up the Display Settings dialogue box again (right-click on the Desktop and pick Properties), select the Appearance tab and then choose an option from the Font size menu.

In Vista, again right-click on the Desktop but this time choose Personalize. Now click the Adjust font size link on the left-hand side of the Personalization dialogue box and pick a preset size, or use the Custom DPI button to set your own precise size.

You can also experiment with Microsoft’s Cleartype tool. This is a utility that ‘smooths’ the appearance of displayed fonts, by projecting softer colours around the edges. It is switched on by default in Windows Vista but XP users can benefit too. It’s better to view the effect than read an explanation, so try enabling it. Read the three-step guide below:

Enable Cleartype in Windows XP

1. Cleartype is a font-smoothing tool that makes displayed text easier to read. To enable it in Windows XP click Start, then Control Panel, followed by Appearance and Themes and Display.
2. On the Display Properties dialogue box that appears, click the Appearance tab to bring it to the fore. Now click the Effects button.
3. In the Effects dialogue box, click to place a tick in the box labelled ‘Use the following method to smooth edges of screen fonts’ and then pick Clear Type from the dropdown menu.

Sharp image
Hopefully you will now be staring at a monitor whose display is as good as it can get. Remember, adjusts should be ongoing: if you move the PC’s location or otherwise change the surrounding lighting conditions, you should make display changes anew.

Finally, we mentioned earlier that your graphics card may have additional image-improvement features. You might find, for instance, special enhancements that can be applied during video playback to make movies look tip top, or options to tweak the way 3D graphics work, which might be useful if you’re a gamer.

Sadly, these kinds of extras are impossible for us to cover in any depth because every graphics card differs, but all modern cards come with their own software control panels, so open it up and explore.

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