Are you certain your TV is showing you the right picture? It almost definitely isn’t, if you are like us. Most of us have never ever changed our TV’s picture settings. Every TV has these, some called Movie mode, some Natural, while others are called Dynamic among many others. Each one of these profiles make our TV look very different but none of them might be showing a realistic image. They might be colourful, but they’re not realistic.
The reality is that TV manufacturer set up these TVs with some settings that can look very colourful to grab our attention. The more colourful they are, the more drawn we are to them. Most of us look at TVs at stores and assume that’s how they are meant to look like. A good picture is one that’s close to being a replica of the real thing.
In one of our other articles, we show you the very basics of tweaking your TV’s settings. It only takes a few minutes to do. Professionals or enthusiasts use physical calibration devices to help get the right picture. These products can be expensive, but calibrating by eye can get you somewhere in that direction without having to spend anything. A few tweaks using your TV remote and some patience is all you need to get that sort of picture.
Like we mentioned in the basic TV tweaking article, we ensure that we have all the unnecessary features turned off. If you haven’t done that yet, do it first. We also make sure we’re using the Standard mode or the Custom picture mode. These modes let us make changes, while most of the others will not. Another bit of information to be aware of, is that the menus and names differ from one model to another. In some TVs, some of these settings may not be present. Regardless, do the best you can with the controls available to you, and it can get you very close to getting the perfect picture.
Using good calibration reference material
While most users watch movies and TVs, photos are good reference content to use when you are calibrating your TV. Make sure you download and resize natural-looking photos, of some landscape or scenery that includes a bunch of colours and shades. Also include some photos that are close-up macro shots that show extreme detail. Also include photos that have shadows covering part of it. Make sure none of the photos have been edited or modified to look artistic or overly colourful. The reason behind using natural photographs is that it will allow us to tweak our picture settings to get realistic colours, the right detail and sharpness, the right brightness and contrast.
Download these images and resize them to the resolution of your TV. That’s 1920×1080 if it’s a full HD TV, or 4096×2160 if it’s a 4K TV. Use a free image editing tool, such as IrfanView. The original image you download should be larger than the resolution of the TV itself, before you resize it. The idea is that you don’t want to upscale an image and lose detail in the reference image itself, or use a much larger resolution that is forced to fit to your TV resolution. Keep these resized images on a USB drive, or on your laptop if you play your content there.
Most of what we are doing is trying to get the details and the colours right. Through all the various tweaks we make, ensure you have the reference images on your TV, notice any oddities in colours or detail, make changes and again observe the picture. From time to time, switch between all the images you’ve prepared and tweak the TV further, till you find the picture quality satisfactory.
Setting the colour temperature
The first step in the tweaking process is to set the colour temperature right. They are described as warm or cool. A yellowish, orange look is warm while a bluish one is considered cool. Either extreme is bad and we want something that’s right in the middle. This is why we chose test photos that are naturally lit without any effects or alternations made to them.
On your TV, choose the colour temperature as Neutral, or Standard. You’ll find this item under the Picture Settings, possibly under Advanced settings. There is no way to tell you exactly where this menu might be on your TV, so you will need to navigate a bit.
Adjusting colour using RGB controls
The colours are the tricky bit. Depending on your TV, you are likely to see more advanced settings. Again, keep your reference image loaded, pay close attention and see if you find any colours over-emphasized. For example, if you find the greens in leaves in a scenery, greener than they ought to be, adjust the green levels by a few notches. There are separate controls available for every colour. This change is likely to offset some other colours. You might find the red to stand out more now or blues get subdued. Make fine changes to every colour, bit-by-bit while switching to different reference images to make sure you’re not going way over-board.
Some of the other controls that can help tweak colours further are gain and off-set. They work in pretty much the same way, but their effects are subtle than the core RGB controls. Use this to further control colour levels for your TV.
Adjusting the brightness levels
Use images that have quite a few shadows, and bright lighting for adjusting the brightness levels. A well-lit display may be very bright but it’ll also fade the shadows and you’ll lose detail in the process. The brightness and contrast levels need to be tweaked to form some sort of balance. Typically start off with the brightness and get it to a point where it’s a little brighter than ideal, then adjust the contrast so the darker areas turn darker while the brightness maintains its intensity. Some TVs also include a backlight adjustment menu so you may need to use that as well.
Adjusting the sharpness
Most of the detail in the panel can be tweaked using the sharpness controls. Most TVs have 50 per cent as the default sharpness setting but your TV maybe set to be higher. Tweak this to 50 and see if images still look a bit too sharp. If it’s sharp, lower it further. The ideal setting is one where detail in the picture does not blur, but at the same time, doesn’t look jagged with excess sharpness. Look at patterns and contrasting colours blending into one, for signs of this. Fine text not being legible is also a giveaway that your picture is too sharp.
Save your settings, apply them to all sources
When you’re done making all the changes, it’s a good idea to note down the values you’ve tweaked. If you reset your TV or lose the settings, you’ll be able to enter them again without having through the entire process all over again. These settings are usually assigned to one input source. Some TVs allow you to apply the same settings from one input to another. Make sure you do that or you might end up with say, an HDMI 1 input with calibrated settings, while the others using the default settings.
Tell us if this helped you get your TV to look good. If you have any suggestions or tips, drop us a line in the comments section below.
