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What can I use to dim my monitor’s screen?

Q I recently bought a new Dell PC. I’m very happy with everything except for the monitor, which is dazzlingly bright. I tried using the menu buttons to make it dimmer, but I find them fiddly and any changes I make keep getting reset. Can you recommend some free software that will do a better job? Miles Burton

A Monitorian is a free tool that lets you control your monitor’s brightness levels. Version 3.00 launched earlier this month and has a new, cleaner design (download it from the Microsoft Store at www.snipca. com/38843). Once it’s installed, you can run it from your system tray – look for the icon featuring a box with eight lines coming from it (click the small up arrow to the left of the system tray icons if you can’t see this). Once you’ve clicked the Monitorian icon a slider will appear, letting you adjust your monitor’s brightness level.

If you have multiple monitors, you’ll see sliders for each. To change them at the same time, right-click the Monitorian icon and select ‘Enable moving in unison’. When adjusting the brightness, you can then click the square-bracket icon (see screenshot) next to those monitors whose brightness you want to adjust. You can also tweak the contrast levels of your monitors - right-click the Monitorian icon and tick the ‘Enable changing contrast’ option.

You could also try Gammy (click the green button at www.snipca.com/38846), which changes your monitor’s brightness depending on what’s on screen (for example, increasing the brightness for a website with a black background, then decreasing it when viewing a Word document with a white background). Double-click the Gammy icon (a black circle with a squiggle) in the system tray to adjust its settings, such as preventing Gammy from making your monitor too dim or bright.

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