August 22, 2004
Note:
All the images in this article can be enlarged to 800 x 600 in a new window
by clicking on the thumbnails.
Here is a close up of the
smudge with different color backgrounds. Although it is difficult
to tell in the pictures, the amount of afterimage I could see varied with
the color of the background. For example, this particular afterimage
was very readily visible on a blue background, but much more difficult
to see on a white background. You would think that an afterimage
would be most visible using a white background since it would provide the
most contrast, but that was not the case.
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Click image to enlarge
So how do you fix image persistence?
Well, it turns out that most of the time, image persistence is reversible,
but sometimes the after image won't go away and the screen is ruined.
Here is some info directly from the LCD manufacturers.
NEC
1850e - User's Manual - Page 13
"Image
persistence is when a "ghost" of an image remains on the screen even after
the monitor has been turned off or a different image is being displayed.
In most instances, the image persistence can be reduced by turning the
monitor off for as long as the image was displayed or by displaying the
same image in the complementary colors.
Note:
As with all personal display devices, NEC-Mitsubishi Electronics Display
of America recommends using a screen saver at regular intervals whenever
the screen is idle."
Viewsonic:
"Unlike
CRT monitors, image persistence or "Burn-In" is not permanent on your LCD
panel. To recover from "Burn-In", leave the panel OFF for an extended time.
We recommend the use of a screen saver when the ViewPanel is not in use."
It turns out that the LCD user
manuals DO in fact have warnings about LCD image persistence / burn-in.
What I found pretty interesting was that these warnings were buried deep
in the manuals among a list of other fine print warnings. You would
think that they would have a big bold warning somewhere the user would
actually see it.
Like I stated before, a search
on the the Internet turned up many articles touting that LCD's do not get
burned-in, but after searching deeper, I found that some users had the
same problems that I had. For example, on the Dell message board,
I found that certain models of the Dell Latitude D800 had ghosting images
where the LCD would burn-in the images of the Windows "Start" button and
"My Computer" icon. In those cases, most of those users had to get their
screens replaced by Dell.
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