I’ve got a 23" Apple Cinema Display here. Works fine, amazing, etc. etc. I have a brightness button on the lower left face, but no clue how to adjust the brightness. Currently, it’s screamingly bright to my eyes, especially since a mostly white page is a very very large white thing before me.
Looked at the documentation that came with it. Pathetic. Tried “help” on the Finder bar. NOTHING. Went to Apple.com, no love there either. It gave a lot of technical specs, but nothing about this. Adjusting the brightness isn’t something I find in the System Preferences either.
Anyone familiar with this, and know how I can go about adjusting it? I sense it’s a bit where I hold the brightness button so it’s lit, and at the same time do something on the keyboard. However, I’m not especially game to poke around to see.
Hmmmm. Maybe we have different models of the Cinema Display, but on mine, there are two brightness buttons on the side (mine are on the right, not the left, so I guess we probably do have different models); one increases and the other decreases the brightness. Are you perhaps just not seeing one of the buttons? If there’s definitely only one brightness button there, then I guess we do have different models.
I could be wrong, but having to press a button on the monitor while simultaneously pressing something on the keyboard to change a setting seems very un-Apple like.
Here’s a .pdf of the users manual of the Cinema Display model I have, definitely showing the separate up and down brightness buttons (see page 5). Is this not your model?
My 23" Cinema Display is the older (ADB) version. It has a single brightness button on the front bezel.
Pressing it launches the Systems Preferences application with the Display panel open. From there, there is a slider widget that controls the brightness.
This is indeed the older version, I had to purchase the DVI to ADC adaptor with my Mac Mini. When I press the brightness button, it glows but nothing happens on the desktop at all. When I manually navigate to the Display settings, there are no brightness or contrast settings. Very odd, really. Even my TiBook has brightness settings on the keyboard.
Anamorphic, no this is not mine. You have what appears to be a new eMac flat panel with Cinema Display, where the LCD is the computer. That is not the case with my new set-up.
No, I don’t have the eMac; I have a G5, and the monitor is just a monitor, not the computer. It’s just the newer Cinema Display. But in any case, sorry I couldn’t help you!
Now that I have had a chance to think about it, I seem to recall that when I had my display hooked up to my old 500MHz PowerMac G4 (AGP), neither the power nor the brightness did anything other than glow when pressed. But now that it’s connected to my 15" PowerBook G4, both buttons operate as expected.
This makes it seem like the video card/hardware may have some bearing on the issue.
Cartooniverse, I don’t use Apple products often but I vaguely remember using F14 and F15 keys on the keyboard to lower and raise the brightness, respectively. I remember because PC standard keyboards don’t have F keys that high. OK, it really was the fact that a monitor with a one-button brightness freaked me out! FREAKED ME OUT!
I have a DELL 2005FPW with no brightness settings which I swear could give me sunburn if I didn’t do something about it. Brightness Control has saved me.
Ooooooooh, groo, you freakin’ rock the house. This is GREAT !!! Works like a charm. Thank you so very much. Excellent, excellent, and easy to escape it for darker images that you want to be punchy. But yes, now my eyes are happier. Wow.
John T. Conklin, yes. it’s an older HD Cinema Display, plugged into a brand new Mini. Perhaps this is the issue- in making use of the interface adaptor, I lose the ability to adjust brightness within the Display controls.
No matter now, this new bit of freeware is wonderful. Feels better on my eyes already.
