How to calibrate HDR in Windows 11
Calibrating your HDR display in Windows 11 is critical to optimizing your visual experience. Proper calibration improves color accuracy, shadow detail, and immersion by adjusting brightness, contrast, and color. However, it is important to note that some monitors labeled “HDR” may not meet the required standards, rendering the calibration ineffective. Additionally, Windows 11’s HDR handling may be unsatisfactory during normal desktop use.
HDR (High Dynamic Range) is a technology that expands the color and contrast range of digital displays, promising a more immersive and realistic visual experience. However, to use its full visual potential, you need to properly calibrate your HDR settings. Here’s how to do it in Windows 11.
Content
- Calibrate HDR in Windows 11: Step by Step
- Why HDR calibration is important in Windows 11
- Why calibration may not help
Calibrate HDR in Windows 11: Step by Step
Calibrating an HDR display in Windows 11 requires several steps, including installing the Microsoft calibration app, enabling HDR on your monitor, and using the display calibration app.
First, install the HDR Calibration app . Open the Windows HDR Calibration Tools store page by searching the Microsoft Store, click Get it, and wait for the installation process to complete.
Next, turn on HDR. Assuming you have an HDR-capable display, right-click anywhere on your desktop and select Display. Settings from the pop-up menu.
Advice. For detailed instructions, see our complete guide to enabling HDR in Windows 11.
Select an HDR monitor.
Scroll down to find the Use HDR option.
Optionally, if you click the little arrow to the right of “Use HDR” you’ll have more granular control over how HDR works and looks. However, since we are going to do
Advice. Windows 11 now has a simple keyboard shortcut to turn HDR on and off. Just clickWin + EVERYTHING+B, and your screen will switch to modes.
Now calibrate your HDR display. Open the Windows HDR Calibration app and click the Get Started button.
You will then be prompted to configure several settings. For each setting, drag the slider left or right until the pattern is no longer visible to calibrate the screen, then click Next.
Finally, confirm the profile name and click the “Done” button and then the “OK” button.
Why HDR calibration is important in Windows 11
Calibrating your HDR display can greatly improve your viewing experience. Proper calibration adjusts brightness, contrast, and color settings to optimize display output.
This can result in more accurate color reproduction, improved shadow detail, and a more immersive and realistic viewing experience. In other words, by calibrating your display, you’ll ensure you’re getting what you paid for when you purchased an HDR panel.
When you first tried HDR on Windows 11, you may have been disappointed with the appearance of HDR, particularly on your desktop, but also in games and HDR media such as videos. Calibration could just mean the difference between HDR being great or completely unusable.
Why calibration may not help
Calibration is definitely something everyone should do before giving up on HDR in Windows 11, but even with calibration, you may be underwhelmed by the results. The thing is, there are plenty of computer monitors and TVs with “HDR” that really aren’t allowed to use that label.
While they can support color and brightness values beyond the SDR standard, they lack the specifications to represent HDR content properly. There are many screens whose peak brightness or contrast is nowhere near sufficient to meet the most basic HDR standards. Why this happened and how such monitors can have the “HDR” logo on them is a story for another day, but suffice it to say that you should probably look up your display model on specialist websites like RTINGS to see if it qualifies whether she meets the requirements. HDR sniff test. Otherwise, no calibration will be able to overcome the hardware limitations.
There’s also something to be said about Windows 11’s HDR handling in general. Even on good HDR monitors, I have yet to find a way to make a normal desktop environment look remotely acceptable in HDR mode.
That’s why the new HDR keyboard shortcut in Windows 11 mentioned above is such a godsend. . This means you can use your desktop in SDR and quickly enable the feature before launching a game or movie. Unless you edit HDR content, there is little benefit to enabling HDR for desktop work.
But with a little fiddling around the interface and a quick switch between work and gaming modes, you’ll get the most out of your HDR monitor.