Precise backlight control on windows

Question

My laptop screen is too bright to look at in the dark even on minimum backlight setting.

On Linux, I usually solve the problem by writing "1" (or the lowest value that does not turn backlight off completely) to a path like "/sys/class/backlight/intel/brightness". This allows precise brightness control because it really controls brightness directly and maximum allowed value is at least 1000 for anything except acpi_backlight.

The question is can I do the same on Windows?

I know I can study open-source Linux driver and roll up my own Windows driver that does the same to control backlight. But I really want to avoid as much of the above 2 steps as possible :)

I also know that some Windows programs can dim screen by darkening the image itself instead of lowering backlight brightness. I don't want such a solution because even black screen is too bright now.

If there is no generic solution, a solution for Intel HD 4600 will do.

Answer 1

I recently discovered https://web.archive.org/web/20201016064411/https://clickmonitorddc.bplaced.net/ to control brightness/contrast in Windows. I'd recommend adjusting contrast down too as it makes a difference.

This article may be interesting - http://poynton.ca/notes/brightness_and_contrast/

This icon indicates the BRIGHTNESS control, more properly called BLACK LEVEL. It adds or subtracts an offset, or bias, into the red, green, and blue signals. This control should be adjusted so that black picture content displays as true black on your monitor.

This icon indicates the CONTRAST control, preferably called PICTURE. It applies a scale factor (gain) to the red, green, and blue signals. It affects the luminance (proportional to intensity) that is reproduced for a full white input signal. Once BRIGHTNESS is set correctly, CONTRAST should be set for comfortable viewing brightness.