Pixel Inversion Test

This page will help test your LED or LCD screen for effects of pixel inversion. Pixel inversion can cause flickering that is visible to some people. For more information, visit the About Pixel Inversion page. As you test for pixel inversion you may notice discoloration due to "crosstalk", where the pixels in one part of the screen affect the pixels in another part of the screen. Watch this video to see flickering caused by pixel inversion as well as crosstalk.

Instructions

Look at all the images below. They are all static (non-moving) images and each side-by-side image is the same color. One or more images may flicker and/or appear a different color. Once you find an image that flickers, click the "view other colors with this layout" link to see which colors produce flickering on your screen. A few things to note:

• In desktops and laptops, set your display settings to native resolution (e.g., 1920 x 1080 or 3840 x 2160). Generally this is the highest resolution available for your screen.
• You may need to allow your screen to warm up. Many LED and LCD screens will not flicker until they've been turned on for 5-10 minutes (the liquid inside the liquid cyrstals is more viscous at cooler temperatures, so they do not respond as fast to changes in electricity). You may need to temporarily disable any setting that automatically turns off your screen after a few minutes.
• If you are using Firefox, set the zoom in your display settings to 100% and set your browser zoom to 100% scale.
• You may have to look closely to see the flicker; it may not be obvious.
• To see the flicker, it may be helpful to turn your brightness up, especially if your brightness is set very low.
• Ignore any flicker that only occurs while you move the images. These images will flicker as you move them due to pixel blur, which is a different issue than pixel inversion. That said, the flickering that occurs while you move the images is similar to the flickering you'll see due to pixel inversion, though the flickering from pixel inversion will very likely be more faint.
• You may notice pixels moving around in a random pattern; try to ignore that. What you're looking for is more of a flashing/pulsing effect.
• Note: When there are two images side-by-side, you may notice that one side flickers more than the other. The flickering may switch to the other side after you move the image horizontally or vertically.
• OLED (and AMOLED, etc.) screens do not use pixel inversion, so this test is not relevant for those screens.

Quick test

Green is the color that's easiest to see flickering, perhaps because green is much brighter than red or blue. This section shows all seven pixel inversion layouts with the colors #009F00 (brighter green) and #000000 (black).

 

Most popular colors test

This section shows 11 other colors that are likely to show flickering. Combined with the seven pixel inversion layouts, that makes a total of 77 pairs of images.

 

More tests

Still not seeing any flickering or just want to explore further? If you're interested in viewing more colors, go to the More Colors page where you'll get a lot more colors and can filter by the pixel inversion patern. If you're interested in experimenting with colors that you can't find on the More Colors page, go to the Custom Colors page.