Displays

The Displays preferences pane enables you to set the resolution, geometry, colors, and other settings for your monitor. Settings are organized into panes; this section covers the Display (Figure 40) and Color (Figure 44) panes.

Figure 40. The Display pane of the Displays preferences pane for an eMac.

Figure 44. The Color pane of the Displays preferences pane for an eMac.

Tip

• The options that are available in the Displays preferences pane vary depending on your computer and monitor. The options shown in this chapter are for an eMac.

To set basic display options

1.

In the Displays preferences pane, click the Display button (Figure 40).

2.

Set options as desired: Resolutions control the number of pixels that appear on screen. The higher the resolution, the more pixels appear on screen. This makes the screen contents smaller, but shows more onscreen, as shown in Figures 41 and 42. Figure 41. An eMac display set to 800 x 600 resolution… Figure 42. …and the same display set to 1280 x 960 resolution. Colors controls the number of colors that appear on screen. The more colors, the better the screen image appears. Refresh Rate controls the screen refresh rate, in hertz. The higher the number, the steadier the image. Show displays in menu bar displays a menu of recently used display settings in the menu bar (Figure 43). You can use the pop-up menu beneath this option to specify how many recent settings should appear in the menu. Figure 43. The Displays menu in the menu bar. Contrast and Brightness enable you to adjust the display's contrast and brightness by dragging the sliders.

To set display color profile

1.	In the Displays preferences pane, click the Color button (Figure 44).
2.	Select one of the Display Profiles.

Tips

• Color profiles is an advanced feature of Mac OS that enables you to display colors onscreen as they will appear when printed.

• Clicking the Calibrate button in the Color tab of the Displays preferences pane opens the Display Calibrator Assistant, which I discuss in Chapter 22.