Screen Too Bright!

You can try this application:
http://www.splasm.com/products/productbrightness.html

Did you try to dimm the display with the F1 and the F2 buttons on your keyboard? With his you should be able to dimm your screen uptoo totally dark!

Hopefully this is helpfull or solved your problem. Consider rewarding some points!
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Sorry for the mistake, i was confused with my Macbook. On the Macbook brightness controle is F1 and F2 but on the iMac it is ofcourse F14 and F15.

For some people this seems to solve the problem:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=2238

Resetting your Mac's PRAM and NVRAM!

Hopefully this is helpfull or solved your problem. Consider rewarding some points!
Please see the "helpfull" and "solved" button's on top off this message! Apple: Why reward points?

That's really just personal preference. There are a lot more people who don't have problems with the brightness than there are that do. I keep mine at 3 dots (on the brightness scale) and am quite happy with the brightness.

Glor

I opted to change the colour temperature to something warmer which made the whites less 'bright'.

24" iMac Intel Core 2 Duo Mac OS X (10.4.8)

I have the 24" iMac and I can say it is way too bright. The F14 and F15 keys toggle the screen from very bright to way too bright. I have to use the program Brightness Control to use my computer. Apple needs to come up with a fix for this one.

I agree, the brightness level on the 24" iMac is still set far too high at the lowest F14 setting. At night, the setting is entirely too bright.

Apple need to produce a fix for this.

I have to agree with the OP -- I just got a 24" Intel iMac, and the screen is way too bright at even the lowest setting. In fact, I cranked up my old 23" Apple Cinema to its highest brightness setting, and it's not as bright as my new iMac's lowest setting.

Something does need to be done about this. When I walk away from my computer my eyes have to get adjusted to the light in the room. In other words, I'm getting excessive image burn-in on the visual receptors in my eyes. Not good. We need a way to lower the brightness beyond the default range.

Update: I've tried both of the above-mentioned applications (Brightness Control and Shades). Shades (2.5MB download) has more features, Brightness Control (145K download) is more lightweight. Both apps are available at versiontracker.com. I went with Brightness Control, and it's a good band-aid for now. I'll probably make it a login item. Hopefully Apple will fix this problem and 3rd party software won't be needed for this in the future.

I agree that the iMac display (on the Intel version, at least) is eye-searingly too bright. I quite understand that it is a personal preference and that viewing comfort has much to do with the enviroment lighting.

However, an additional problem I faced when dimming the display in System Preferences was the emergence of a faint but noticeable 'strobing' down the screen. It tended to be more obvious if there was a large area of grey or green or blue on the display. The strobing disappears if the brightness is set at about 5 clicks from maximum. Still a bit bright for my liking.

Using the Shades app. mentioned previously is a good solution until something better comes along. The strobing is no longer visible and the brightness is now more manageable.

I would be interested to hear if anyone else has experienced this strobing at lower brightness settings, or whether it's something that may be a fault with my iMac.

iMac 17" Core 2 Duo Superdrive Mac OS X (10.4.8)

I agree with everyone here... but my history with mac's - I have a Powerbook G4 that is about 4 yrs old. That screen needed to be brighter.

I just purchased a 24" iMac and a macbook for my wife. I am very pleased that on the top end of brightness - Apple has given us more, but I too would like a much lower end that I can adjust. As I like varying levels of brightness.

I am not comfortable installing these 3rd party apps for this fix and will probably hold out until Apple comes up with the fix.

...but thanks Apple for the brigher screens!

Tim

That's really just personal preference. There are a
lot more people who don't have problems with the
brightness than there are that do. I keep mine at 3
dots (on the brightness scale) and am quite happy
with the brightness.

Glor

Glor, it's more than just personal preference. If you are trying to calibrate the monitor to match colors and tonality when printing, the screen on the 24" iMac simply stays too bright even when the brightness is turned all the way down. Resulting prints, regardless of color accuracy do not match the screen. So we, at the moment have to use a 3rd party utility to get it down. That's my main concern with it. These programs work but are touchy. Would be so much simpler if the Mac brite control would go from maximum to black.