This page runs a before-and-after image retention test on any screen. The pattern is the classic one: a static, high-contrast image held long enough to stress the pixels, then an even gray that shows anything left behind. It opens on 15% gray; Space or → steps to the checkerboard, then red, green and blue, then 50% gray.
How to run it
- Set the screen to the brightness you normally use and turn off auto-brightness, so the before and after photos match.
- Press Full screen on the 15% gray and take a photo from a fixed spot: your “before” picture.
- Press Space for the checkerboard and leave it for 10 minutes. The page keeps the screen awake in full screen; set a timer on your phone.
- Press Esc, pick 15% gray again, open it in full screen at once and take the “after” photo. Retention is strongest in the first seconds.
- Then step through red, green and blue with Space, over and over, and every 2 minutes go back to the 15% gray for one more photo: at 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 minutes after the checkerboard.
The steps follow the at-home check RTINGS describes for TVs and monitors (as of October 2026): a 15% gray “before” photo, a 10-minute clip of high-contrast static images of its logo, the gray again straight after for the “after” photo, then flashing red, green and blue “so the pixels return to their ‘normal’ state”, with the gray shown again every two minutes for photos up to 10 minutes later. RTINGS’s clip uses logos; the checkerboard here is this page’s own stand-in, a static high-contrast pattern you can show on any screen without a video. RTINGS ran the check as a TV test from Test Bench 1.0 until 1.9 and then dropped it, because modern TVs rarely show the problem.
Reading the photos
- No checkerboard on the gray: no image retention you could notice in normal use.
- A faint checkerboard that fades within a few minutes: temporary image retention. RTINGS calls it largely a thing of the past on TVs; where it shows, it fades once other content is on the screen.
- A shape that is already in the “before” photo, often a taskbar, status bar, keyboard or channel logo: that is older burn-in, not a result of this test. Check the 50% gray and each solid color too.
On an OLED
The checkerboard won’t burn anything in, but OLED screens have their own causes of short after-images, such as residual heat after a very bright scene. For pure black, near-black uniformity and the full set of burn-in colors, use the OLED black screen test. The monitor test’s burn-in patterns add slowly moving color bars to help clear a fresh after-image.
The 6 colors on this page
| Color | Code | Light |
|---|---|---|
| 15% gray | #262626 | 1.9% |
| Checkerboard | #000000 + #ffffff | 50% |
| Red | #ff0000 | 21% |
| Green | #00ff00 | 72% |
| Blue | #0000ff | 7.2% |
| 50% gray | #808080 | 22% |