White Screen
Fills the whole screen with plain white, #FFFFFF. It is the brightest thing your display can show at its current setting, which makes it useful for anything you need to look at the panel itself for, or hold something up against.
Press Esc at any point to come straight back to this page.
What people use a white screen for
- Finding what needs cleaning. Dust and hair show best against black, but greasy fingerprints, dried droplets and cloth streaks show best against white. Looking at both is how you stop chasing a mark that was never there.
- Tracing. A tablet or laptop laid flat under a sheet of paper works as a light box: the lines underneath come through well enough to follow, without the shadows a desk lamp throws.
- Glancing at panel uniformity. A full white field makes obvious the things a photograph or a document hides - a corner that is warmer than the middle, a band down one side, a patch that never quite matches.
- A little fill light. Held near your face, a white screen is a soft, wide light source, which is why it flatters a webcam picture far more than the ceiling light behind you does.
Clean with the screen off, verify with it on
Switch the display off first. A dark, cool panel shows dust at an angle, and cleaning a lit screen mostly moves the smears around. Use a dry microfiber cloth in straight passes, and if that is not enough, spray a screen-safe cleaner onto the cloth and never onto the glass - liquid that runs down the edge gets behind the bezel and stays there. Never use household glass cleaner, alcohol wipes or paper towel on a matte coating. When it is dry, open this page: white shows the streaks you left, and the black screen shows the dust you missed.
Using a screen as a light box
Lay a tablet or a laptop flat, open this page, and put your paper on top. Thin office paper works, sketch paper mostly works, and card does not. Turn the brightness up until the lines underneath are readable, and keep the pressure light: a screen is glass over a panel and it does not enjoy being drawn on. If you are working for a while, remember the display cannot sleep while this page holds it awake, so close it when you are done rather than leaving it lighting an empty desk.
What uneven white does and does not mean
No panel is perfectly even, and most look slightly warmer or cooler toward the edges. That is normal, and you notice it here only because a full white field is the worst case you can give a screen. What is worth attention is a hard-edged patch, a distinct band, or a blotch that stays in exactly the same place - those are worth photographing while a return window is open. Judge it at your normal brightness and from your normal seat, not from ten centimeters away at maximum.
If it is light you are after rather than a white page, there is a version of this built for it, with a color temperature slider so the light matches the room instead of fighting it. Open the screen fill light
White is also the field that exposes the opposite kind of pixel fault: a dead pixel that never lights stays a black dot in the middle of it. Black finds the stuck-bright ones, white finds the dead ones, and a proper check walks through both plus the primaries. Run the full dead pixel test
Frequently asked questions
Can this make my screen brighter than it already is?
No, and nothing running in a browser can. A web page has no way to reach the backlight or the panel brightness - it can only ask for the brightest color the screen is currently able to show, which is what this page does. If you need more light, turn the brightness up in your operating system or on the monitor itself first, then open this page.
What should I clean my screen with?
A dry microfiber cloth, and for anything it will not lift, a cleaner made for screens sprayed onto the cloth. Avoid alcohol, ammonia, window cleaner and paper towel: matte and anti-glare coatings are soft, and once a coating is clouded or scratched it does not come back. Wipe in straight lines rather than circles, and keep the screen off while you do it.
Is it safe to use a tablet as a light box?
For occasional tracing, yes, with two rules: press with the pen and not with your hand, and put a sheet of paper between the glass and anything harder than paper. The screen itself is not harmed by showing white for an hour - it is the pressure and the sharp edges that do damage. Purpose-built light boxes exist and are cheap, and if you trace often, one is easier on both your hands and your screen.
Why does my white screen look yellow or blue?
Because your display has a white point, and the page has no say in it. Night shift, night light, f.lux and similar features warm the whole screen after dark, monitor picture modes shift it too, and a second screen next to your first will often reveal that one of them was never neutral. Turn any night mode off before you judge a panel, and compare two screens side by side rather than from memory.