Burn-in test
Fill your screen with gray and solid colors, one at a time, and look for shapes that stay put.
Full screen · 6 colors · click or press → for the next
What you might see
Image retention
A faint ghost of something that was on screen a moment ago. It fades within minutes to hours. Common on LCDs and plasma.
Burn-in
A permanent shape from static content shown for a long time — a taskbar, channel logo, status bar or game HUD. Mostly OLED.
Uneven backlight
Brighter edges or cloudy patches on gray or black, the same everywhere you look. That’s LCD backlight bleed, not burn-in.
Banding
Vertical or horizontal stripes across a gray screen. Panel uniformity, not burn-in; OLED pixel refresh can reduce it.
How to run it
- Turn brightness up to maximum and dim the room. Faint burn-in hides in daylight.
- Start the test. Each color fills the screen; click or press → for the next one.
- On the grays, look where static things usually sit: taskbar, status bar, channel logos, keyboard, game HUD.
- Found something? Show other content for 10 minutes and test again. If it’s gone, it was image retention.
More screen tools
Dead pixel test
Five colors, one at a time, to find dead and stuck pixels.
Refresh rate test
See your screen’s real Hz and spot stutter.
Screen test
Gradients, black level, uniformity, gamma and sharpness.
Test pattern
Color bars and a test card at your native resolution.
Fake broken screen
A cracked screen prank that shatters where they tap.
Zoom light
A soft, warm light for video calls from a spare screen.
Background images
Plain color PNGs for desktops, phones and 4K.
Questions
What’s the difference between burn-in and image retention?
Image retention goes away by itself, usually within minutes once the content changes. Burn-in stays: the pixels that showed the static image have aged faster than the rest.
Which color shows burn-in best?
Dark and mid gray show OLED burn-in most clearly. Then check solid red, green and blue — on OLED the blue subpixels wear fastest, so burn-in often shows on blue first.
Can burn-in be fixed?
Permanent burn-in can’t be undone, but it can be reduced. Run the TV or phone’s pixel refresh (pixel cleaning), lower brightness, and avoid static bars. Image retention clears with moving content.
Does flashing colors fix burn-in?
It can help clear image retention on LCDs, but it doesn’t repair OLED burn-in and runs the panel hard. Use your device’s own pixel refresh first.
How do I test a TV without a browser?
Download plain gray, white, red, green and blue images from the background maker and show them from a USB stick in the TV’s photo viewer.