DarkAdapted ©2002–2008 Stephen E. Hutson • All Rights Reserved Worldwide |
What is DarkAdapted?
New! DarkAdapted 2.3.3 has been released — download it here.
DarkAdapted is an application program. It controls the amount of red, green, and blue in your screen gamma so that you may, for example, preserve your dark adaptation while using your computer.
DarkAdapted is being used by astronomers, planetarium operators, graphics professionals, medical professionals, airline pilots, air traffic controllers, and others worldwide to provide flexible, dynamic control over their monitor's screen color response. Users may define an unlimited number of gamma presets, and invoke them via global hotkeys, by menu selection, or by typing the first few letters of a preset’s name.
DarkAdapted Pro earns a  rating in Macworld Magazine’s Mac Gems.
Macworld senior editor and Mac Gems columnist Dan Frakes writes that “DarkAdapted Pro is an impressive utility…” and awarded DarkAdapted Pro an impressive 4.5 (on a 5 mouse scale). He writes about many of DarkAdapted’s unique features, and you can read the review here. |
DarkAdapted Features
- DarkAdapted is free of charge (but remains copyrighted by Stephen E. Hutson).
- Customizable gamma presets. Use predefined settings, create your own, and manipulate your presets with ease. For example, use the “Dark Red” setting to preserve your dark adaptation. Or create a preset to deal with monitor characteristics or viewing conditions.
- Adjust gamma values via sliders or from the keyboard.
- High-resolution sliders allow you to adjust red, green, and blue video components individually and in real time. Sliders can be set to report gamma values as percentages or as raw gamma values.
- Keyboard control of gamma color values, using raw gamma values or percentages. Switch between percentage/raw display with a press of the spacebar.
- Ganged Slider Mode allows you to control all three gamma components in unison, optionally preserving the gamma’s relative values between adjustments.
- Small screen mode hides advanced controls, minimizing the use of valuable screen real estate. The control window may also be hidden entirely.
- Select a preset by typing the first few letters of its name.
- Export and import gamma presets to and from disk files. Many sample presets files are included with the download.
- Full AppleScript support (on Mac OS), including a sample AppleScript with the Mac OS download.
- “Gamma Toggle” keys offer a quick return to full brightness. Modifier keys are fully assignable, and display in the control window to remind you what they are.
- Switching to gamma presets is performed via smooth fades, never abrupt shifts in screen color or brightness.
- Gamma fade duration is user-configurable (from instantaneous to two seconds), and slider controls may be set to update in real time during the fade.
- Almost alll windows “remember” their positions on your screen.
- Saved gamma preset can be restored when DarkAdapted is launched, and reset when DarkAdapted quits.
- Automatic refresh preference can override gamma adjustments made by screen savers or other software.
- Automatic or manual checking for updates via the Internet.
- Useful display features show gamma changes’ effects on selected text, as well as text on different backgrounds.
- Useful numeric and graphical readouts of gamma values.
- Includes the same powerful night vision technology as ScopeDriver, a full featured telescope control program.
- Excellent, hyperlinked documentation can be opened from within DarkAdapted.
- Try DarkAdapted Pro’s advanced features for free, as often as you like.
- And many other time savers and productivity enhancers.
DarkAdapted Pro Features (Mac only)
DarkAdapted Pro is available only to Macintosh users. For a small registration fee ($10 US), the following capabilities are enabled:
- A system-wide menu lets you control DarkAdapted from any program, and you can define system-wide keyboard shortcuts for almost any DarkAdapted Pro feature.
- Control displays independently, using separate control windows, or in unison.
- Use the RGB Sliders Window in any application. This window provides instant control of red, green, and blue values, via sliders or numeric input.
- Activate the Brightness Window in any application, and control screen brightness via a slider or the keyboard.
- Define your own Brightness keyboard shortcuts, allowing you to brighten or dim the screen from within any application program.
- Schedule unlimited gamma fades by time of day or relative to sunrise or sunset.
- Choose whether or not to start DarkAdapted at login, for the current user or for all users.
- Run any AppleScript via the system-wide menu or a global hotkey.
- Define Preset Sets that apply different gamma settings to different monitors.
- Specify a minimum allowable brightness to prevent an unreadable display.
- Change presets via mouse scroll wheel.
- Move gamma sliders in unison, preserving or discarding relative gamma values, using the mouse scroll wheel.
- Share DarkAdapted Pro’s preference settings among all users, or specify that any or all users maintain their own individual preferences.
- Choose to hide the Mac OS X Dock icon.
- Apply Gamma Toggle keys to all displays at once, or choose to only apply them to the selected display.
- Create a custom icon for DarkAdapted’s system-wide menu.
- SHIFT-click the Dock icon to immediately open all control windows that you have previously closed.
- Employ expanded AppleScript support.
Sample Screens
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DarkAdapted’s Control Window is shown above. Here you may adjust the Red, Green, and Blue components of the display gamma, and view its effects on text with a variety of backgrounds. Gamma values can be reported as percentages or as absolute values. Relative gamma values may be maintained by selecting the Gang Sliders control.
Select a preset from the pop-up menu, or just type the first few letters of a preset’s name to select it automatically. You can also save the current screen gamma as a preset in a single step, using either the pop-up menu or a keyboard command.
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Control Window, Small Screen Mode
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The Control Window is shown in small screen mode here, which saves valuable screen space. You can even run DarkAdapted with no window at all, if you like. In Minimized mode, you can still select and add presets via the keyboard.
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DarkAdapted’s Edit Presets Window offers full control over preset gamma values.
The settings you save here (or load from a file) appear in the Control Window’s pop-up menu, and are selectable by typing the first few letters of their name from the keyboard.
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The System-wide Menu in DarkAdapted Pro gives you full control over DarkAdapted from within any application program.
Try DarkAdapted Pro for free, just by selecting “Try DarkAdapted Pro...” from DarkAdapted’s "Special” menu.
Specify system-wide keyboard shortcuts for any menu item for even greater flexibility.
When you define these “hotkeys,” many of the controls governed by the menu appear at your cursor position, so you never again need to go mousing around to control your screens.
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DarkAdapted’s Preferences Window provides a simple interface to the program’s features, and allows you to fully configure DarkAdapted to suit your tastes and requirements.
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System Requirements
System requirements appear on the Downloads Page.
Revision History
DarkAdapted is actively developed! Click here for revision history.
Download DarkAdapted
Click here to download the latest version of DarkAdapted.
Check out more of our software!
Page updated
Thursday, January 24, 2008 3:38 PM
