Quick Answer
Open the Black & White Level Test and check how many distinct near-black shades you can actually tell apart. If several of the darkest steps all look identical instead of gradually distinct, that's black crush. Then check the Monitor Color Test for banding - visible stripes instead of a smooth gradient in a color transition.
What Black Crush and Banding Actually Are
Black crush happens when a monitor can't distinguish between several very dark shades close to true black, displaying them all as the same flat black instead of a gradual gradient - the result is a loss of detail in shadows, like losing texture in a dark corner of a game or movie scene that should still show some visible depth. Color banding is a related but different issue: instead of a smooth gradient (like a sunset sky), you see distinct visible bands or steps of color. Both come down to the monitor's ability to render a wide range of subtly different shades smoothly, just at different parts of the tonal range - crush at the dark end, banding across any gradient.
Step-by-Step: Testing for Black Crush
- Dim the room lights, since ambient light makes it much harder to distinguish near-black shades accurately.
- Open the Black & White Level Test and view the near-black step pattern.
- Count how many distinct steps you can actually tell apart near the dark end, rather than how many the tool displays - the gap between those two numbers is your effective black crush.
- Repeat near the bright end for the white/near-white steps, since some panels struggle more with one end than the other.
Step-by-Step: Testing for Banding
- Open the Monitor Color Test and view a smooth gradient pattern.
- Look for visible stripes or steps rather than a continuous smooth transition, particularly in the middle of the gradient where subtle differences are easiest to spot.
- Try the gradient at a couple of different brightness levels, since banding can be more or less visible depending on how bright the monitor is set.
Why This Matters More for Gaming and Movies Than Everyday Use
Black crush and banding are easy to overlook during normal web browsing and office work, since most everyday interfaces don't rely on subtle dark gradients or wide smooth color transitions. They become much more noticeable in dark, atmospheric game scenes and film content specifically graded to use a wide tonal range, which is exactly why these issues often go unnoticed for weeks after buying a monitor until someone plays a dark game or watches a moody film and suddenly notices shadows look flat or a sky looks striped.
How to Interpret the Results
- You can distinguish most or all of the near-black steps clearly - good shadow detail; no significant black crush.
- Several of the darkest steps look identical, hard to tell apart - some black crush is present; this can be a panel limitation (common on cheaper TN and some VA panels) or a color/gamma setting issue worth checking first.
- Gradient shows smooth, continuous color with no visible steps - good color depth and dithering; no meaningful banding.
- Clear visible stripes in the gradient - banding is present, often tied to color depth (6-bit vs. 8-bit or 10-bit panels), a compressed video signal, or an aggressive color/contrast setting.
Common Causes and Fixes
Before assuming a hardware limitation, check your monitor's own contrast setting - contrast set too high is one of the most common causes of artificial black crush, since it pushes dark tones together to boost apparent punchiness at the cost of shadow detail. Lowering contrast a notch or two in the monitor's on-screen menu often recovers lost shadow detail immediately. For banding, check whether your GPU's color output setting is set to a limited/compressed range instead of full range, and whether the specific content (a heavily compressed video versus a game rendering natively) is the actual source of the banding rather than the monitor. If crush or banding persists after ruling out settings, it likely comes down to the panel's native bit depth and dithering quality, which isn't something you can improve without a different monitor.
FAQ
Is some black crush normal on budget monitors?
Yes, especially on TN panels and lower-end VA panels, which often have a harder time distinguishing very dark
shades compared to higher-end IPS or premium VA panels.
Can changing my GPU settings fix banding?
Sometimes - check that your GPU is outputting full RGB range rather than limited range, and that any
"vivid" or heavily processed picture modes aren't compressing the color range artificially.
Does HDR content behave differently for this?
Yes, HDR content has its own tone mapping and brightness handling that can behave quite differently from SDR
content on the same panel, so it's worth testing separately if you regularly watch or play in HDR.
Should I return a monitor for minor black crush?
Minor crush that's typical for the panel type usually isn't grounds for a return; significant crush that's
clearly worse than reviews of the same model describe, or paired with other issues, is worth raising with the seller.
Does resolution affect how visible banding is?
Not directly - banding is more about color bit depth and dithering than pixel resolution, so a higher
resolution monitor isn't automatically better at avoiding banding than a lower resolution one.