Did you ever turn on your computer after taking a nap in the evening, or late at night because you had to do something that you forgot? Then you have maybe been almost blinded by the bright screen of the computer in the first few minutes of doing so.

This obviously is a big unpleasant issue that is best to be avoided. The screen can obviously also be too bright in the evening, especially if you are working in a  low ambient light environment.

Back in April, I already reviewed a solution to make your computer’s lighting more eye-pleasing.

Dimmer is a program for the Windows operating system that is offering an alternative. The author has designed the program for laptops, but it is also working just fine on desktop PCs.

All you need to do is download the software from the author’s homepage, and extract its contents to the local directory. Once you have done so, you simply start the program to dim the screen. The software basically overlays the screen with a solid color that is half-transparent so that you can still see what’s going on.

It feels a bit strange that the color does not reach over the taskbar of the system as well at first, but it does not make a big difference in terms of brightness so I guess that’s something most users can live with.

You can also change the opacity level of the solid color by right-clicking on the program’s system tray icon and moving the slider in either direction.

You may experience some issues with the program though. Some screenshot taking applications may not work anymore for instance once you have started the program.

Dimmer is compatible with all recent versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system. I personally will stick to F.Lux which is offering advanced features that Dimmer does not ship with.