Classic purple, electric violet, medium purple or soft lavender: this purple screen spreads any of them across your whole phone, tablet, computer or TV in one click. Dim it to a glow for a gaming room or an evening at home, use it as a bold backdrop for photos and video, or use it to check that the red and blue parts of your display's picture both arrive. A timer fades it out by itself and the page keeps the screen awake meanwhile. It works in Chrome, Edge, Safari and Firefox on any device.
How to use the purple screen light
- Pick Purple, Violet, Medium or Lavender.
- Set the brightness, from full for photos to 15 to 30% for a room glow.
- Pick a timer if you want it to fade out by itself.
- Click the preview, tap it, or press F. Use the arrow keys or swipe to compare shades and change brightness. Esc or a double tap exits.
The purple shades
| Shade | Hex and RGB | Look |
|---|---|---|
| Purple | #800080, 128 0 128 | Equal red and blue, a deep classic purple |
| Violet | #8F00FF, 143 0 255 | Mostly blue with some red, the boldest |
| Medium purple | #9370DB, 147 112 219 | A softer purple with some green added |
| Lavender | #B57EDC, 181 126 220 | Light and gentle, close to lavender flowers |
Screens have red, green and blue subpixels but no violet one, so they make every purple by mixing red and blue. The deep violet at the very end of a rainbow is beyond what a normal screen can show, which is why Violet here looks electric rather than like a prism's violet.
Purple light for rooms, games and video
- Room and gaming glow: a TV or second monitor on Violet or Purple at 20 to 30% gives the purple glow of RGB lighting with nothing extra to buy.
- Backdrops: a monitor on Violet behind a product, a figure or a person on a call gives a colored background, with the subject lit by a white lamp from the front. If you plan to replace the background in editing, use the green screen instead.
- Streams and calls: keep a purple screen behind you dimmer than the light on your face, around 20 to 40%. If the backdrop is the brightest thing in view, the camera exposes for it and your face goes dark.
If you want light behind a TV to make films easier on the eyes, use neutral white rather than purple. Bias lighting works best in white close to 6500 K, because a colored light behind the screen shifts how you see the picture's colors.
Check that red and blue both reach the screen
Purple only appears when red and blue both work. On a full Purple screen:
- If it looks blue, the red channel is missing.
- If it looks red, the blue channel is missing.
- A dark dot is a pixel whose red or blue subpixel is dead, and a green dot is a stuck green subpixel.
Check each primary color on its own with the blue screen and a full monitor color test.
Purple tint, purple lines or a purple blot
- Purple tint on a monitor or TV: the green signal is missing or weak. Reseat the cable, try another cable and input, and set the graphics output to RGB. If the monitor shows no picture at all afterwards, follow monitor no signal.
- Purple lines across a TV picture: if the lines also show in the TV's own menu, the panel or its control board is faulty. If they only appear on one input, the source or cable is to blame. A tv test pattern makes lines and color faults easy to judge.
- A purple or black blot spreading on a phone screen after a drop: the OLED panel is cracked inside. The blot grows over days and the screen needs replacing.
What a purple screen in a browser cannot do
The page cannot show spectral violet, raise your backlight, or match a printed or painted purple exactly, because every screen shows color a little differently. For a warmer tone, try the pink screen light, and for color that changes by itself, the rainbow screen. Any exact color is on the color screen.
Purple screen questions
What is the purple screen of death?
It is the crash screen of VMware ESXi, the server software that runs virtual machines. The host stops and shows a purple screen with error details when its core software hits a fatal error, often from faulty memory, firmware or drivers. Ordinary Windows PCs and Macs do not show it.
Why does my TV screen look purple?
A purple or magenta picture usually means the green part of the signal is missing. Reseat or replace the HDMI cable, try another HDMI input, and set the source device to send RGB or Auto rather than a fixed YCbCr format. If the menu of the TV itself also looks purple, the TV's panel or its electronics need service.
What is the difference between purple and violet?
Violet is a real color of the rainbow, light at the short end of the spectrum. Purple is a mix of red and blue light that is not in the rainbow at all. On a screen both are made by mixing red and blue subpixels, violet with more blue and purple with equal parts.
Is a purple light good for sleeping?
Purple contains blue light, which is the part most likely to keep you alert at night. For a bedtime glow, a dim red screen light or amber light is gentler. Use purple at low brightness for mood rather than for sleep.
Can I get a purple screen as a wallpaper?
Yes. Pick the shade and brightness, choose a size next to Save image and save the PNG, then set it as your wallpaper. For a phone, open this page on the phone itself and choose This screen as the size, so the image matches the phone's real resolution and fills it without stretching.