Dead Pixel Checker

It fills your screen with solid colors one at a time so faulty pixels stand out. Against a perfectly even field of white, black, red, green or blue, a pixel that is stuck on one color or not lighting at all is easy to spot. It tests the display you open it on, such as a laptop, desktop monitor, tablet or phone screen.

Press Start Fullscreen Test and the test area fills your screen with white. Look across the whole display, then click anywhere on the screen or press Next Color to move through black, red, green and blue, and back to white. When you are finished, press Exit or use your browser's usual full screen shortcut to return to the page.

A dead pixel does not light up, so it shows as a dark dot that is most visible on the white, red, green and blue screens. A stuck pixel stays lit in one color, so it shows as a bright red, green, blue or white dot, most obvious on the black screen. Checking every color in the cycle is how you catch both types.

Clean the screen gently with a microfiber cloth before testing, then run through the colors again. Dust and smudges usually look soft and change appearance when you view the screen from a different angle, while a faulty pixel is a sharp, fixed dot that sits in exactly the same spot on every color. Moving closer helps confirm what you are seeing.

A single stuck pixel on an editing display can be mistaken for a sensor spot, dust or noise in your images, leading to unnecessary retouching. Testing a new monitor or laptop as soon as it arrives also gives you the best chance of returning or exchanging it within the retailer's window. It takes less than a minute and is worth repeating occasionally.

Yes. The checker is free, needs no software and works entirely in your browser, so nothing is installed and no files are involved. To access the tools, you confirm once that you are a photographer and create or log in to a free Imagen account, after which this checker and every other tool on the site are available whenever you need them.