While your 4K TV might look great as-is, you won’t get the best picture quality from it out of the box. Modern TVs are often optimized to look good on a showroom floor rather than your living room, using features that not only distort picture quality but can also cause unnecessary eye strain.

Even once you’ve turned off the most disruptive features, spending just a few minutes calibrating your TV’s display pays major dividends to the overall image quality. You don’t need a professional calibration tool to make visible improvements. Many TVs now have support for Dolby Vision, HDR10+ and other picture enhancements. Making sure those modes kick in when you play supported content can massively improve the viewing experience. 

Your TV likely has a number of picture modes: vivid, gaming, sports and so on. These are bundled settings presets that adjust various levels for different types of content. For instance, gaming modes optimize the settings for low latency, while vivid modes crank up the brightness, saturation, sharpness and contrast for the most eye-popping image (though not the most accurate one).

The one you should look for first is “movie” or “filmmaker” mode. These save you time by turning off the most obnoxious visual settings like motion smoothing, as well as other post-processing and sharpness features. Those features may be suitable for watching sports, but are best avoided when watching movies and shows as they create strange visual artifacts. Filmmaker Mode is usually the best option, as it’s an official specification endorsed by Hollywood directors such as Martin Scorsese and Denis Villeneuve. However, Filmmaker Mode is not available on all TVs. Movie mode can be different, but in general it has the same goal of making the picture look more natural.

If your TV’s movie mode doesn’t turn off features like motion smoothing, action clarity or whatever other names these options masquerade as, turn them off manually. At their worst, motion smoothing settings inject fake video frames, a misguided way of making content with low frame rates play at higher ones. Movies play at 24 frames per second for a reason, which is part of what makes them feel “cinematic.” Motion smoothing destroys the Hollywood magic, and in the process makes movies look weird and somewhat oily. The “soap opera effect” is so reviled by cinephiles that Tom Cruise once filmed a PSA begging people to turn off their TVs’ motion smoothing settings.

Meanwhile, don’t forget to check the settings of attached devices like consoles or streaming boxes to make sure they’re playing in 4K and otherwise outputting the best-possible quality. 

After starting with a preset and getting rid of post-processing or over-sharpening, work through the picture settings like brightness, contrast and sharpness to dial them in one-by-one. Because of the way display panels are made, there can be enough variation between two of the same TV model that each needs to be tuned differently. The best way to do so is with a dedicated calibration tool, but most people don’t have one lying around. Don’t worry: your eyesight is sufficient for the task.

While we can’t detail the exact settings you should pursue, be sure to address black levels and brightness, white levels and contrast, sharpness, color temperature, color gamut, tint and gamma. Consider using TV test patterns (such as this YouTube playlist of reuploaded professional calibration patterns) as you go to get a more objective sense of what you’re adjusting.

Turn off any eco mode settings (aside from the inactivity timer), as these almost always involve compromising your picture quality by reducing brightness and similar. Eco settings don’t actually save that much energy or money; turning the TV off when you’re not using it is sufficient.

Many TVs only apply these changes to your current input, which is good if you want your console to look different than your streaming box. Look for an “apply to all” button if you want the same picture across everything you watch.

Many 4K TVs now have Dolby Vision, which is essentially a specialized version of HDR that deepens contrasts and dynamic range while preserving color. Dolby Vision mode should kick in automatically when you play content that supports it (usually by momentarily displaying a Dolby Vision badge on-screen), and it’s best to leave it on. It’s the rare example of a picture enhancement technology that actually enhances the picture.

If you see multiple Dolby Vision modes available (like Dark, Bright or Normal), it’s generally best to choose Normal. Bright is better during the daytime if there’s a lot of natural light in the room, and Dark is best in super dark rooms. Normal is standard Dolby Vision. However, if you see Dolby Vision Cinema, select that one; it’s the Dolby version of Filmmaker Mode discussed above.

Even after you’ve confirmed you’re watching compatible content in Dolby Vision, you still need to do the granular settings adjustments covered above. The same awful post-processing and sharpening settings should always be disabled, but they might re-enable when you enter Dolby mode. Make sure your color and brightness settings carried over, too. Dolby Vision is a blissfully low-effort mode, so unless something looks very wrong, let it work. And it’s slated to get even better, as Dolby Vision 2 is now available on some Hisense TVs, with support sure to follow from other vendors.

Some people will adjust every option in their TV’s settings while completely neglecting to optimize the room it’s sitting in. Even the most well-calibrated display can look awful in the wrong lighting or when getting blasted with screen glare. Taking care to place your TV properly in the room and arrange lighting is equally important.

First, take stock of your windows. A TV should never face a window, as the direct light will reflect off it, casting glare into your eyes and making it more difficult to see the image. It’s also bad to place the TV directly in front of a window, as the brighter light from outside will make the display appear too dim to see properly. Instead, place the TV perpendicular to windows, make sure each window has decent curtains or blinds. In the daytime, the ability to block out light will make it much easier to see your TV accurately.

However, viewing a bright screen against a dark wall can cause eye strain over time. While you don’t want the full force of the sun through a window, some light behind the TV can help alleviate that strain and make for a more comfortable viewing experience. This is called bias lighting, which is readily available in affordable kits (like this Power Practical listing). Most implementations are essentially an LED strip that casts a glow onto the wall behind your TV. You can find lighting that syncs with what’s on the TV to match colors, while others are fixed.