Brightness versus Contrast
Until now, the accepted answer for adapting flat panel displays to bright environments was to increase the display's brightness. Unfortunately, that often introduced as many problems as it solved. Increasing brightness merely lightens the overall display. The light and black areas become brighter which means the contrast is actually lowered. By adding backlights to the display you only consume more power and create more heat in the LCD.
The human eye eventually becomes "saturated" with brightness and stops responding to it. Contrast, on the other hand, is the ratio of the display's white level to its black level. As the ambient light is increased, the contrast is reduced. Unlike brightness, contrast is what the human eye most easily responds to and recognizes. Thus, the challenge is not to increase brightness but to increase contrast.
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