Windows users can adjust their screen’s brightness level by dragging the brightness slider found in the Power Options: Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Power Options. When you are working in a dark environment, you may often find that the lowest possible level is still too bright. The perfect brightness level lies somewhere between Windows’ lowest scale and the blank black state. To dim the screen beyond minimum available level, have a look at DimScreen.
DimScreen is an unobtrusive little program made especially for mobile Windows users to help them in quickly changing their display screen brightness. It’s a stand-alone program, written with Autohotkey, and runs from the system tray.
The program allows you to change the brightness level using hotkeys or via a pop menu – accessible by clicking on the program icon.
Default keyboard shortcuts configured with the program are Ctrl++ (increases) and Ctrl+– (decreases). +/– keys configured are the one on the main keyboard, not the numpad. However, if you prefer to use the numpad keys or any other keys for that matter, just go the program’s settings and choose the desired key combination.
In the settings dialog, you get another option to set a preferred start-up brightness level (in percentage). When you run the program, screen is automatically dimmed to the set level. Program settings are saved in a .INI file in the same location as the executable file. This makes it possible for you to carry the program easily in a portable storage device with your settings intact.
To change brightness using mouse, locate the program icon in the Windows system tray and right-click on it. You will get a menu as seen in the image above. Click on a level to apply it immediately. Here a value of 0% means 100% screen brightness, a value of 70% means a brightness of 30%, and so on.
Selected brightness level is active only as long as the program is running. When the program closes, your viewing setting resorts to default.
I have tested DimScreen on 64-bit version of Windows 7 and 8, and it worked perfectly. It should work on other Windows versions as well.
Download: DimScreen (421KB) [Direct-link]