by , 7:30 AM EST, December 29th, 2006

Changing the brightness of your Mac's display is a pretty easy thing to do, but what if you want more control - or you don't want to jack up your ColorSync profile? You use Shades, that's what.

Shades is a little application that gives you super-fine control over how bright or dim your Mac's display is. The twist is that it performs this magic without actually changing the real brightness of your display. Instead, it applies an opacity filter to your Desktop. The end result: you can dim your display without affecting any of your Mac's settings.

The Shades slider stays out of the way when you aren't using it...

Since Shades lets you use your display at a dimmer setting than the Brightness control in the Displays Preference Pane, you can use your Mac in lower light conditions without straining your eyes. Also, since it isn't physically changing your display settings, you don't have to worry about accidentally altering settings that will impact any ColorSync profiles you are using.

...and appears when you are ready to change your brightness settings.

Shades is available for download at the Charcoal Design Web site. It is free, but you are welcome to make a donation.