Effect of room illuminance on monitor black level luminance and monitor calibration

In this article we demonstrate the effect of room il-luminance and surrounding monitor black level lu-minance on image quality for soft copy interpretation. Luminance values of a 10 % central target and image quality evaluations and observer performance using a contrast-detail mammography (CDMAM) phantom demonstrate these effects. Our results indicate that high room illuminance has a more damaging effect on image quality when the surrounding monitor lumi-nance is 0 % to 5 % of the maximum monitor lumi-nance. The effect of room illuminance is less obvious when the surrounding monitor luminance is 20 % of the maximum. KEY WORDS: Black level, luminance, illuminance, image contrast, diffuse reflection, image surroun