Working with RGB LED matrices in CircuitPython (or Arduino with the Adafruit_Protomatter library), you might notice that certain graphics appear washed out. High-contrast elements such as text or “LED sand” look fine, but something appears off when you try loading a more subtly-shaded BMP image.

It’s not an error in your graphics or the LED matrix, but an artifact of how our eyes have a non-linear response to light. We’ve written a whole guide about the issue and the fix — gamma correction — and you’ll see the topic appear again and again in several other LED-related guides.

We’d like to have gamma correction baked right into our LED matrix driver code. Work continues on that but isn’t ready yet…and once there, it will demand extra RAM and CPU cycles that not all projects can afford.

In the interim, we’ve come up with a couple techniques for preprocessing images to look better on these matrices, as seen in the graphically-intensive Moon Clock and Matrix Portal Eyes projects. Not as desirable as true gamma correction in the matrix driver, but often a good compromise!

led_matrices_werewolf.png
Awoo.

Both approaches require using a “regular” desktop or laptop computer — one uses a Python script, the other relies on the free ImageMagick graphics utility.

Parts

Video of a person rotating an LED matrix panel with animation resembling falling colored sand.
Folks love our wide selection of RGB matrices and accessories, for making custom colorful LED displays... and our RGB Matrix Shields...
$24.95
In Stock
Angled shot of Official Raspberry Pi Power Supply 5.1V 3A with USB C with Power plug facing down.
The official Raspberry Pi USB-C power supply is here! And of course, we have 'em in classic Adafruit black! Superfast with just the right amount of cable length to get your Pi 4...
$7.95
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Two white hands hold out an assembled and powered on 64x32 RGB LED Matrix Panel - 3mm pitch. The matrix displays "Adafruit Industries LED MATRIX! 32x64 *RGB*"
Bring a little bit of Times Square into your home with this sweet 64 x 32 square RGB LED matrix panel. These panels are normally used to make video walls, here in New York we see them...
$44.95
In Stock
Vide of assembled and powered on 64x32 RGB LED Matrix Panel - 4mm pitch. The matrix displays "Black Lives Matter" alongside the Raised Fist.
Bring a little bit of Times Square into your home with this sweet 64 x 32 square RGB LED matrix panel. These panels are normally used to make video walls, here in New York we see them...
$39.95
In Stock
Two white hands hold out an assembled and powered on 64x32 RGB LED Matrix Panel - 5mm pitch. The matrix displays "Adafruit Industries LED MATRIX! 32x64 *RGB*"
Bring a little bit of Times Square into your home with this sweet 64x32 square RGB LED matrix panel. These panels are normally used to make video walls, here in New York we see them on...
Out of Stock
Two white hands hold out an assembled and powered on 64x32 RGB LED Matrix Panel - 6mm pitch. The matrix displays "Adafruit Industries LED MATRIX! 32x64 *RGB*"
Bring a little bit of Times Square into your home with this sweet 64x32 square RGB LED matrix panel. These panels are normally used to make video walls, here in New York we see them on...
Out of Stock
Video of woman in a white sleeveless t-shirt holding and slightly bending a black flexible 64x32 RGB LED Matrix. The LED matrix is lit up with rainbow LEDs with the text: Adafruit Industries LED Matrix 32x64 *RGB*.
If you've played with multiplexed RGB matrices, you may have wondered "hey, could we possibly manufacture these on a thin enough PCB, so it's flexible?" and the...
$44.95
In Stock
Two hands flexing a powered on 64x32 Flexible RGB LED Matrix - 5mm Pitch.
If you've played with multiplexed RGB matrices, you may have wondered "hey, could we possibly manufacture these on a thin enough PCB so it's flexible?" and the answer...
$79.95
In Stock

This guide was first published on Oct 19, 2020. It was last updated on Mar 08, 2024.

This page (Overview) was last updated on Mar 08, 2024.

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