You only need to change a few settings to improve the image quality of your LG TV. You don’t need any special equipment or know-how, just to know which settings to change and which to leave alone.
Whether you’ve just bought a new TV, such as the G6, C6, C5 or the award-winning G5, or you’ve had an LG TV for a while, these setting tweaks can help. Even something as simple as changing the picture mode can elevate your viewing experience. That’s because certain settings, including brightness and sharpness, may not work the way you expect.
LG makes some of the best TVs, and both OLED and LED models have specific settings that are worth adjusting. In this guide, we cover LG TVs with the webOS interface, but older TVs may have these settings in different places. However, the names will be similar and usually work the same way.
Accessing the settings
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To get started, most of the settings that we’ll be changing are easily accessible. To get there, simply press the gear icon button on your TV remote. The tiles cover most of the basic settings we will be changing, though some other options are hidden a little deeper in the menus
Tip: You can also customize the tiles you have on this screen by scrolling over to the pencil icon in the topmost setting tile.
1. Turn off Energy Saving
The first thing you’ll want to do is turn off the energy-saving mode. Leaving this on limits the maximum brightness your LG TV can achieve. To do this, access the quick menu with your remote and follow these steps: All Settings > General > Energy Saving > Energy Saving. Toggle this setting to Off.
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2. Turn off eye care mode
Eye care mode limits the blue light emitted by your LG TV’s screen. It also affects the color output of the panel, shifting it to a warmer tone that’s supposed to reduce the strain on your eyes. However, this also means the colors you see in a movie or a TV show may not be what the filmmakers intended.
To turn off eye care mode, open the quick settings menu and toggle it offanced Settings menu and can also be turned off from here: All Settings > Picture > Advanced Settings > Reduce Blue Light
3. Select a picture mode (Filmmaker or Cinema?)
Aryan Surendranath/CNETMost TV settings are designed for store shelves. They show off the brightest, most colorful picture output the panel can achieve, and while these settings are eye-catching, they aren’t as appealing once you have the TV in your living room. Even if you selected a different mode when you first set up the TV, it’s worth choosing the most accurate mode for your day-to-day viewing.
To that end, switch to the Cinema mode, which is almost always the best picture setting for any TV. All LG TVs will have this setting, and it’s usually the most accurate picture option, meaning it’s the closest to what the TV or movie creators intended for you to see. It will look very different from Vivid or Standard mode. Give your eyes a day or so to adjust. Once you get used to Cinema, the other modes will look bluish and artificial. The Cinema Home mode sacrifices some color accuracy for a brighter image and, on some TVs, will be better for daytime viewing.
Certain models also have Filmmaker mode, which is even better and more accurate than Cinema. It disables most of the postprocessing your TV performs, which often reduces image quality for 4K
To change the picture mode, press the settings button on your remote, access the Picture Mode tile and choose Cinema. You can pick Filmmaker if it’s available and see if you like the way it looks, too. You can also access the menu via All Settings > Picture > Select Mode if you want a look at your other options. Keep in mind that if you’re used to watching your TV in a less accurate mode, the warmer, more accurate colors might look strange at first. Give it a day or two to get used to it; after that, the mode the TV was in before will look odd.
4. Adjust brightness (but not the brightness control)
Aryan Surendranath/CNETIf you have an OLED TV, the panel may not be set to its optimum output. You can use the OLED Pixel Brightness tile in the quick settings menu to adjust the brightness to 80 or higher. LED LCD models have a Backlight setting that controls how bright the TV is.
Keep in mind that on many LG models, the Brightness control (shown above) changes only the dark parts of the image. Increasing it can wash out the picture but doesn’t increase the TV’s light output. Make sure to look for both settings on your TV.
Some TVs will have an Ambient Light feature that senses how bright your room is and increases or decreases the TV’s brightness accordingly. If you find yourself adjusting your TV’s brightness from being too bright at night but not bright enough during the day, see if your TV has this feature.
Also, if you want to try your hand at changing a few more of the values in Advanced Settings, LG also has a guide on its website on what values to use for a better image.
5. Turn off motion smoothing (TruMotion)
Motion smoothing, also known as the soap-opera effect, is a feature designed to make movies and sports look “more natural” on TVs, but some people really dislike its effects. If you want the output image to remain closer to the creator’s intended vision, you’ll want motion smoothing off.
On LG, this setting is called TruMotion, and it’s hidden in Advanced Settings. To turn it off, go to All Settings > Picture > Advanced Settings > Clarity > TruMotion. You will have to scroll to the bottom of this menu to find the option.
6. Turn sharpness down
This may seem backward, but you should turn the sharpness control down. The sharpness control doesn’t actually increase sharpness; it adds edge enhancement. This is like adding lines to the edges of objects, so while it might seem sharper at first glance, it’s actually hiding fine detail. With some models, turning this all the way down is best, but experiment with your TV to see how low you can set it. On some models, setting it fully off artificially blurs the image, so set it slightly higher than that.
7. Enable HDMI-CEC
Lastly, if you have a soundbar or a video game console setup with your LG TV, you’ll want to enable SIMPLINK. This is LG’s term for HDMI-CEC, where CEC stands for Consumer Electronics Control. This feature effectively lets any HDMI-connected devices power on and control your TV and vice versa. It makes things a lot simpler as it enables you to use a single remote, in most cases.
To enable this, head into All Settings > General > External Devices > HDMI Settings > SIMPLINK.
Changing these seven settings should level up your LG TV experience. While it may look quite different, let your eyes get used to the change for a few days before making any other modifications. If things are already feeling a lot better, you might also want to try customizing your display sharpness to further improve picture quality.
FAQs about LG TV settings
What about game mode? Most LG TVs have a Game Mode, sometimes called Game Optimizer or Game Optimization Mode. Depending on the model, this will do a few different things. Primarily, it increases the processing speed of the TV by disabling image enhancement features, potentially reducing input lag. If your TV has an Auto Low Latency Mode, it will enter this state automatically with certain game consoles like the PS5 or most recent Xbox models. Generally, if you’re playing a game that requires fast reflexes and timing (shooters, racing games, platformers), the lower input lag of Game Mode will outweigh any decreases in picture quality due to the disabled image enhancement features.
What about HDR? If your TV and HDR picture mode if your model has separate HDR picture modes. If there are multiple HDR modes, choose Filmmaker, Cinema or, if a brighter image is desired, Cinema Home
How do I turn off TruMotion? Hate the ultrasmooth motion on modern TVs? Us too. LG’s version is called TruMotion. Go into the picture settings, find Advanced Settings, Clarity and then TruMotion. Older models might have it under Picture Options instead. Some models will have the Cinematic Movement option, which can reduce the juddery movement typical of 24fps content (basically all movies and scripted TV shows) when shown on TV, without the uncanny ultrasmoothness of the more heavy-handed motion-smoothing settings. Worth checking to see if you like it.
Filmmaker or Cinema on an LG? Generally speaking, Filmmaker mode is the closest LG can get to what filmmakers and TV showrunners want their movies and episodes to look like on your TV. Cinema mode adds in some picture quality enhancements that LG feels you might like, without going to the extremes of Standard or Vivid modes. We recommend trying Filmmaker first when available and giving it a few days. Then, if Filmmaker isn’t to your liking, try Cinema mode.
