Just bought a new TV? Or maybe you've had the same one for years. A few minutes playing with the settings will give you a better picture than what you get straight out of the box.

While the best results will come from using a setup DVD, you can do nearly all these tweeks without one.

Almost every new TV gives you the option, when you first turn it on, to choose if the TV is in your home or at a store. Obviously, you choose the former. Believe it or not, this obvious choice and seemingly simple code took decades to implement and not only offers better picture quality, but lower energy consumption.

If you read my TV Buying Guide article, you know that the brightest TV is the one that sells, even if it isn't the "best" TV by everyone's definition. TV manufacturers know this, but what they don't know is which of their individual sets is going to end up on the store floor.

Because of this, they have to assume that every TV is going to end up on the store floor. So from the factory they're set as bright and blue as possible. In every case, this is the worst the TV can look in your home.

Raise your hand if you've never adjusted your TV.

Here's the good news, chances are you can make it look a lot better with just a few tweeks.

The first step is to adjust the picture presets. Personally (and nearly every videophile) prefers the "Cinema" or "Movie" mode. This offers the most accurate picture possible, though it may take a little to get used to. If you've always watched a blownout, bluish image, the accurate setting will seem very "red." Believe it or not, this is actually more accurate. More on this later.

The Contrast control on most TVs affects the bright parts of the image. With all modern TVs there's an upper limit how bright the image can become. After that, this control just messes up the image. Take, for example, an image of the sky. Let's say from a flight simulator, or something where there are clouds. A correctly setup TV will show you clouds. An incorrect TV will just show you a washed out bright blob. No detail. It's more of a cloud-shaped-thing than a cloud.

Find a brightly lit scene, game or movie, it shouldn't matter. Pause it, and start adjusting the Contrast control. You should see a difference. The ideal point is just before you lose detail in the brightest parts of the scene. You may need a few different scenes like this to get it perfect, but even with just one it should get you close. Very few TVs will have the Contrast control set anywhere near 100.

The Brightness control affects the dark parts of the image. Picture a guy on a dark street wearing a black leather jacket. On a correctly set up TV, you can see the details in the jacket, the guy, and probably whatever is in the shadows around him (depending on the scene). On an incorrectly setup TV, you may see some of that, or none of that.

The trick is to set the Brightness control low enough that the dark portions of the image are dark, but not so that all detail is lost. Often this control can be as high as 50 (out of 100), but it varies a lot depending on the TV. Finding a scene like the one above is easy. Dark TV shows abound. CSI is often dark, as is SG:Universe and any of the nightime scenes in Lost if you've got the DVD or BD.

Color and Tint are tricky. To set these correctly you really need a blue filter (similar to the blue half of the old fashioned 3D glasses). Generally these are pretty close to correct as set from the factory, no more than one or two clicks in either way. I'd say leave them unless the color looks wonky.

Sharpness. Now here's where you're not going to believe me. On nearly every TV, this control should be set within the BOTTOM 5% of its range. On many TVs, it can be off.

What the what?

The Sharpness control affects something called "Edge Enhancement." What this does is artificially enhance the edges of everything on the screen. At its most severe, it can add a tiny white halo to objects. The irony is, you're actually losing fine detail at the expense of fake sharpness. That's right, on TV you'll get more detail with a lower "Sharpness" setting.

Try this test; turn the sharpness down to within a few clicks of the bottom of its range. Watch TV and movies, play games, etc for a couple of days like this. Then turn it back up. I'm telling you, you're not going to like how it looks. Once you get used to real detail, the fake "sharpness" just looks awful. You'll see better fine details, like wrinkles, hair, and so on with the Sharpness control near off.

With most LCDs, the backlight control adjusts only the total amount of light, not anything in the actual image. Every step you turn this down, the less power the TV will consume, saving you money. Also, the black level will be better, so at night movies will have more depth.

A tricky one to describe is Color Temperature. Most TVs let you adjust the color temperature now. This adjusts the blueness or redness of the image. If you're into science, it's on the Kelvin scale and relates to a black body radiator. The Wiki page is pretty good describing this. Studio monitors (what TV and movie studios use to make the movies and TV shows) are set at 6500K. Videophiles set and even have their TVs calibrated to the same so they get as close to the director's intent as possible. Colors and skin tones will be far more accurate the closer you get to 6500K.

On most TVs this is the "Warm" setting. If you're not used to 6500, this is going to look very red at first. It's hard for me to predict what your TV will look like in the Warm mode, though, as there isn't a lot of consistency or accuracy between models.

If there's a Medium or Normal setting, I'd say pick that. It's probably around 7000 or 7500, which is close enough. If it looks weird to you, leave it like this for a couple of days, get used to it, then set it to "Cool" or "High" and tell me that doesn't look wonky.

Every TV has a lot of other controls, usually proprietary. Generally I turn these all off, but to each their own. My advice is turn them all off, then turn them on one by one to see what they do and if you like them.

What I've done here is try to make your TV look more realistic, more natural. In the end, you can do all of this, part of this, or none of this, it's really up to you. Once you get used to a correctly setup display, though, you'll never know how you lived without it.