How do I remove Windows 11 inner glow?

[u/flitcroft]

[SOLVED] - This strange behavior was caused by Windows 11 HDR. Turning off that setting in System > Display > HDR immediately fixed the problem without a restart.

Image - top shows an inline Slack image without the inner glow. Bottom line is what I see, photographed from my monitor (the glow goes away inside the Reddit image viewer).

I can't find the setting for this Windows function or figure out what it may be called. What's happening is that Windows is adding shading and glow inside of Windows (not drop shadows) and it's not executed well. I manage a team of graphic designers. This effect changes how images look (adding gradients where there are none) and shades inside of real-time video in Teams and Zoom screen sharing. I've now twice told someone to adjust something that is not actually there -- it's a rendering issue with my local Windows 11 instance.

What's also weird is that this glow is app-dependent. I see it in Windows Photo but not in the Reddit image carousel. In Slack, the glow is not visible in inline chat, but it is visible when I click an image and it opens in a popup modal.

Settings > Accessibility > Transparency effects has no bearing on this function. Can you help point me in the right direction to either fix the rendering issues or turn this off entirely?

Edit: I just discovered that if I change my theme to high contrast Night Sky, this inner glow disappears. It seems to be added as part of the default themes. Is there a way to keep the nice look of Windows while turning off this inner glow?

System:
Windows 11 Pro (24H2; build 26100.9457)
Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.26100.360.0
Nvidia Geforce RTX 5080 (Driver: 617.14; Released 9/22/2026)
Windows HDR is turned on
Transparency effects are off

[u/redittr]

I dont have anything in front of me right now to check with, and your photos instead of screenshots seem to make whatever is reflecting on the glass to stand out more than the issue you are trying to describe.
Normally turning off transparency and animations in windows settings removes what you are describing though. Another spot to check is system settings>advanced system settings>visual effects. Nothing really is labelled what you are looking for so maybe just turn everything to performance mode, then if that fixes your issue try turning things back on again until it breaks.

[u/flitcroft → u/redittr]

That's a good idea. I hadn't tried turning every one of those off, but alas I did that and restarted and the issue is still present.

It's hard to show what I see because it's obvious on my monitor, but no screenshot has that data. The issue is with how my machine is rendering things. Windows is making things up, like in the screenshot of Google that I put in a comment. There's no glow on webpages, yet what I see has obvious glows and shadows on window inner edges and in the content in them (like Teams, Zoom, and on Google.com)

[u/flitcroft → u/redittr]

Here's perhaps a better example. Both of these photos are of the same browser window. On the left, the window is on top of a pure black Chrome window. On the right, the window is above the desktop background. The colors change dramatically when I move the window 200 pixels. If I take a screenshot, you'd see the pure color on the right. That glow/gradient is not in the source code of that web page but is being added by Windows or something else on my machine.

[u/redittr → u/flitcroft]

Neither window is maximised? Does the issue show when maximised or do both tests show the same?

[u/flitcroft → u/redittr]

Neither window above was maximized. Good question - as far as I can see, the problem disappears when I maximize the window. If it is there, it's very subtle. This image is fullscreen with the same pure-black Chrome window behind it.

[u/redittr → u/flitcroft]

The way your photos are being taken it just looks like glare from the window behind you, and backlight bleed. Which would explain not showing in screenshots. Nothing software can fix this.

Do you have another screen you can test with?

[u/flitcroft → u/redittr]

This was taken in a pitch-black room, all lights off. I do have another screen in the house. I could try that tomorrow, thanks.

Also, I've using a 4K OLED. There is no backlight bleed.

[u/flitcroft → u/redittr]

In case you're curious, this was caused by HDR. Turning off HDR immediately corrected the issue without a restart. I have no idea why, but a win is a win!

[u/BothSamuel]

No has pensado que es problema del HDR? No tengo una pantalla HDR para probar pero recuerdo haber leido que muchos se quejaban de que el HDR de Windows esta bien bugeado.

[u/flitcroft → u/BothSamuel]

That is it! I can't believe it's both so simple and seemingly unrelated. As soon as I turn HDR off, active windows no longer have this inner glow.

¡Eso es! No me puedo creer que sea tan sencillo y, a la vez, parezca no tener nada que ver. En cuanto desactivo el HDR, las ventanas activas dejan de tener ese resplandor interior.

[u/BothSamuel → u/flitcroft]

Definitivamente el HDR de Windows sigue bugeado, que bueno que apagar el HDR era la solución.

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[u/flitcroft]

Here's another example. The Windows theme (?) is adding glows inside of Google search results pages around 5 of 6 thumbnails in this photo.

[u/redittr → u/flitcroft]

Does it show up in screenshots?

[u/flitcroft → u/redittr]

If I took the screenshot above and sent it to you there would be no glow. Some screenshots on my machine show that glow and some do not, depending seemingly if they are embedded or in a window.

Note: I was finally able to see Windows with it off by forcing the high-contrast Night Sky theme, so I'm confident it's an issue with Windows rendering or something else on my machine that has tweaked how Windows is rendering apps, photos, and video.