Selective dimming in a light emitting display device to reduce power consumption. The display device includes a display panel that includes a plurality of light emitting pixels. An image processor is configured to divide an image frame into a plurality of regions and to reduce pixel intensity levels in at least one region of the plurality of regions to generate an adjusted image frame. The at least one region corresponds to a background of the image frame. A display driver converts data for the adjusted image frame into control signals for controlling brightness of the light emitting pixels. The display device may be, for example, an organic light emitting diode (OLED) display device or other type of display device that includes light emitting pixels.