A method for controlling an electroluminescent display to produce first and second images for display wherein the second image has reduced luminance to reduce burn-in on the display, includes providing the electroluminescent (EL) display having a plurality of EL emitters, the luminance of the light produced by each EL emitter being responsive to a respective drive signal; receiving a respective input image signal for each EL emitter for each of a plurality of frames; transforming the input image signals for a first frame to provide a plurality of first drive signals to produce an image on the display; and transforming the input image signals for a second frame to a plurality of second drive signals using a dimming transform that operates on the input image signals for each frame to provide a peak frame luminance value for the second frame wherein the dimming transform includes an exponential function.