The invention is related to a new kind of plasma display panel control. A known principle for PDP control is based on a combination of sub-field addressing and priming. Within the priming period all the plasma cells of the panel are pre-excited by a strong voltage pulse. This treatment of the cells produces a slight background luminance which is a drawback for picture quality aspects because the achievable contrast is reduced. According to the invention it is proposed to use self-priming sub-fields and refreshing sub-fields instead of this hard priming period. With these concepts it is assured that the cells which ought to be black remain black. Self-priming sub-fields reduce or eliminate the need for priming, thus making dark areas darker, while refreshing sub-fields, can be addressed faster. In practice, the number of refreshing sub-fields in a frame period is higher than the number of the self-priming sub-fields. Therefore, the total addressing time can be reduced with this new technique. The faster addressing leaves more time for sustain pulses, thus allowing bright areas that are brighter. This is especially advantageous for PDP monitors connected to 75Hz multimedia sources.