IDEA: Emulate a green monitor to reduce eye strain.

[Ampa]

Inspired by this no-frills text editor and some recent discussions regarding eye strain, I would like a utility that will convert my entire screen into something like a green monitor display.

I envisage that the utility would do something along the lines of...

• Invert the colours on screen (ie black <-> white).
• Convert to greyscale.
• Colourize with a green hue.

Is this possible? Difficult?

[kimmchii]

do you use a pc or mac?

i have a pc, for browsers i use a proxomitron filter to convert all bright background color to grey, for windows you can find a darker theme, there are plenty of them in deviantART.

[Ampa]

Kimmchii: I am using a PC. Both of your suggestions are good, but only go part way to solving the problem... I really want a solution that will work for all applications (rather than just a web-browser) and the theme doesn't tend to be the over riding issue, it is the larger areas of white 'paper' with small black text that take their toll.

One possible solution of my own... tape a sheet of green gel (the type used in theatre / stage lighting) over the display! A hardware solution... I'll try it later and report back with my findings.

Hey... I could even stick the gel onto my glasses and then I wouldn't be limited to seeing the screens...

[mouser]

this is only tangentially related, but cool and recently posted at downloadsquad.com:

DarkRoom editor that is super minimal and green screen looking:



http://they.misled.us/archives/501

[Edvard]

Correct me if i'm wrong, but most video cards have tweaking apps that allow you to adjust gamma, hue, rgb levels, etc. you could use that to reduce the colors to green and black. I have also seen third party apps to do that, but YMMV, Caveat Emptor, etc.
 

[f0dder]

Edvard, that sounds like an idea - but the problem is the colors would have to be inverted first, otherwise you still get the same high intensity levels of black-on-white, except now it's just black-on-green...

[Edvard]

maybe one has an "invert" option...

[Ampa]

Thought of this thread again this week, and finally decided to do some experimentation...

Firstly I snuck downstairs to the theatre, and stole some green lighting gel.

• Yes - I actually do live above a theatre.
• No - I don't wear a mask and drop chandeliers on people.

Cut a section and stuck it over one of my screens. Took a photo.

IDEA: Emulate a green monitor to reduce eye strain.

Verdict: The photo doesn't do it justice. The screen goes green... very green! Deep saturated green. I certainly knocks off a lot of the glare, but having a second shiny reflective surface over the screen adds extra reflections of the room, and the monitor itself. Plus it hasn't achieved the real solution - green on black; but has given dark green on light green.

On to Edvard's idea...

Pulled up the nVidia control panel and quickly discovered that the Advanced colour options would allow you to completely invert the colour scheme...

IDEA: Emulate a green monitor to reduce eye strain.

IDEA: Emulate a green monitor to reduce eye strain.

Verdict: Total inversion generally cuts down the glare, but looks very odd indeed. Sites that use a lot of black, suddenly become very bright!

So a bit more twiddling to knock out (almost) all the red and blue gives a pretty good emulation of a green screen...

IDEA: Emulate a green monitor to reduce eye strain.

IDEA: Emulate a green monitor to reduce eye strain.

Verdict: Looks pretty good to me. Obviously a green screen has drawbacks - you certainly don't want to be doing any graphical work with this setup - but for reading text late at night, I found it very comfortable indeed.

[mouser]

that's pretty cool.
might be nice if there was a script that could toggle that setting on and off.

[Ampa]

I have done yet more twiddling, and further refined my Green settings - I shall see if there is a way I can attach them for the benefit of other nVidia users.

The nVidia system tray app (part of the standard Forceware install) stores any colour adjustments that the user makes, so changing between 'normal' and 'green screen' only takes two or three clicks.

Interestingly if I try to take a screen-capture of the green effect, the shot comes out in normal colours. I guess that the adjustment is performed as the signal is sent to the monitor, rather than to the image in video RAM.

[app103]

You could just wear a pair of sunglasses or get a real filter for your screen, rather than trying to make a homemade one.

I used to have one of these way back when I was using a 15" CRT. It took me awhile to adjust to life without one when I moved up to a larger CRT monitor that it wouldn't fit on.

I am beginning to wonder if I should start saving my money and buy one for this LCD. It's been over a year and I still haven't been able to get used to the difference between a CRT and LCD.


http://www.visioncar...ters.com/frames.html

WARNING: These are very expensive.

[jgpaiva]

I don't think that the idea of using green paper on your screen is good. Probably, the strain of reading through the paper (which might not look that important at first hand, but i'm quite sure would be important on the long run) would be worse than supporting the screen's glare.

[mouser]

Firstly I snuck downstairs to the theatre, and stole some green lighting gel.
    * Yes - I actually do live above a theatre.
    * No - I don't wear a mask and drop chandeliers on people.

 

[tomos]

You could just wear a pair of sunglasses or get a real filter for your screen, rather than trying to make a homemade one.
...
I am beginning to wonder if I should start saving my money and buy one for this LCD. It's been over a year and I still haven't been able to get used to the difference between a CRT and LCD.

-app103 (May 21, 2007, 12:03 PM)

App:
I thought LCD etc screens were supposed to be easier on the eyes  -
do you have a very high contrast one or whats the problem getting used to it ?

[app103]

I am not too sure exactly what the problem is, except that I would have to compare reading text on a LCD to being about the same as reading a book under flourescent light. Not something I can do for any length of time without my eyes burning and feeling like I have sand in them.

And even though I have ClearType turned on, the text really isn't all that clear.

Reading on a CRT is much easier for me. The text is much cleaner, sharper. My eyes feel much more relaxed.

[nite_monkey]

On the settings of my secondary 17" there is a spot where you can change the red green and blue values, so I could make the entire thing green if I wanted to, I don't think my 19" does that tho, but nvidia has that color settings, so that works.

[thefritz_j]

I've used these two programs to select inverted color palettes for my PC.  (I've been tweaking the colors & reducing the white-paper glare on my pc for years)

*** Jasmin 3D Color Changer (free? still?), Have to switch to Win 2000 display theme to make it work, but it allows to you TOTALLY customize the colors,  let me know if you want some of mine that I've tweaked over the years!

*** WindowBlinds ($20 for license), not only lets you keep snazzy UI elements, but also lets you Invert the themes, ("negative" them.) at any time.

Both of these programs affect the entire windows user interface.  I also specify text color and background color overrides in firefox, really easy.

Let me know if that helps.