2 ms·

Then your monitor's brightness is set too high.

bryanlarsen 16y ago
The only way to set a monitor's brightness so low that it doesn't cause eyestrain with an all-white screen over a 16 hour period is to turn it off.
- Semiapies 16y ago
  With that use-pattern, the issue clearly isn't background color.
  - barrkel 16y ago
    100% intensity white is overused all over the place in computing. You simply can't have the combination of (a) high total contrast (b) white that doesn't cause some level of discomfort when flood-filling the entire screen, and (c) evenly discernible relative shading differences at all levels of brightness. Contrast flattens the total range, brightness shifts the range up or down, and gamma changes the shape of the curve to be more or less steep (accentuating relative shading differences at different levels of brightness). When you're looking at a photo of a sunlit scene, the bright parts should be bright; there should be sufficient contrast to see into the shaded areas, which should be dark; and the photo shouldn't look murky or washed out. To get that effect, the contrast needs to be pretty high but evenly spread, with the brightest white being bright enough to shine out. I run my own (Dell) monitors at 15/100 brightness - which happens to be pretty damn bright compared to the brightest laptop screen - but I still don't use white as the window background colour in my UI preferences - I use a sky blue with RGB:207,207,239.
    - Semiapies 16y ago
      If you're looking at code on a white background and experience any discomfort, turn down the brightness. Don't look at code on a white background, a blue background, or in the "haphazard mix of neon and muddy colors on a black background" color scheme for 16 hours a day. Editing code is a completely different application from editing images, watching video, or playing games. On my work box, I'm simply not concerned with "evenly discernible relative shading differences at all levels of brightness", so I run a a pair of ViewSonics at 70% contrast and 75% brightness in a well-lit room. I don't experience any level of discomfort from white editor windows; the only problem I ever experience is shifting back and forth between dark-on-light and light-on-dark windows.
      - barrkel 16y ago
        I use a grey on black scheme for editor windows, no discomfort either.

The only way to set a monitor's brightness so low that it doesn't cause eyestrain with an all-white screen over a 16 hour period is to turn it off.

Semiapies 16y ago
With that use-pattern, the issue clearly isn't background color.
- barrkel 16y ago
  100% intensity white is overused all over the place in computing. You simply can't have the combination of (a) high total contrast (b) white that doesn't cause some level of discomfort when flood-filling the entire screen, and (c) evenly discernible relative shading differences at all levels of brightness. Contrast flattens the total range, brightness shifts the range up or down, and gamma changes the shape of the curve to be more or less steep (accentuating relative shading differences at different levels of brightness). When you're looking at a photo of a sunlit scene, the bright parts should be bright; there should be sufficient contrast to see into the shaded areas, which should be dark; and the photo shouldn't look murky or washed out. To get that effect, the contrast needs to be pretty high but evenly spread, with the brightest white being bright enough to shine out. I run my own (Dell) monitors at 15/100 brightness - which happens to be pretty damn bright compared to the brightest laptop screen - but I still don't use white as the window background colour in my UI preferences - I use a sky blue with RGB:207,207,239.
  - Semiapies 16y ago
    If you're looking at code on a white background and experience any discomfort, turn down the brightness. Don't look at code on a white background, a blue background, or in the "haphazard mix of neon and muddy colors on a black background" color scheme for 16 hours a day. Editing code is a completely different application from editing images, watching video, or playing games. On my work box, I'm simply not concerned with "evenly discernible relative shading differences at all levels of brightness", so I run a a pair of ViewSonics at 70% contrast and 75% brightness in a well-lit room. I don't experience any level of discomfort from white editor windows; the only problem I ever experience is shifting back and forth between dark-on-light and light-on-dark windows.
    - barrkel 16y ago
      I use a grey on black scheme for editor windows, no discomfort either.