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MBA 11'' screen rough on my eyes, ways to make colours warmer?

M

Mac32

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Original poster
Nov 20, 2010
1,263
454
Hi,

I have a MBA 11', but I find the screen is a bit hard on my eyes. The colours looks cold, too much blue, harsh etc., and this combined with the small screen and text size, makes my eyes sore.
Is there a way (system settings or software) that can make the screen have more warmer/less harsh colours?

Thanks! :)
 
I have found that calibrating by eye in advanced mode (be sure to squint, it really helps!!) is probably about 75% as accurate as using a color calibrator, and since you just want it to be warmer so its nicer on your eyes, accuracy isnt a huge issue for you anyways. I would suggest that you open Preferences->Displays->Color, do a basic calibration. The second menu allows you to choose the white point. If you find the standard D65 too cool, try D50. It is quite a bit warmer, but might be exactly what you need!
 
I ended up returning a 13" Air for this very reason. Besides limiting your use or plugging in an external display, there's not much you can do beyond calibrating the screen, which may help you improve perceived contrast and will let you adjust colour temperature. You can do so by going to System Preferences>Displays>Color>Calibrate...

As you can save and load calibration profiles to/from files, some people have actually posted their profiles for their Air displays on these forums, so you may find trying their profiles useful if you don't have much luck yourself.

Hope this helps :)
 
Mac32 said:
Hi,

I have a MBA 11', but I find the screen is a bit hard on my eyes. The colours looks cold, too much blue, harsh etc., and this combined with the small screen and text size, makes my eyes sore.
Is there a way (system settings or software) that can make the screen have more warmer/less harsh colours?

Thanks! :)
Click to expand...

You're gonna LOVE this software. Download f.lux and enjoy! :)

"f.lux makes your computer screen look like the room you're in, all the time. When the sun sets, it makes your computer look like your indoor lights. In the morning, it makes things look like sunlight again.
Tell f.lux what kind of lighting you have, and where you live. Then forget about it. F.lux will do the rest, automatically."


Ive used it for 6 months and couldn't do without it. It might take you a day or two to get used to it, but I don´t even notice it anymore. If you wanna see the difference, just turn it off and you will see that it will hurt your eyes just like turning a lamp on right in front of you if you´re in a dark room.
 
I was about to recommend f.lux but was beaten to it, excellent utility. Wish I could get it on my non-jailbroken iPhone and iPad, but alas. Not worth jbing for imo.

Only time I disable it is when I'm watching video.
 
F.lux. works very well. Thanks! I use it at 6300k at both day and night. That's enough to reduce some of the hard blue-ish colour quality of the screen. This makes staring at my MBA so much more comfortable. Great! :)

I wish however that FLux had some more settings. There's only one setting in Flux, and the screen looks orange very quickly when you go below 6300k (which is just two small clicks from the max setting at 6500k).
 
Last edited:
Mac32 said:
I wish however that FLux had some more settings. There's only one setting in Flux, and the screen looks orange very quickly when you go below 6300k (which is just two small clicks from the max setting at 6500k).
Click to expand...

I actually set mine for 5900K at night, but I use the 1 hour transition. I find the longer transition helps my eyes adjust to it over time, so that I really don't notice it. Until I saw this thread, I had forgotten it was running. I had to check the menu bar. Some further customizations would be nice, however.

I have also calibrated my display, and it is a good bit warmer than the default was.
 
Mac32 said:
F.lux. works very well. Thanks! I use it at 6300k at both day and night. That's enough to reduce some of the hard blue-ish colour quality of the screen. This makes staring at my MBA so much more comfortable. Great! :)

I wish however that FLux had some more settings. There's only one setting in Flux, and the screen looks orange very quickly when you go below 6300k (which is just two small clicks from the max setting at 6500k).
Click to expand...

At night mine is at 3000. It was very weird looking at first but now I'm used to it. I just have to remember to turn it off whenever I'm working in Photoshop which I don't always do since I'm so used to it.
 
I had to write an update.
I LOVE F.lux!!
Fantastic program. I use it for both my MBA and MBP screen. I can't imagine living without it ever again.
Thanks for the tip everybody. :)
 
Mac32 said:
Hi,

I have a MBA 11', but I find the screen is a bit hard on my eyes. The colours looks cold, too much blue, harsh etc., and this combined with the small screen and text size, makes my eyes sore.
Is there a way (system settings or software) that can make the screen have more warmer/less harsh colours?

Thanks! :)
Click to expand...


You should look into Gunnar Optiks, their glasses are made specifically to reduce eye fatigue when looking at screens for extended periods of times, they have a *slight* magnifying effect (about x1.25) which helps you see better and they give a slightly warmer (but not distracting) hue to the screen. They really go work well.
 
Since my post a while back I've jailbroke my iPhone, mainly because the home home button was driving me crackers and Zephyr takes the pain away by allowing gestures.

Happy side effect is I can now run f.lux on it, what a great little utility that is. Using on my iPhone, iPad and MBA now.
 
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