Glare vs Anti Glare
Glare is a phenomenon that is very common and expressed as discomfort by those who experience it. Suppose you are watching television, and if the room is not well illuminated, that cause strain on your eyes. This is when you say you are experiencing glare from the TV. The same can be said of the strain you feel while fishing on a bright sunny day or when you are just walking out on a sunny day. The recent explosion of gadgets like computers and laptops and overexposure of eyes to the monitors of their screens has raised concerns about their glare and resulting health consequences. All this has led to efforts being made to reduce glare by developing anti-glare screens and glasses to prevent any discomfort and health problems to people. Let us take a closer look.
You can feel glare in both very bright light and very low light. You feel glare, when sun’s rays are too strong and you experience difficulty in seeing things clearly. However, the bright screen of the computer in a dimly illuminated room can also cause glare to your eyes. Sometimes, even a light as innocuous of a camera flash can make people experience glare with the result that they cannot get their photo clicked with normal facial expressions.
Anti glare refers to special screens of computers and mobiles that reduce the amount of light reflected back. Glare makes a display less bright and poor contrast. Antiglare screen makes watching TV programs or working on computers for long hours a no tiring exercise. In fact, watching movies on a TV with an anti glare screen fitted is pleasurable for the viewer, as there is no strain to the eye, and therefore, no problems for the vision of the viewer.
There are many ways through which glare from a computer screen can be reduced. One of these is matt finish display that is most popular. Here, matte finish causes the light to scatter before reaching the eyes of the viewer. However, this results in less sharp images because of scattering of light. The other method is to use a chemical coating to reduce the glare off the smooth surface of the monitor. In this method, though the image is sharp, the glare is still there in comparison to matte finish method. These days most manufacturers are getting anti glare screens fitted before they are sold. However, if you find that the monitor you are buying does not have an anti glare screen, you can purchase it from the market and get it installed over the screen of the computer.
Summary
Glare is a common phenomenon experienced under conditions of extreme brightness such as going out without glasses on a sunny day or watching television. Glare is experienced when working on computers in dimly illuminated rooms too. This is because of the high amount of light reflected back by the screens of monitors. There has been a constant effort to reduce this glare by introducing anti glare glasses and screen of TV and computer monitors. This is mainly achieved by either a matte finish screen or a chemical coating on the screen.