Anti-aliased fonts can damage eyesight - writeup

JTL

Looks it affects only non-retina and external displays. Also mainly white text on black background. I have MPB Retina + Air and CCFL (Dell ST2410b) and LED IPS (ThinkVision P27h-10) monitors...which both are bad with both MACs but good with my recent Chromebook discovery. I'm headed home from work, and upgrading my Air to Mojave first thing I get home.

...Looks I've missed all this "font antialiasing" software issue, kinda just discovered it today (yes I'm
late couple of years) and I think this is part of my issue (text feel very smooth, sometimes even bold) where the chrome does not have this, the font feels thin, I can see the square pixel and even white/grey pixels in the font which I turned to love last 2 weeks!!!!

This article explains it great
http://www.lighterra.com/articles/macosxtextaabug/

I have to test disabling it in chrome://flags too, which just says Default, but I have no clue if that means enabled or disabled (my guess this is disabled in chromebook but enabled in mac)

Will test if I feel difference on the Dasung HD too (which I'll be returning next week)

JTL

Updated the Air to Mojave...the weird part is by default anti smoothing was still enabled! I disabled it and can definitely say it's easier on my eyes and I get the chromeebook font feel!
However it comes with slight drawback, on dark backgrounds the white font seem little blur, the opposite also feel slight blur but not as much. This "blurness" is not as bad on my external CCFL as it is on the Air display but either way I find it much more usable this way than with smoothing enabled! The chromebook does not have this blurness at all, neither the external display when connected to it.

Other good thing with Mojave is it comes with Dark theme option (asked on first boot if want to pick it). Tho both options are under Settings - General.

...will update the Retina one on Monday (must bug IT at work, I don't have permissions) and will see how this affects it (since other article said Retina won't get blurred)

Damn, looks there are anti aliased shapes too, not just fonts!

The picture on the right is the only thing so far I have looked at on my chromebook that I can't hold my eyes, it gives me the same eyes flip feeling instantly as when using the MACs (till yesterday when disabled font anti aliasing and used external monitor)
https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/key-concepts/aliasing-anti-aliasing.html

Ok that picture is too big and blurred too (with fonts I don't feel the blur part)
This one is smaller, the most right box is too hard to look at for me, instant discomfort.
https://bjango.com/images/articles/1pxisnotenough/1px-aa.png

I guess you guys see them blur too, but does your eyes feel like want to flip or maybe cross trying too hard to focus or there is nothing?

MS has been moving away from cleartype for a long time now even in 7. If you installed a current version of IE, you lost cleartype. If you installed a version of Office higher than 2010, you lost cleartype.

It only works in landscape orientation, and pretty much only on white backgrounds.

Fonts were specifically designed to be used with "cleartype" rgb subpixel anti-aliasing (e.g. Calibri, etc.), or no anti-aliasing (Verdana, Georgia, etc.), or greyscale anti-aliasing.

Match the fonts to the rendering you prefer, you'll get better display results.

It's true about the Verdana/Georgia and a few others. They were done as bitmaps first, and then outlines wrapped around them which is never done anymore. I love Verdana on the screen.

martin Will give it a try to Iris tomorrow, haven't used it yet.

I think you understood me the reverse way. I cannot handle smooth fonts and shapes and since ~2012 everything I have put my eyes on seems uses this by default!
Keywords for this are font rasterization, subpixel rendering, font anti aliasing, subpixel AA, LCD font smoothing (Apple), ClearType (Windows)

As soon I turned this off, I could instantly feel more comfort. I would say 90% my issue is solved, but there is still something left.

I have no problems at all with my new discovery Chromebook, I can sit now 12-14h a day without problems (this is super shitty quality and flickers like crazy but I don't have issues with flicker).

Disabled the smoothing on my Air and Retina too. The Air is much more comfortable now, the Retina is slightly improved but still not good enough :S

I also have enabled "Reduce Transparency". This feature on the iPhone X gave me similar improvement to the Retina after disabling smoothing.

I noticed that I should not enable "Increase Contrast" as that worsens my situation.

I matched the fonts on my Retina chrome with what's on the Chromebook
https://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/tinos
Standard font: Tinos
Serif: Tinos
Sans-serif: Arimo
Fixed-width: Cousine

I plug them into x2 same monitors "Lenovo ThinkVision P27h-10 27" and match the resolution 1600x900 (60HZ) but I still can't get the comfort level from the Retina match that of the Chromebook. That external monitor where the Mac Retina is attached still produces much smoother picture (although now can visibly tell anti aliasing is off). I think it has something to do with the color depth/bit depth/buffer frame. Installed SwitchResX and Display Maestro 2 but both of them show only Millions. The Chromebook is maybe in thousands, not sure how to check :S Or maybe its 8 vs 16 vs 24 vs 32 bit

24 vs. 32 bit screens is ALSO misleading - most screens are in fact 18-bit and simulate 24-bit. There are a VERY FEW 30-bit screens.

JTL Correct. Which, as I said, there are like 5 of. It's frustrating, but most displays are 6/24 bit. This is why every device flickers.

oh looks it's not the bit depth that is my second problem but DPI!! Accidentally noticed that under SwitchResX there are HiDPI and same resolution as regular ones, as soon I picked non HiDPI my Mac discomfort lowered (both on the Retina display and the External one).

Besides not being able to tolerate "smooth fonts" looks I can't tolerate DPI > 1x
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/HiDPI#Chromium_.2F_Google_Chrome

Here is output of chrome://gpu/ output from my comfortable chromebook
Display(s) Information
Info Display[12528934998507520] bounds=[0,0 1241x698], workarea=[0,0 1241x650], scale=1.1, internal.
Color space information {primaries:INVALID, transfer:INVALID, matrix:INVALID, range:INVALID}
Bits per color component 8
Bits per pixel 24
Info Display[13702326689085187] bounds=[1241,0 1600x900], workarea=[1241,0 1600x852], scale=1, external.
Color space information {primaries_d50_referred: [[0.6663, 0.3285], [0.3202, 0.6144], [0.1480, 0.0513]], transfer:0.0000x + 0.0000 if x < 0.0000 else (1.0000x + 0.0000)**2.2000 + 0.0000, matrix:RGB, range:FULL}
Bits per color component 8
Bits per pixel 24

At this point I use same external monitors, same font, no smoothing, DPI scale 1 and the Mac still gives me slight discomfort, it's has slight blurness, however I would say 95+% my situation has been improved

Looks if iPhone X feels worse than iPhone 8 then it's the DPI, DOES SIZE MATTER? section on this link
https://www.zdnet.com/article/iphone-x-or-iphone-8-price-size-camera-all-factor-in-your-buying-decision/
as it has higher scale.

hpst yes I think I use it in same context
When picked same resolution on the Retina, just non HiDPI, the scale changed from 2 to 1 and now both my retina and Air laptops feel same...tho still have discomfort but at least my eyes don't feel like they want to flip instantly (after disabling anti-aliasing too).

daniel_mate Do you know Linux? I am trying to figure out how to replicate your results in Linux. If I put scaling to 1 or don't increase DPI in another place the text is too tiny on a 1080 14" screen. There just isn't any way to get a 1080 14" display readable without adjusting SOMETHING to make text and elements larger.