Light sensitivity forces us to look for ways to reduce glare. To increase brightness and/or to reduce brightness answers to the question How to reduce glare. Increase brightness to reduce glare!?!? Yes, in some cases this is the way to go. Here are a few ideas of when and how you might increase brightness to reduce glare in your home or work.

How to reduce glare

Glare is essentially a contrast in brightness. To reduce glare one should either:

• increase brightness (of the darker areas, when brighter objects contrasts with them)
• reduce brightness (of bright area – a source of light or its reflection in the field of vision)
• a combination of both; increase brightness (of darker objects) and reduce brightness (of lighter objects) simultaneously

In this post you’ll learn when and how to increase brightness to reduce glare. (Next time I will write about when and how to reduce brightness to reduce glare.) The specific solution of how to reduce glare will depend on how glare is being produced, but reading these two posts should help you to a good start.

Increase Brightness to Reduce Glare

Sounds wrong particularly for persons with light sensitivity, but it is right. Remember that eye strain and fatigue are caused because your eyes are trying to continuously auto-adjust to different brightness levels (glare) in your field of vision. To reduce the contrast means to reduce glare and subsequently fewer negative effects of glare on you. Hence, one way to reduce glare is to increase brightness of dark areas.

Situations when you might reduce glare by increasing brightness include the following:

• Increase brightness of the background around electronic display devices. Remember that TVs, PCs, laptops, tablets and smart phones are sources of light. Make sure there is no contrast; the background around their screens is bright enough, particularly for prolonged use. Increase brightness of the background by turning on or add lights for general or ambient lighting. Make sure you are not adding indirect glare – reflections of light sources on the screen. (Another way to reduce glare is also by adjusting brightness or contrast on the electronic display device itself).
• Increase brightness by taking advantage of natural light – open the shades or blinds to let more light in, perhaps using sheers to disperse the light and make sure that there is not too much light coming in.
• Increase brightness by better use of colors and mirrors. You might paint your walls a lighter color or add mirrors to the room in this way more light is reflected rather than absorbed.
• Increase brightness in the room through stronger general lighting. Use overhead lights, recessed lights or some table or floor lamps to increase brightness of the dark areas (also recommended by persons with extreme light sensitivity). Cove lighting or torchieres are a particularly interesting choice as they increase brightness by adding softer, dispersed light to the general and ambient lighting.

To reduce glare for a person with photophobia / light sensitivity requires a lot more fine tuning than in the case of those without intolerance to light. Do you have any other examples? Tell us, please, about how you increase brightness to reduce glare?