urbanhawk17 said:The topic's been dead for a while, so if I’m digging this up, my bad to the mods. I just have one question.
I’m colorblind—a mild version, I guess, though I don't really know which kind. Honestly, I don't care much about the specifics. 🤷
Just one thing:
Is there some kind of trick to help me tell yellow and red apart a bit better? When I'm looking at them up close, I can tell they're different, but once I step back, they just look identical. Is there any trick, anything at all? 🤷
Sir,
Since this is a congenital condition, determining whether it is mild or severe requires clinical testing. In some cases, the impairment is actually more significant than the individual realizes; those born with dyschromatopsia lack the baseline to understand how people with standard color perception see the world.
Is there any trick to help me distinguish yellow from red better? Up close, I can tell them apart, but once I step back, they look identical. Is there anything at all 🤷
Unfortunately, with a congenital disorder, there is currently no way to fundamentally "improve" how colors are perceived.
Lighting plays a massive role in color discrimination. Natural daylight is the gold standard. Artificial lighting typically affects perception, though for someone with standard vision, these shifts are usually negligible.
However, for those with color vision deficiency, the intensity and type of light can drastically alter how colors appear.
The size of the surface also matters. That explains why you find it easier to differentiate when you are closer; the colored area occupies a larger portion of your field of vision.
The common "trick" used by those with color blindness is learning to identify colors based on brightness rather than hue. This works occasionally, but if two colors fall on the same axis of confusion and share the same level of brightness, they remain indistinguishable.
Additionally, desaturated or "washed out" colors are much harder to tell apart than highly saturated, "pure" colors.
Your best bet is to judge colors in natural daylight whenever possible, avoiding artificial light, staying close to the object to maximize the visual field, and opting for highly saturated colors.
Then there are the specialized colored lenses. They claim to improve color perception, but they essentially function by manipulating brightness—making certain hues lighter or darker to create contrast. These are contact lenses worn in only one eye; they tend to reduce visual acuity, making their actual utility quite questionable.
