do you wear glasses or contacts? do you have trouble seeing blue signs?

[space-time]

just out of curiosity.

I wear glasses since I was about 25 (I am 37 now). There is a little bit of spherical power, but most of the power is cylindrical, yes, I have astigmatism.

If I don't wear glasses, and especially in lower light environment, when the iris opens up, I see double or even triple images, all lined up vertically. The number and separation between these images depends on the eye, how tired I am, how dark it is, etc.

so instead of the letter F, I might see an E, of even worse, an "E" with 4 or 5 horizontal lines. anyway, I digress. The main point is that this effect is very strong for BLUE signs, like those you see at the Mall for example. it's a lot less for RED or GREEN signs. Even with glasses, I have 20/20 vision or better, at least that's what different ophthalmologists told me, yet I have a harder time reading blue sings due to the above mentioned phenomenon.

Yesterday we were in Times Square and wife (also wearing glasses, but only Sperical, no Cylindrical component) mentioned she cannot read one of those Blue scrolling signs, but she could read fine the Red and the Green ones.

Now I am just curious if more people are having similar problems, if they have a harder time focusing on a blue sign rather than a green or red one.

[AlphaDog]

I, too, have pretty significant astigmatism in both eyes, along with hyperopia, which is farsightedness caused by an imperfection in the eye, rather than by aging (I've got some of that, too.) I've noticed no difference in my ability to read signs because of their color. With glasses, I can read them; without glasses, I can't. It's pretty straightforward!

[Doc]

No difference in sharpness based on background-colors ordinarily.

Blues may look faded after you've been out on a very clear day with a very blue sky or been staring at something else that was blue.

If it's chronic then there may be something wrong with your health. Maybe a vitamin deficiency. Maybe some sort of metal-poisoning. Maybe something genetic.

Tell your doctor about it.

[MikeF]

Been wearing glasses full-time for about 17 years (near-sighted, although my arms are almost too short for reading :-) ). No color differentiation with or without them on.

[space-time]

OK, sounds like this is not very common

[mikebw]

Eyes are less sensitive to blue than red, in general.

[dmann]

I'm 39 and have been wearing glasses and/or contacts since I was 17. Slight astigmatism in one eye and I can't see worth a darn without some sort of lens. No problem seeing blue with either contacts or glasses.

DM

[davester]

There are signs out there?

[modelamac]

I'm 69, far-sighted, astigmatism, and have no problem with or without tri-focal glasses with blue signs.

[-jeffB]

Blue light doesn't get focused as well as red/yellow/green light, even if your vision is perfectly corrected. This usually isn't a big deal, though, because most "blue" signs (at least the ones I see) are actually WHITE on blue, and the colors that provide the contrast -- red and green, which are present in the white stuff, but absent in the blue stuff -- are focused clearly.

Misguided designers who put a blue backlight on a display, or use blue light for general illumination, are Doing It Wrong. Black-on-blue or blue-on-black is much harder to read than almost any other black-and-color combination.

You mention "scrolling" blue signs, which makes me think that you're talking about blue letters on a black background. Yes, that's going to be hard to read. If you're having trouble with white letters on a blue background, there might be something else going on.