Computers and Eye Strain - Eye Exercises

These are some suggestions regarding work environment and eye exercises to help with eye strain due to too much time at computer screens - computer vision syndrome (CVS).

Possible symptoms

Blurred vision. Red eyes. Dry eyes. Wet eyes. Burning eyes. Hurting eyes. Head aches. And so on.

The symptoms may be symptoms of CVS, but they may also point to more serious eye problems that should be treated by a doctor. If you have any reason to suspect that computer screens are not the only cause of the problem, see a doctor. Or at least ask someone who knows more about this than I do.

Environment

Make sure the screen brightness feels natural. Make the lighting in the room the same as the computer screen, not lighter, not darker, but the same. Make sure the size of the text is big enough to be easy to read, but not so big that it feels awkward. Avoid constant draft that may dry out your eyes. Sit or stand comfortably.

Eye exercises

Cover your eyes with your palms - right hand on left eye and then the other way round. Do this for as long as you feel like. Relax.

Roll your eyes with closed eye lids. Move them as if you were looking at a slowly spinning wheel. This can help distribute tear liquid over the eyes.

Look away. This is the 20-20-20 rule: Every 20 minutes, take 20 seconds to look at something 20 meters away.
(Or 20 feet away if you are American. It does not really matter. However, if you do 20 inches, you are doing it wrong.)

Scan outlines far away. Consciously move your eyes following an outline at a constant speed. Look for example at a bookcase or a distant mountain.

Blink! (Some people have a tendency to blink less than they should when they watch a computer screen.)

Disclaimer

The "information" here comes from the internet and my own experience. It is not intended to be complete, and it is not more reliable than the rest of the internet. If you have access to a competent professional, or any competent person, ask for their advice.

I have no idea if computer glasses help. I have no idea if the distance to the screen or the height of the screen can affect CVS. I have no idea if physical exercise helps. I'm not even sure the suggested exercises above help everyone, but they feel good to me.

What's the use of Creative Cloud? Beats me.

For about three hours this morning, I have tried to figure out what Adobe is up to. Considering that hardly anything works except my laptop applications, my conclusion is: they are abandoning everything else.

Photoshop Touch for iOS which previously sold for 9.99 is no longer supported. No other application has come in its place.

Lightroom for iOS does not import RAW files from the device. Other applications happily import the JPEG version of RAW files, so you at least can visualise them, but Lightroom blocks them. 

Lightroom for desktop/laptop has a bug (?) which prevents you from syncing files with Creative Cloud. The first help pages you find on Adobe's site describe how it used to work with options that no longer are there. 

The result of this is that the RAW editor Lightroom for iOS has no way to import any RAW files to edit. 

Well, what do you expect from free software? 

Well, well, indeed. 

I expect free software to work better than Adobe's software, which I actually pay for.

Update: In a help forum, Adobe asked me to try some things to get the sync going. I did try and synching now works fine. I lost all my previous Lightroom files on all my iOS devices, but at least, I can now put new RAW files in Lightroom for iOS.