Anti-glare sparkle

Companion video

Because this is a visible phenomenon, watching the video I made on this topic may be a good starting point. https://youtu.be/g_nsvraK3P8

Reducing the anti-glare sparkle

Overview

To prevent reflections and room lighting from interfering with your drawing experience, manufacturers of pen displays provide an anti-glare treatment.

The treatment comes in two forms:

  • anti-glare etched glass

  • anti-glare film

The physics of the anti-glare treatment produces an effect called anti-glare sparkle (AG sparkle).

AG sparkle is hard to describe in words, but overall it will look like a grainy look.

What it looks like

Photographing it or filming it is very tricky.

Depending on the camera settings...

  • the effect can disappear

  • the sparkle can look very different from what your eyes see.

  • you might notice it more with some colors than others

Example 1

The the pictures below show screens that are showing black, white, and gray pixels.

The one on the right represents an mor extreme example . You can clearly see that different "color grains"

Example 2

It could also look like this - this is a very close up view

Example 3

I found this in a reddit post. The AG sparkle is everywhere but is most noticeable in the green area.

How manufacturers refer to the AG treatment

Huion Kamvas Pro 24 (4K) [GT2401]

XP-Pen Artist Pro 16TP [MD160U]

Wacom One [DTC133]

Buying a tablet

You MUST research AG sparkly for any tablet you are intend to buy.

I see many people buy tablets and not realize the AG sparkle might be present. And so they get very frustrated with their purchase.

DO NOT rely on photos provided by the manufacturer. These photos never show AG sparkle. It's probably not even deliberate that AG sparkle isn't shown because it is very tricky to photograph.

You need to ask people who use the tablet if the tablet exhibits the effect and how much the effect is visible.

Prevalence

AG sparkle is varies depending on the model of pen display.

All pen displays that I know of will have some amount of it because they all have some kind of anti-glare treatment.

Contributing factors

Your perception of AG sparkly will be affected by several factors.

  • The nature of anti-glare treatment. Some tablets models in general seem to use a very intense AG treatment and others have a much milder treatment.

  • The distance between your eyes and the tablet. What might be strongly noticeable at 1 few inches might be essentially invisible at a normal drawing distance.

  • The pixels-per-inch (PPI) of the display.

High Pitch (PPI) displays

High-pitch means lots of pixels per inch (PPI).

For example:

  • 4K on a 27" pen display has a pitch of 163.7 PPI

  • 4K on 16" pen display gives a pitch of 281.4 PPI

AG Sparkle will appear more on high-pitch displays

If the same exact AG treatment is used on those two displays you will notice it more on the 16" display.

Removing the Anti-glare sparkle

AG Etched Glass

I don't know of any way to remove the anti-glare sparkle if it is due to etched glass.

However, some people have had luck reducing the sparkle by adding a film on top of the AG glass.

Here is an example:

AG Film

Tablets with replaceable AG films

Some tablets have a film that is designed to be removed and replaced. For example the Huion Kamvas 13 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8CyIZfX8co. If you have such a tablet you could remove the film.

You could also try 3rd party screen protectors to replace the one you have. See protective sheets.

Tablets without replaceable AG films

If the tablet's film is not designed to be removed, you could still do it, but I think you might risk damaging the glass. If you do pursue this route, try to find someone who did this before and learn from their experience.

Removing the AG film without replacing it

If you do remove the film, you will be drawing on the glass of the display. To avoid scratching that glass, you may want to search for a film that can protect it, but that does not have any anti-glare treatment. See protective sheets.

Reddit threads

References

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