EnChroma Glasses Brighten the World for Color Blind Students

Terre Haute South Sophomore Nicholas McGill views artwork on a television screen through a pair of EnChroma glasses Thursday at the school - Tribune-Star/Joseph C. Garza

By Sue Loughlin | Tribune-Star Dec 4, 2025
Eve Reid became emotional as she described her experience using EnChroma glasses, which enabled her to see vibrant colors in a way she’s never before experienced.
“It’s so cool,” the Terre Haute South Vigo High School senior exclaimed. “I can’t believe other people see the world that way.”
Reid is color blind, and the glasses use technology to selectively filter light in a way that increases contrast between the red and green color signals.
“It’s just astounding,” Reid said in an interview after her experience in Emilee Vicars’ art classroom, where the new high-tech glasses were unveiled during a celebration.
“You don’t often get a shift in your fundamental perception of the world,” Reid said. “It’s pretty significant.”
Thanks to a $750 grant from the Vigo County Education Foundation, South now has four pairs of EnChroma glasses. Vicars is the grant recipient.
She sought the grant with the hopes of encouraging students to take art who may be reluctant because they are color blind. But other teachers also will be able to check the glasses out to benefit students in their classes.
Thursday’s celebration took place during Student Resource Time, where color blind students could bring a friend and experience the technology.
The event included an art exercise involving “pour painting,” use of the glasses and pizza.
Students used the glasses to look at their art work and to see a slideshow of famous paintings; those who are color blind saw the paintings in an entirely different way.
Vicars was happy with the outcome. “It was amazing they were moved so deeply by it,” she said. “It just really opens their eyes to what the world looks like to everyone else.”
She got the idea after seeing online videos of people trying on the EnChroma glasses for the first time and seeing their responses.
“I thought that was something that could really be life-changing for a student — to see through someone else’s eyes and see what they are missing,” Vicars said.
She added, “I think it reaches a demographic that is often left behind. I think they are often just expected to live with this … I felt it was a population important to reach.”
The EnChroma glasses have a lens that helps filter the light better, she explained. “We don’t see color. We perceive it because of the way the light bounces off of our eyes. The lens makes is so light comes through correctly so students can really see the color.”
Sophomore Nicholas McGill, who also is color blind, was elated at how the glasses changed how he sees color.
“The colors are so much brighter and stand out more,” he said. “I really think the glasses can help people” in many situations, both in and out of school.
He’s struggled with some school assignments, including in art or other subjects. He might use the wrong color because “I don’t know what color I’m looking at. I’m just taking a guess.”
In English classes, he might have to highlight things a certain color and “that can kind of throw me off, too, because I’m not certain what color I’m supposed to be using.”

EnChroma is the brand name for a company that focuses on creating eyewear for people with color blindness.
When the ability to see color is deficient, as in the case of color blindness, there is a dulling of what is seen.
EnChroma says its glasses can help roughly four out of five people who suffer from color blindness.
“Color blindness is not a singular condition,” the company says on its website. “It encompasses a range of conditions, from mild to severe, that can cause each person to see color differently. EnChroma glasses are designed to improve color vision of people with forms of anomalous trichromacy, which are estimated to comprise four out of five cases of color blindness.”
According to colourblindawareness.org, color blindness, or color vision deficiency, affects approximately 1 in 12 men (8%) and 1 in 200 women.
Sue Loughlin can be reached at 812-231-4235 or at [email protected]. Follow Sue on X at @TribStarSue.

Terre Haute South senior Eve Reed tilts the paint she just poured on a canvas that she will eventually view through EnChroma glasses Thursday at the school - Tribune-Star/Joseph C. Garza

Terre Haute South art teacher Emilee Vicars talks about how color is perceived in the animal world as she introduces the school's new EnChroma glasses on Thursday at South. - Tribune-Star/Joseph C. Garza