Make your screen feel like paper with Paperman
The Problem My husband and I build productivity tools, which means we spend our entire days designing, coding, and managing every part of our business on our computers. By the early evening, our eyes would always get incredibly tired. We tried things like f.lux or Night Shift, but we were never fans of how they just turn everything a bit too orange. Plus, they don't actually fix the harsh, glowing glare of a modern screen which is what mainly causes this screen fatigue. What we actually wanted was a softer surface. Something that feels more like reading a physical book or an e-ink display. The Solution To solve this, we looked at how vision actually works in the real world. Human eyes evolved to process reflected light, like sunlight bouncing off a physical object, rather than emitted light blasting directly into our retinas. To mimic that natural feeling, we built Paperman. It is a lightweight utility that floats an invisible paper texture over your Mac's screen. By using fractal noise to create a subtle matte finish, it diffuses highlights and lowers contrast. It genuinely makes your screen feel much more like looking at reflected light on a physical book or an e-ink display. What it does: Runs quietly in the background using less than 5MB of memory. Currently has 2 textures: Classic Matte and Whisper Weave, we're already working on the next one! Features adjustable texture opacity so you can dial in your personal comfort level. Option to add excluded apps which automatically disables the texture when used (for apps like Photoshop or games). Uses built-in scheduling to handle transitions automatically throughout your day. Comparison When we tried alternatives like f.lux and Apple's Night Shift, we found they simply shifted the screen's color temperature to warmer orange hues. They didn't actually address the harsh backlight or glossy glare. Paperman softens the screen surface with a texture instead of just altering the tint. This reduces eye strain and diffuses contrast without completely ruining your color accuracy the way heavy blue-light filters do. Pricing Early-bird price at $5.99 for a lifetime license. paperman.cc
Collected discussion
how it looks like with the dark themes ?
you can always change the texture intensity , but here an example :)
Interesting. It would be great to be able to try it before purchasing though
Sounds cool, definitely needs a trial period
I really like this idea. Is there a way of making it so the front most app doesn't have the effect but everything else does? It would be like a toned down version of monocle , which I'd love to see.
I love the app, but it crashed after only one minute of use when I switched screens. Now, every time I open it, I receive a message asking if I want to reopen windows from a previous session. Regardless of which option I choose, the application immediately closes. On that topic multiple monitor support would be ideal.
Hey! First, I'm glad that you like Paperman, and second, I am so sorry about this issue! The 'reopen windows' loop seems to happen when macOS tries to load a corrupted saved state. Could you try holding down the Shift key while clicking to open the app (this tells your Mac to start it fresh)? It should hopefully break the loop. Regarding multiple monitors, we recently added the ability to detect your screens so you can choose which ones to apply the texture to, so you should be able to have it run on all screens simultaneously. Sorry again for this, and we'll look into this screen-switching crash so it doesn't happen again. Let me know if the Shift key gets it working for you!
A Retro-Filter for Movies (VHS. S-VHS, Scanline etc) would be great
Loved the idea. I'll test it!
You need to make an app for mobile. Been using it for 30mins and not going back.
Wow, this made my day! Thank you so much 🥰 I'm so glad you're liking it. We would absolutely love to make a mobile version happen. It's a bit more complicated since iOS has completely different mechanism for this kind of app, but we'll definitely look for a way to do it!
Downloaded and tried this app out — already love the look and feel of it. Within the first 5 minutes, I could tell it adds something that Night Shift, Colour Filters, and True Tone just couldn’t achieve. I genuinely didn’t realise how much eye strain I was dealing with until I used it, so thank you. A couple bugs I noticed so far: The app shortcut toggle doesn’t work if the Paperman menu bar icon is hidden using a menu bar manager like Ice or Thaw. Once Settings is opened, there doesn’t seem to be a way to close the settings panel — I had to quit and relaunch the app. Will keep using it and add more feedback here as I go.
Wow, thank you! Knowing it helps your eye strain that much is exactly what we were hoping for when making Paperman. And thank you for the bug reports! The menu bar manager issue is a tricky macOS quirk, but I'll definitely investigate. And for the settings panel, you can actually click anywhere outside the window to close it, but maybe having a close button would be more intuitive indeed. Thanks again, and I'd love to hear any other feedback you have as you keep using it 😊
Love the idea, I wish I could try all three available textures through the website peek. Personally don't like the heavy grain texture the default texture gives, so would like to try Sunbaked Parchment.
Love this!
This might be different from what you want to hear, but it's so cute! I love the paper texture, it looks really cool!
Aww thank you! Honestly, we originally built it to help with screen fatigue, but I agree that it makes everything looks so special and cute. I'm so glad you like the look of it 🥰
I like it! bought it to support you
how does it hold up on battery? a constant overlay shader sounds like it’d hit the GPU pretty consistently
An intriguing idea Can you point us to the research you looked at?
Hey! Actually we have a page just about that on our website: https://paperman.cc/research Hope it helps!
I am recommending this to my friends. It is innovative, and I can feel the difference. Well done.
Could something like this also work on an iPad?
This looks awesome. I’m guessing something like this not possible in iOS?
Loving the concept! Quick bug report though: I selected all my displays in the settings, but the paper texture only shows up on my primary monitor; the other screens stay untouched. Am I missing something in the setup, or is this a known issue? Happy to share more details or logs if it helps track it down.