A head-mounted display (HMD) includes an electronic display element, a microlens array, and an optics block. The electronic display element outputs image light via sub-pixels having different colors, the sub-pixels separated from each other by a dark space region. The sub-pixels have associated emission distributions that describe ranges of angles of light emitted from the plurality of sub-pixels. The microlens array includes microlenses that are each coupled to at least one corresponding sub-pixel, of the sub-pixels, where the microlenses concentrate the emission distributions and direct the emission distributions toward a target region. The optics block, which is located in the target region optically corrects the image light and directs the optically corrected image light from the microlens array to an exit pupil of the HMD corresponding to a location of an eye of a user of the HMD.