A complaint that others share with you.

Option 1: use the Office Button and then click the [Excel Options] button at
the lower right of the window that comes up.  In the "Popular" group, you
have a choice of 3 color schemes.  See if one of the others provides better
contrast (probably not, but perhaps).

You can also look into Chip Pearson's highlighting code/tool (check out last
paragraph in this section for a link to his RowHighlighter add-in:
http://www.cpearson.com/excel/excelM.htm#HighlightActiveCell