what is blue? what is gold?
[b][1 star Amazon review][/b]
102 of 109 people found the following review helpful
Dress to depress
By dan on 27 Feb. 2015
Size Name: 16
The good: Works equally well as formal or business casual attire.The bad: Carves a crooked path through perceptual reality and leaves behind it a wake of confusion and existential crises. Also unforgiving on the hips.
[url= http://www.amazon.co.uk/Roman-Womens-Detail-Bodycon-Dress/dp/B00SJEUEJG/ref=tsm_1_tw_s_uk_nkfehs ]Classic[/url]
Its a dresss made out of fabric that has the same effect as those chavy cars that look purple from 1 direction and orange from another.
Whilst the original dress may be blue and black it's daft to suggest that the people who see the photo as white/blue and gold are wrong.
In real life, the dress is blue and black. If you use an eyedropper tool on the computer, the blue bit comes out as a blue. Even the most washed-out bit of the black comes out as a muddy grey.
It's an interesting effect, and does tell us quite a bit about how the brain interprets colours, but seeing something other than black/blue is wrong.
In the top photo I see a kind of desaturated blue and black, in the lower photo I see a deeper blue and black, But I saw another photo of it this morning and it looked white and gold.
It's an interesting effect, and does tell us quite a bit about how the brain interprets colours, but seeing something other than black/blue is wrong.
Huh?. You just pointed out that using the eyedropper tool it isn't blue and black - in fact it's blue and a set of muddy yellow, brown and grey colours. We're not looking at the the dress in reality so it matters not a whit what colour it actually is.
There is barely a pixel of anything even close to black on the whole image so you're just as "wrong" as those saying white and gold.
Looks like the emperor's new clothes to me.
I'm seeing two vastly different coloured items, one is white and gold and the other is black and blue, so? What's everyones point, it makes no sense to me.
I'm seeing two vastly different coloured items, one is white and gold and the other is black and blue, so? What's everyones point, it makes no sense to me.
People are looking at the first photo you describe and their brain is interpreting it in one of two* different ways. Blue and black or White and Gold as you see it.
*three if you include blue and gold which as said is what I see
i see white/gold but if i scroll down then back up its blue and black and stays that way . if i dont look at the computer for a few mins it goes back to white/gold for a while. weird
White n' gold to me, no matter how quick i scroll up n' down to the blue/black dress.
If you are debating the colour then you need a new camera phone or a new pooter. Either way I hope the designer earn tonne of cash from the herd.
🙄
If you are debating the colour then you need a new camera phone or a new pooter. Either way I hope the designer earn tonne of cash from the herd.
Or, to avoid having to spend money on a new phone or computer, maybe you could do a bit of background reading on the science behind why we see things differently?
If you are debating the colour then you need a new camera phone or a new pooter.
Point is, it makes no difference. Some of us looking at the same image see it in radically different colours.
Interesting how people can't even understand the argument, they're that sure it's blue/black/white/gold.
ZOMG!
Just looked at it again - IT'S GETTING MORE BLUE!
This morning it was ivory, now it's sky blue!
You just pointed out that using the eyedropper tool it isn't blue and black - in fact it's blue and a set of muddy yellow, brown and grey colours.
So we're agreed on the blue? None of the others are anywhere near gold 😉
It's interesting. There also appears to be a gender difference, at least according to my other half who frequents Mumsnet. But the brain is an odd thing - I can't watch 3D movies for instance, the 3D effect just doesn't work for me.
Blue and black.
I just cant see how so many are getting white and gold from! Admittedly i am colour blind so this perplexion can be quite a common occurence for me 😀
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the fact that horizontal stripes are not the most flattering look, then again i doubt the girl who originally posted the picture would have any idea it would end up on a MTB forum that is well known to foster argumentative meanderings leading to 100page+ threads.
Just got to work Scottish independence into the discussion somehow 😀
I was looking at the sky earlier and it was blue. It's now gone grey. Science eh?
Okay... so by tilting the screen on my laptop is changes from on to the other, where's the bafflement in that, colours change that way in LCD screens...
This is what Mr Berners-Lee was really hoping the internet would become.
Absolutely, 100% blue and black. I can't actually fathom how people can say white and gold.
When i first viewed it, it was white and gold, when i scrolled back up for another look it was blue and black, i need to lie down. 😯
By the by, these are what my computer pulls out as the characteristic tones of the dress
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I reckon it'd be hard to argue for blue and black or white and gold being "correct".
I see blue mrs zip sees white.
The dress is blue and black. A combination of the camera, lighting and computer screen renders those colours differently. Some people's brains correctly adjust for that, some people's brains don't.
Does that cover it?
I can't actually fathom how people can say white and gold.
We aren't taking the piss - that's what it looks like! To get your head around it, just remember that your eyes are just little cameras. So if two cameras can record an image differently, so can two eyes.
Both my eyes have a different white balance, incidentally, so I can demonstrate this very well to myself. I've not seen this mentioned on the internet, perhaps I'm special.
so by tilting the screen on my laptop is changes from on to the other, where's the bafflement in that, colours change that way in LCD screens...
That's quite common on cheap screens. It's because each pixel is actually three (or four) pixels arranged in the same order each time - so from the top one colour is more visible, and from the bottom the other. Or left and right. However better screens don't seem to suffer.
My wife's chromebook is awful for this, my work laptop is completely consistent whatever angle.
The dress is blue and black. A combination of the camera, lighting and computer screen renders those colours differently. Some people's brains correctly adjust for that, some people's brains don't.Does that cover it?
Well maybe but it ignores the interesting bit which is that it could equally well have been the other way around (i.e. the real dress was gold and white) without the image changing a single pixel and we'd have been equally entrenched in our idea of what colour the dress was. There simply isn't enough information in the photograph to tell us what colour the object in the world was and yet our brain creates an image which is very difficult to change.
Whiteish light blue and gold here - 40yr old male on iPhone screen (which is IPS screen so not prone to the viewing angle colour shifts like TN screens)
If I close my eyes almost completely then I can see it is much more blue.
I guess it is to do with how our brains attempt to interpret the colour we are seeing when we can see the image is over-exposed and badly colour balanced?
With the eye dropper test Ben are you sampling over a large area by dragging out a sample box, or are you just taking a single pixel?
Also, xkcd:
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I guess it is to do with how our brains attempt to interpret the colour we are seeing when we can see the image is over-exposed and badly colour balanced?
Yes, and it's fascinating how good our brains usually are at this - I do quite a bit of night photography and the raw images afterwards are much, much more orange than I remember the scene. I have to adjust the white balance a lot to get the photograph to match what I think I saw.
With the eye dropper test Ben are you sampling over a large area by dragging out a sample box, or are you just taking a single pixel?
I was just using a quick single-pixel tool, so not particularly accurate.
Try an area one. Some did that on the "gold/black" bit on Facebook and the result was very gold.
spacehopper - Member
i see it as blue and gold too..however... as i scroll down the page so that only the bottom half of the image of the dress is showing in the browser... it turns blue and black...!!
A similar thing happened to me 😯
I see it as white & gold but when I look at the second pic, then the first one I see it as blue and black
Try an area one. Some did that on the "gold/black" bit on Facebook and the result was very gold.
And on here 😉 ...
[img] [/img]<
[img] 
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I no longer trust my eyes.
I have been unable to see the original picture as anything other than blue/black all day, but whilst I was looking elsewhere I came across the same question and picture, but this time it was white/gold. So I comes back here to compare the pictures and that picture is now white/gold, I go off to get a drink and it's now blue/black again. Aaagggghhhhh.
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Edit: And now it's white/gold again. Make it stop.
Try staring at it for a while. For me, it goes more blue.
totally messed me up this did, saw it this morning and it was clearly white and gold. Now having seen the other pictures of it being black and blue, even looking at the exact same pic I did this morning, I can't figure out how I ever thought it was white and gold, as it is clearly blue and black. crazy.
On the first page when the first few posters said it was white and gold I was couldn't understand. I'm colour blind and for once I actually see the correct colours!
Interesting genetics.
Mrs and I both see a light blueish white and gold but our four year old (with no prompting) said black and blue.
I wonder if young minds are more likely to see what is there rather than try to interpret it?
As far as I can tell, the second photo posted by scotroutes should be the correct colour, according to other colours around it; the obviously white wedding dress, the plastic chair, and the flesh-tones are all exactly as I would expect them to look.
The first photo is clearly subject to issues due to the exposure at the time, the background is totally blown out for a start.
Whites take on a bule/grey tone under certain circumstances, like white snow in shadow on a sunny day goes blue, otherwise is neutral grey, which is probably why it looks like a white dress in shadow.
Quite why the black trim looks like a brown/gold colour I don't know, something to do with the actual fabric, I guess.
I would always try to find something that's clearly neutral in colour to set the colour balance in a scanned pic, then set the whites and blacks at 5/95%, so there would always be a dot in the whites and blacks when printed.
I'd be screwed with that top photo, the sleeves look pretty close to a 45-50% neutral grey.
If I'd then had it pointed out that the true colour is a deep blue, shading into purple, with black trim, my response would be'wtf!?' 😯
I think I'd demand a colour sample before I'd believe it.
@Graham my eldest 9 saw white and gold and it flip as you scroll back
youngest saw blue and black @ 18 mths younger
I dont think its quite [url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_cliff ]visual cliff[/url]
I have been able to see the one photo in the full range I think most are experiencing. Does just depend on what you have just been looking at and level of background light. The family all saw it differently at the same time which was fun
I wonder if young minds are more likely to see what is there rather than try to interpret it?
The thing is, what's there isn't blue and black either - there's no black as the averaging I did before shows - and there's no way of saying for sure from the information in the picture what colour the dress is. That's why people are able to do the Gestalt switching by scrolling back and forth.
It'd be an fun experiment for a photographer to try to recreate the photo with a dress that was gold and white and try and achieve the same effect.
Ron Burgundy is definitely wearing a blue suit drinking golden beer