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.

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 visual cliff

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

How we interpret the shading in the image has an impact, hence turning the brightness up and down changing the colour as well. This classic image is quite interesting too.

A and B are same but try telling your brain

I see it as white and gold, but over a period of a couple of seconds It changes to blue black. Weird to see it fade like that, I’ve tried it on a couple of computers so it must be my brain doing weird things.

If it helps the debate crankygirl and I are sat next to each other on the sofa looking at the same image on three different devices she sees white and gold I see blue and black.

This was mention on R2 news. What a state the world is in that it reaches the news. Why on earth are people twatting on to people they have nothing in common with or sticking it on web pages that are about showing the family in NZ what the bay looks like.
Wanders of to find a beer totally bemused by the pathetic state of the world

Okaaaaayyyy…
Now just like Mr_C I am a little bit weirded out by that.
Earlier today all I saw was white and gold. Just been watching Newsnight and it was White and Gold. Saw this thread and it was white and gold.
And then I read the post about scrolling
scrolled back to OP and now is black and blue!!!

Very very strange

All though yesterday I was interpreting the dress as white and gold, it was obviously a bluey white and a browny gold, but I guess I assumed it was like that due a shadows etc. Then suddenly in the evening it switched on me and it was like a different photo. Very weird at the time, but an understandable effect. Amazing how quickly it went viral across the globe.

mazz – Member
Okaaaaayyyy…
Now just like Mr_C I am a little bit weirded out by that.
Earlier today all I saw was white and gold. Just been watching Newsnight and it was White and Gold. Saw this thread and it was white and gold.
And then I read the post about scrolling
scrolled back to OP and now is black and blue!!!

Very very strangeIt’s because you’ve seen the over exposed version and your brain is displaying the info correct. I always seen white and gold(the whites being slightly light blue, like it’s a white dress with the colour balance being off). but when i see the correctly exposed dark version and look at the original again, it looks more obviously an under exposed dark blue and black dress. I need to then look at a pure white underexposed version to be able to see it as white and gold again.

When I first played about with the exposure in photoshop (it’s actually just the gamma slider you need to play with) it opened up and W+G, move the slider B+B, but if I revert the file back to original it’ll look faded B+B.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dquyFf3zCoM[/video]

From this article, they’ve been researching it… although this video seems to be all they’ve managed to come up with so far.