The colors of this photo will appear different to everyone. I think?

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I feel like this thread is releasing hallucinogenic gas into a random percentage of users' homes or something. I can understand how the question of what colour the actual dress is could be debated, but the picture itself? It seems pretty open and shut to me, and that's saying nothing of the people somehow seeing it both ways.
 
Someone needs to take the gold colour from the dress and write something on a black background and see if you black and blue people can see it, kinda like those colour blind tests.
 
Alright, I'm out of this thread. I think I've found an explanation that's satisfying enough for me, and we're starting to go in circles.

It's a picture of a black and blue dress, that is all washed out or over-exposed or whatever. Because of that, the actual image has white-ish and gold-ish colors. The pixels, that is. So people who are trying to find the color of the actual pixels in the image see white and gold. While people trying to find the color of the actual dress that has been photographed see blue and black. Because the black and blue people know the actual color of the dress, their minds make the picture look black and blue. And it's a very persistent illusion. I still can't get back to white and gold. The people who say white and gold are correct that that is the color of the pixels in the image, even if it is not the color of the dress itself.

I think someone else made this comparison before with a picture of the White House, but it's the perfect explanation: If you look at a picture of the White House, in a shadow, it will look slightly blue in those parts. The pixels of that part of the image will even be blue. But the White House itself is still...white.

The only reason this is an argument is because people are arguing past each other without bothering the clarify definitions. I think most people would agree with this summary: The picture is a picture of a black and blue dress that, due to being over exposed, is represented in the image with white-ish and gold-ish pixels.

Alright, that's my speech. Have fun, guys.

That would make sense, except I saw blue and black very clearly at first, then just a few minutes later it was white and gold, equally clearly. Then a few minutes after that it was blue and black again. I do think that the dress itself is blue and black, but in both cases the colors are very convincing. I honestly kind of jumped when it first changed to white and gold.
 
I'm still not seeing....

Backstreet-Boys-Black-And-Blue-175607.jpg
 
I see exactly what happens when you isolate the pixels. I am convinced that people who see otherwise have the bad eyes.

I have no idea whether that answered my question or not. XD

What colour would the dress be if it was right in front of you at this moment in time in optimal lightning conditions?
 
Blue and brown. Very vividly blue. Exactly the same on my phone and my TV. Sorry, whities.
 
Alright, I'm out of this thread. I think I've found an explanation that's satisfying enough for me, and we're starting to go in circles.

It's a picture of a black and blue dress, that is all washed out or over-exposed or whatever. Because of that, the actual image has white and gold colors. The pixels, that is. So people who are trying to find the color of the actual pixels in the image see white and gold. While people trying to find the color of the actual dress that has been photographed see blue and black.

No, the color of the photo's representation of blue is blue, not white. A washed out blue but it's still blue. The black in the photo is a browny 'golden' color undoubtedly due to the crappy photo color balance.

The only mental compensation needed to process the color the dress is in real life however is for the blacks, not as much the blue. My mind can easily tell the browns are meant to be blacks due to the color balance. However the blue is blue in the photo itself (any color picker will confirm this).
 
And what I've been trying to say is that not everyone is interpreting the question the way you are. Some people are very definitely reading the question as "What color is this dress, regardless of how poorly the colors were captured in this picture." Because these people know the dress is blue and black, they are seeing the dress as blue and black.

Other people, like you, are reading the question as "What colors are the pixels in this picture of a blue and black dress?" In which case, you say white and gold, because the pixels are closer to that.

Basically, my hypothesis here is that there is no difference in retinas effecting how people view the picture. The actual cause of the difference is that some people are trying to answer the question about the true color of the pixels, and thus their brains are picking out the white and gold, while other people are trying to answer about the color of the dress, so their brains and making it appear bluer and blacker than the picture, because that is the true color to the dress.

So the big disagreement comes from an ambiguity in the question. If you read the question to people both ways, and let them answer separately, I think there would be agreement. Namely, the actual dress is black and blue, but the colors of the pixels are white and gold, as can be verified.
Well two points to this:
First, that's kinda a weird way to answer the question. If you ask what color something is and then show a picture, reality shouldn't matter. What color is this rectangle?
red_zpsrgopsnku.png

Nobody's going to say "red" even though that's what it was before I inverted the colors. I agree that some people are answering the question that way. I just think answering the question that way is objectively wrong. You could add a qualifier like "outside of the lighting conditions, the dress is..." but that doesn't change how the dress appears in the image.
Second, I think most people who are answering blue/black actually see those colors.
To those people, I whipped this up real quick:
blackgold1_zps352oceyp.png

I took the default MS Paint Black color and a brownish/gold color that I kinda randomly picked using "edit colors" tool. The black band across the dress really looks like the top and nothing like the bottom to some people? I think everyone can agree the object on the left side of the dress is black.
 
Do you black and blue people really see those as black and blue too ?
It's definitely a very light blue and brown !
But in the context of the image you can tell that it's just the original colors being a bit washed out.

You can't tell the difference?
 
Do you black and blue people really see those as black and blue too ?
It's definitely a very light blue and brown !

Well yeah, which makes it closer to blue and black.

If the OP had asked whether it was blue and brown or white and gold what would people have said?
 
WELP, I dun did it


I came into this thread ready to give #TeamWhiteandGold my sword, but I managed to work myself into joining #TeamBlackandBlue (or to be specific, a faded blue and a very dark shade of gold, bordering on black/brown) on my cell phone screen. Then I looked back to the desktop screen and....

I SEE BOAF.

I'm the outcast, never picking a side, destined to live in the ashes of the Color Wars. It's a hard life, but we must live.
 
Guys, nobody is arguing the cold hard hex values. It's a matter of how the eye perceives it; the eye takes into account the background and the camera exposure and so people aren't necessarily going to see the colors exactly as they are in the photo. It's like the illusion with the shadow on the checkerboard.
 
I saw white and gold, my wife saw black and blue, We both work as artists.. this scares me that we might see other colors differently.. neither of us are color blind. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?
 
I always keep my phone on the lowest brightness setting and before I even read the science I upped it to max brightness to make sure I was viewing in most optimal conditions and it was still white and gold. :-(
 
The admins are causing some fuckery with this.

It's the only explanation, I've been on the same station with the same settings, they are causing us all to go insane!

THEY ARE TRYING TO STOP US, WE'RE THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS PEOPLE
 
When I first scrolled it was white / gold but as I mademt way down the dress ut changed to blue / black

I SWEAR BY MY ACCOUNT I'm not lying here

Makes sense because a majority of the color distortion occurs in the upper portion of the dress.


I have a question for the people saying white and gold:
For the "gold," because of the type of fabric it is, it contains a level of reflectivity which (combined with the overexposure) that appears to have a bronze-ish sheen but I'm still seeing it as black, sheer fabric. If the gold is the primary color of that fabric, do the darker portions just appear to be a darker gold?

For the blue, I can see how it an be interpreted as white because there's a mily quality to the vinyl jacket that's covering it.
 
Still light blue and gold to me after it started as white/gold... I really want to see the black people are getting. That's straight up beige/gold.
 
WELP, I dun did it


I came into this thread ready to give #TeamWhiteandGold my sword, but I managed to work myself into joining #TeamBlackandBlue (or to be specific, a faded blue and a very dark shade of gold, bordering on black/brown) on my cell phone screen. Then I looked back to the desktop screen and....

I SEE BOAF.

I'm the outcast, never picking a side, destined to live in the ashes of the Color Wars. It's a hard life, but we must live.

Same here, I was about to come in here and say white and gold... but then I stepped away from this thread and started listening to music. I come back now it's blue and black.... the fuck?
 
LrYZm6Z.png


Which are clearly a white and gold colour but in the shade.

Wait, that is like a charcoal/black and a greying/blue

It kind of reminds me of this, but with color. So weird, can't say I've ever seen anything quite like it.

What way is the dancer spinning, to the right or to the left?

0,,5693171,00.gif
 
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