So you think you know which colours are which?

[Mr Spock]

The only blue and gold of any importance...

[LukeSkywatcher]

Paul, I never try dresses on in store either, for some other reason which escapes me though...... ;-)

I was out shopping with my mother the other day and we were in a women's store (i know...WHY). While my mother was looking at dresses.

The sales woman asked me "can i help you with anything?".

I felt like picking up ANY dress and asking her if she had it in my size. 

[dph1nm]

Does anyone know if any of these experts actually bothered to find out what the real colour in the photo was? Must be easy to check the RGB numbers in the file ... (that down't allow for the fact that everyone's monitors are different of course, but it is a start)

NigelM

[Stu]

Does anyone know if any of these experts actually bothered to find out what the real colour in the photo was? Must be easy to check the RGB numbers in the file ... (that down't allow for the fact that everyone's monitors are different of course, but it is a start)

NigelM

The actual colours are blue and black. This isn't about monitor calibration either, I have shown my children the image on my iPhone and they say blue/black when I see white and gold. Might be an age thing too I guess?

[StevieDvd]

Something similar happens with things like bananas and white paper.

Under certain lighting the banana should not be seen as yellow - but your brain corrects the colour for you apparently.

[Mr Spock]

I think that dress broke the internet...

[ollypenrice]

I think that dress broke the internet...

I think that, above all, we need to persuade Paul not to go for badly sewn horizontally striped dresses of any colour...

lly

[Dave Lloyd]

Horizontal stripes are fattening.

[rowan46]

Interestingly (to me) I had only seen it as gold and white but by staring at both pics together i have managed to change the dress to blue and black. If I leave the page and go back to it  the gold and white dress changes colour immediately to blue and black.

[Stu]

Horizontal stripes are fattening.

I don't need any help in that department, I'm looking at maternity styles these days

[StuartJPP]

Deleting this image would have been the best course of action and saved us all a lot of bother...

[JamesF]

Horizontal stripes are fattening.

Not as fattening as sausages.

James

[dph1nm]

The actual colours are blue and black.

The dress might be, the photo definitely isn't! So I took it (off the BBC website) into GIMP and did some measurements. An average in "black/gold" area gives  R=111, G=97, B=59. That is not back or grey (in fact it is pretty close to gold!).  The blue/white area gives R=144, G=160, B=201, which as you might expect is a light blue.

So scientifically speaking that photo IS gold/blue.

NigelM

[Cath]

Deleting this image would have been the best course of action and saved us all a lot of bother...

But then the public learn nothing

Would you not agree that anything at all (so long as it's harmless to life) that highlights our perceptual 'inconsistencies' has got to be a good thing for science ?

[glowingturnip]

i think there's some learning effect as well - first time I saw it it was definitely white & gold, but now, on the same monitor and same lighting conditions, if i get a quick glimpse I can still sometimes see white but it quickly becomes blue for me and becomes impossible to un-see as blue.

What's more important in my mind though, is that Kim sees it as white whereas Kanye sees it as blue.

[Cath]

'Peer pressure' Stuart?

One thing that ought to be realized is that we each see/experience the world around in our OWN way no matter what.

You will see a colour (any colour) in a way that your brain has learn't to interpret see/experience the colour you're seeing, and the spoken label you give to what it is you're seeing is purely down to what those around you as you've been growing up have told you you should give to it. The colour label you use to describe said colour says absolutely nothing about what it is you your self actually 'see/experience', it's just a spoken label you've been conditioned to use should you experience said colour frequency in the way that you do.

[ollypenrice]

I like the thread. Maybe what's surprising, given the diversity of perception in this case, that such diversity is not more common. Something specific about this particular picture seems to make it abnormally 'unstable,' something discussed on one of the earlier links. This has to be interesting. The fact that we are generally very consistent in our perceptions (though we are not totally so) is what makes graphic communication possible, art possible and so on. Graphic designers, grounded to some extent in perception theory, rely on their ability to lead us into perceiving visual material in particular ways. If many graphic stimulii were as 'unstable' as this one it would be tough to design a good Underground map!

Olly

[glowingturnip]

i think it's the same optical illusion as this:

the two circles are of course exactly the same colour, just appear to differ depending on our perception of how they are lit

[JamesF]

i think it's the same optical illusion as this:

the two circles are of course exactly the same colour, just appear to differ depending on our perception of how they are lit

I believe part of the point of that illusion is that the actual squares with the dots are the same colour too.

James

[glowingturnip]

indeed they are - the dots are (209,134,0) and the squares they're sitting on are (112,112,112)

[Uranium235]

This was discussed on Flikr last week, and it was determined that as well as the camera sensor having an effect on the colour - its also the lighting. LED and incandesent lighting give the perception of different colours.

But the photo thats got me scratching my head at the moment is shot "weasel on woodpecker"....real?

[JamesF]

I've seen an animation of that same image where the square in shadow is moved over the other one to show they're the same.  The weirdest thing is that despite the fact that I am intellectually aware that both the  squares are the same colour, my brain still tells me that the moving square is changing colours as it shifts.  Unlike most optical illusions, I cannot see "the reality" despite my understanding of it.  I don't know if everyone sees it that way, but for me it's an immensely powerful illustration that not only can your brain sometimes give you an unknowingly incorrect analysis of the information received by your senses, but there are times when it will even "insist" on the incorrect analysis despite your conscious knowledge of the misinterpretation.

I'm quite interested to know what interpretation might be placed on the colours by members of some society that isn't familiar with chessboard patterns and doesn't have that ingrained learning.  I wouldn't be at all surprised if they looked at the two squares in question and said something like "Yeah, they're obviously the same colour!"

James

[glowingturnip]

just out of interest, I used that chessboard png, and pasted in the sampled colours from that blasted dress into the circles:

To my eyes, I can definitely see where the illusion starts to come from now.  Kanye wins.

(and yep, that kingfisher pic is real, amazing huh)

[Uranium235]

(and yep, that kingfisher pic is real, amazing huh)

Odd to think, but I would have thought those two would have been natural enemies, and would want to be as far away from eachother as possible.

A woodpecker giving a weasel a lift? Well, I hope he gave the taxi driver a tip 

[Luke]

Anyone who sees that as gold and white needs medical assistance

<cough> <cough>

I shall pass no comment on those who see bubblegum-pink with the Tele Vue Planetary filter

stargazerslounge.com/topic/210990-televue-planetary-filter/