22 ms·

Show HN: Opinionated Dress Color Simulation

134 points by mmastrac 12y ago

mmastrac 12y ago
You can flip the color of the original picture in your head by working slowly from one side to the other by using the left/right arrow keys.
thornofmight 12y ago
Nice job getting this together so fast. I wonder if the reason this dress color thing has been spreading around so fast is because of the different devices everyone is using to view it. When I first saw the dress on my Macbook Pro screen (non-retina) the dress looked white and gold. Then I checked on my iPhone 6 in the dark later on and it looked blue and black. I've been seeing articles about how the reason people are seeing different colors is because of different types of eyes, psychology, etc...maybe the answer is much simpler.
- enobrev 12y ago
  I had initially thought the same about different screens but then I saw it change on my phone. The first time I passed by my friend's post with the photo on my facebook feed, it was white and gold. I ignored it and scrolled on. A few minutes later while scrolling back up to the top, that same exact picture (same post) was blue and black. I've seen it switch a couple times since on my phone (nexus 4). Although on my desktop it's always white and gold.
  - zamalek 12y ago
    Did you move between different locations? The difference could come down to being outside vs. being inside - or at least eye-shot of sunlight.
    - enobrev 12y ago
      Didn't move at all - besides my finger as I scrolled through my feed. Ambient light was the same - pretty much everything was the same.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- ilyanep 12y ago
  Some coworkers and I were looking at the photo on the same screen and had differing opinions at the time.
kyberias 12y ago
Some context, please?
- desdiv 12y ago
  Someone posted a picture of a dress on Tumblr; some people perceive the dress as gold/white, while others saw it as blue/black. http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2xbfxp/what_color_is_the_dress_why_do_some_people_see/ http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2xbfxp/what_colo...
  - Kiro 12y ago
    This needs to be upvoted to the top. I had no idea what I was looking at.
majormajor 12y ago
Light is weird! Here’s an essay from a dilettante with too much time spent in Lightroom… Everyone (including the Wired people in the submitted article here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9117137 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9117137) seems to be trying to white-balance the image as if it has only a single light source. "He saw blue in the highlights, telling him that the white he was seeing was blue, and the gold was black. And when Harris reversed the process, balancing to the darkest pixel in the image, the dress popped blue and black. “It became clear that the appropriate point in the image to balance from is the black point,” Harris says." I don't understand why. The blown out highlights of the background (which seems to be people carrying bags outside a window?) seem to make it clear that whatever's hitting the dress is a different light than what's filling in the background. The hardest question I feel remains, then, is: if the dress is white, why is the foreground light blue-cast? Generally indoor lighting is yellow than outdoors... possibly a flash? The quality of the image is so poor that it appears that there was still not nearly enough light hitting the front of the dress, but on the other hand I don't spot anything on the front of the dress that I'd say was definitely a flash highlight... my best theory is that it's a 100% crop of a bigger image and the flash isn't sufficient because the photographer was actually quite a bit further away (and had a poor camera/cameraphone). But that light temperature question is a problem the other way too: if it's a blue dress under warm indoor lighting (hence the yellow/gold-ish tinge to the 'black' parts), what's up with the particular shade of blue the light part of the dress is rendering as? That doesn’t look like blue in warm light to me. That's a really weird shade for blue to render as, I see that shade far more often when looking at white objects in cool light. People also tracked down (don't have original source, just people reposting on Facebook) this site which sells a very-similar-if-not-exactly-the-same dress in both a blue and white variant (hard to be sure of the details with the poor quality of the original pic)! But neither secondary color (seems to be untinted black in both cases): http://www.romanoriginals.co.uk/invt/70931?colour=Ivory http://www.romanoriginals.co.uk/invt/70931?colour=Ivory - and in none of the “corrected” blue images I’ve seen does it look like that shade of blue, without clearly crushed shadow detail indicating underexposure. But if that is exactly the same dress, than I honestly can’t say, since there are weird things about both color rendering options! (Why wouldn't the dark lace be blue-cast too? Alternately, why is the blue less gold-cast than the lace if the dress is really blue?) EDIT: another option for how the exposure got so weird in a blue-dress scenario: there could be another item in the hypothetical uncropped original photo that is not overexposed that explains how both the dress and the background are overexposed? If just the dress was the original subject of this photo I'm surprised by how poorly the camera picked the exposure/white-balance.
efnx 12y ago
Even in the highest white gold setting I still see the dress as being blue and black - just with low saturation. I don't get it, but this helps, thanks.
- mod 12y ago
  I'm here as well. I've seen tons of adjusted versions at this point (25+) and zero of them have had white. I do get a gold tint on the black, for sure, but if I were asked the colors of the dress, it's still unquestionably blue & black, the whole photo just looks like it has a sickly yellow tint on it. Edit: I should have said I get the gold tint when I slide the slider to the yellow (right).
  - eclipxe 12y ago
    That's so weird to me, I have trouble seeing blue & black - looks gold and white to me at all times
    - lettergram 12y ago
      I see the blue when I adjust the scale, but can still make out some gold at the top.
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
      - hnal943 12y ago
        right, there's no lighting scenario in which black fabric looks gold.
    - scarlson 12y ago
      I'm still not convinced the white and gold people aren't just trolling. I want to know what some tetrachromacic people see.
      - 12y ago
acosmism 12y ago
not sure how many people are aware of the eclipse of mars illusion: http://www.moillusions.com/eclipse-of-mars-illusion/ http://www.moillusions.com/eclipse-of-mars-illusion/. but basically digital screens have trouble and variances in displaying cyan. is the dress possibly cyan?
jvdh 12y ago
It's fascinating to see all the comments around it on Reddit and other sites. See http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page for more links. The largest group of people commenting seem to be able to see both 'versions' of the dress just by looking at it, looking away and seeing it again. There are also very many who see only the gold version of the dress and have a lot of trouble seeing the blue version. Finally, there are very few who can't seem to see the gold version at all. (This is in no way scientific, there is very likely a very large bias present in the commenters.)
- lettergram 12y ago
  I can't see black and blue for the life of me. I even ran some computer vision algorithms on it (none of which said the lighter image had black, or any sizable amount of blue). My guess, some people are either color blind, dimming their screens trying to see it, or they are seeing a different image...
  - mod 12y ago
    Those guesses are all incorrect. My girlfriend and I see different color dresses on the same screen/ambient light, and neither of us is color blind.
    - lettergram 12y ago
      Then I am totally mind blown.
  - peteretep 12y ago
    Given that everyone who is seeing it in black and blue is seeing the correct image (as later verified), it's a bit odd for you to suggest they're the ones with problems with their sight. This is the dress itself: http://s3-ec.buzzfed.com/static/2015-02/26/22/enhanced/webdr02/enhanced-1984-1425006448-3.jpg http://s3-ec.buzzfed.com/static/2015-02/26/22/enhanced/webdr... Which is exactly the colours it looked like in the original image, to me, and to I suspect everyone else who can't make it look anything other than black and blue.
mruocco 12y ago
Still interesting is the differences in who perceives it differently. Take the survey : http://digitalorchard.co/dress/survey.html http://digitalorchard.co/dress/survey.html
flipp3r 12y ago
I'm sure people will come up with really fascinating ideas on why some people see the white gold and others as blue black.. Even my desktop and laptop screens have their own opinion. I think the image is mainly a good test for calibrating your screen. http://imgur.com/Agxo20K http://imgur.com/Agxo20K
InclinedPlane 12y ago
Suggestion: put a thick (100px or so) border around the image that changes from white (for blue/black) to black (for white/gold). Alternately change the background color of the whole page. It makes a big difference perceptually.
nakedrobot2 12y ago
Maybe because I'm a photographer and I understand colors better? there is NOTHING about "white and gold" in this photo, no matter where you put the slider. I really don't get it at all! :)
- chorizos22 12y ago
  You understand colors better than who?.
kristofferR 12y ago
I really don't get how people can see the dress on the picture as blue and black. The average color of the gold/black part is #6e5d4d, which is brown/gold. The average color of the white/blue part is #9298b0. White/blue composite: http://i.imgur.com/DvhPP7v.jpg http://i.imgur.com/DvhPP7v.jpg Gold/Black composite: http://i.imgur.com/aIFUWgE.jpg http://i.imgur.com/aIFUWgE.jpg Image color analyzer: http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/color_summarizer/?analyze http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/color_summarizer/?analyze
- IgorPartola 12y ago
  What about the blue?
  - kristofferR 12y ago
    #9298b0
- raverbashing 12y ago
  This is the dress http://www.amazon.co.uk/Roman-Womens-Detail-Bodycon-Dress/dp/B00SJEUCWU http://www.amazon.co.uk/Roman-Womens-Detail-Bodycon-Dress/dp...
  - evanb 12y ago
    I hope the manufacturer is internet-savvy enough to start producing the dress in white & gold.
  - greggman 12y ago
    I know this is 8 days old but the picture of the real dress is irrelevant. The image of the dress is objectively white and gold regardless of whether or not the original dress is blue and black. Both colors can be measured and shown objectively be white and gold. They can not objectively be shown to be blue and black. If I take a picture of a flag and then in photoshop rotate the hue 180 degrees I'll get an aqua-ish and gold-ish-green flag. http://imgur.com/HkzeCU2 http://imgur.com/HkzeCU2 The fact that the original flag was red and blue is irrelevant. The image itself is aqua-ish and gold-ish-green
IgorPartola 12y ago
My wife sees white/gold, I see black/blue on the same exact screen. Observations: I did not know there was a contraveesy when first shown the image. She did. I am 100% sure I am seeing the correct image (I am since color dropper verified). She is trying to figure it out. Can this be the power of suggestion since the initial person she saw it from said gold/white? I tried zooming in on parts of the image to show her that it was indeed black/blue. She saw the blue at high zoom but as soon as any color variation to the blue or a little of the black started to show, she said it flipped back to gold/white for her. When zoomed in on the black she cannot see it as black, and I start seeing a gold tiny to it. She saw the decomposed color swatches and acknowledged them as black/blue. When looking at pictures in better lighting of the supposed same dress, she sees it as black/blue. Hypothesies: (1) this is the case of the power of suggestion. Once you are told it is a certain color you cannot unsee it. (2) this has to do with poor quality of the image. Is the image on the cusp of some uncanny valley where most people's brains try to fill in the missing information? I say most because apparently around 70% of people see it as gold/white (Sploid poll). (3) Maybe this has to do with some type of screen refresh rate? Would have been a lot more likely with CRT screens, but don't know if there is some tech on LCD's that can have this effect. Someone please explain this. I am losing sleep here.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- usea 12y ago
  Your brain does a lot of work when you look at things. You don't perceive exactly what your eyes see. You will use context to see something one way or another. [1][2] The dress photo is deceptive because of the exposure, levels, and cropping. When some people look at it, they see a lot of light behind it, and subconsciously assume that the dress is probably in shadow. A white-gold dress in shadow would look the way the image does, so their brain says the dress is white and gold. When others look at the dress, they instead see a dress that is illuminated by light probably behind the photographer, or maybe an over-exposure in some other way. Either way the dress is washed-out, and a blue-black dress would look that way if it were washed out. So their brain says the dress is blue and black. In reality the dress is blue-black, but the photograph is essentially an optical illusion. Within the context of the photograph only, both ways are valid. You can even switch the way you see it if you can get your brain to "reset" the assumptions it's making about the image. For those of you seeing white-gold, try looking at an upside-down version of the image. [3] Here is an image that might do a better job at demonstrating what I'm trying to convey. [4] [1] http://lesswrong.com/lw/290/blue_and_yellowtinted_choices/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/290/blue_and_yellowtinted_choices/ [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checker_shadow_illusion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checker_shadow_illusion [3] http://s4.photobucket.com/user/ometauru/media/YNOPKWp_zpstcvt2hqd.png.html http://s4.photobucket.com/user/ometauru/media/YNOPKWp_zpstcv... [4] http://i.imgur.com/9N4KNLn.jpg http://i.imgur.com/9N4KNLn.jpg
Kiro 12y ago
I see blue and gold.
cel1ne 12y ago
I don't get where people get "white" from. I see blue and black (if i turn it very very dark) or blue and gold.
- danielweber 12y ago
  People very rarely see true white or true black, so what we common call "black" is a whole bunch of really dark thinks and "white" is really light things.
pjc50 12y ago
The useful thing you should take away from this? Other people do not see things the same way as you do. Remember that the next time you're insisting that the only "rational" answer is your own.
- TillE 12y ago
  Or that people tend to form very strong, often incorrect opinions based entirely on crappy data.
- cjslep 12y ago
  Yes, and I am very glad I came to read the comments. I could see both as I moved the slider and was wondering what was generating so many comments. Otherwise I would have entirely missed the fact others did not see the white/gold or blue/black.
- lmm 12y ago
  Unfortunately since the dress actually is black and blue I'm pretty sure the "lesson" I'll internalize is just that my perception is correct and some people are dumb :(.
  - meragrin 12y ago
    I was thinking WTF myself until seeing a heavily cropped and shrunk version on Google News. Once it grew, it just became the blue and black dress even when it shrank back down. I can only guess that those who do see it as a white and gold have a brain the is wired to analyze areas smaller than the dress or in low detail.
thraxil 12y ago
In my other life I'm an artist, with a lot of training and experience in color theory and painting. I'm honestly a bit surprised that this whole thing is confusing and dividing so many people. This seems like a straightforward demonstration of Color Constancy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_constancy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_constancy) and the distinction between local color and perceived color (http://practicalpainter.blogspot.nl/2010/05/local-versus-perceived-color.html http://practicalpainter.blogspot.nl/2010/05/local-versus-per...). I had thought that this kind of thing was more widely understood outside art education, but perhaps I'm wrong. The short version is that the dress could be either and the photo doesn't really give enough context to say anything definitive. The longer version is that all color perception is relative. Light of a particular makeup of colors hits an object, it absorbs and reflects different amounts at different frequencies, and that's what hits your retina. Our brains then attempt to "reverse engineer" the "local color" of the object by comparing it to the surrounding light (presumably because local color is more useful for identifying and discriminating objects), and that's what we "perceive". In normal conditions we do this really well. But when you strip out the context, our brains keep trying but are easily fooled. James Gurney tends to do an excellent job dissecting this phenomenon: * http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.nl/2010/01/color-constancy.html * http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.nl/2012/11/yellow.html * http://www.amazon.com/Color-Light-Guide-Realist-Painter/dp/0740797719/
- bjornsing 12y ago
  I completely agree that's what's going on. But what's fascinating here (to me at least) is how individual our interpretations are. Can you see what assumptions the gold/white crowd is making in their interpretation? Even with the slider in the OP I can't see it. :) And even worse: I can't understand what assumption I need to make (about the color of objects in the background or shadows or something) to be able to see a gold/white dress. Phrased differently: I can't imagine how I would construct a scene with a gold/white dress and then take a picture that looks like the one in the OP (regardless of the position of the slider). Scary! :)
  - lucio 12y ago
    do you really see "black" here ? https://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/3452082/no_black_dress.0.png https://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/3452082/n... Objectively, there's only "yellow-brown" (gold) and "light blue" which most people "mentally" correct to "white"
lucio 12y ago
This is a good image with adobecolor picks http://i.imgur.com/8XRB3QY.jpg http://i.imgur.com/8XRB3QY.jpg no black in sight. The "bluish" most people's brains "correct" to white.
- mattdesl 12y ago
  Heh, I see no white or gold in that palette. Just blue and dark blue.
  - emddudley 12y ago
    The pixels are objectively blue and brown. Our brains are guessing at what "true" color we're supposed to infer from the pixel values. Some people infer blue/black and others infer white/gold.
bruceb 12y ago
If you want to go real deep on TheDress two MOOCs about vision, light, the brain: https://www.coursebuffet.com/tag/Vision https://www.coursebuffet.com/tag/Vision
amelius 12y ago
Could it be that some people have "absolute" colour vision, while others have not? Just like, in music, some people have absolute pitch?
- lmm 12y ago
  Not really. I mean, when you put the same object under yellow light or blue light, the physical photons going into your eyes will be different. It would be like being someone who didn't hear the Doppler effect when a police car drove past.
shazeline 12y ago
I did some basic color analysis here. http://shahidchohan.com/resolving-the-dress-color-debate/ http://shahidchohan.com/resolving-the-dress-color-debate/
- dchest 12y ago
  Ceci n'est pas une robe. You did the color analysis of the picture of the dress, not the dress itself ;-)
  - shazeline 12y ago
    You're right. But it's already known that the actual dress is "blue and black" as someone found it on amazon. It's essentially the picture that is creating the ambiguity.
bd 12y ago
If you are "blue and black" person and can't understand how somebody could see "white and gold", here is the best explanation I have seen so far: "I think my brain is interpreting the bluish part as a white surface reflecting some indirect blue light." I personally can under no conditions see "white and gold", I always see just "blue and black" (I tried different ambient light, different screen brightness, different screens, Photoshop manipulations; my brain can always mentally subtract artefacts of shown physical RGB pixels and decode true colors of the captured scene, I can't force my vision not to do these corrections). But at least this explanation made me understand how somebody else's vision could get "white and gold" perception (even if it's incorrect interpretation of the real world scene captured by that photo).
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
mbel 12y ago
At least for me, today's xkcd [0] does much better job at explaining the problem. I wasn't able to see gold/white before seeing it with dark background. [0] https://xkcd.com/1492/ https://xkcd.com/1492/
- chao- 12y ago
  But the original doesn't have a dark background, so it still doesn't explain how people see it, in that picture's context, as white and gold.
  - lincolnq 12y ago
    I see it as white/gold. The background is lit so brightly that it seems backlit, and the dress is in shadow. The shadow has a bluish tinge, and my eye is also correcting for the shot which appears to be white balanced to the background.
    - seanalltogether 12y ago
      I've been trying to show people this image all day to explain why I see it as white and gold. Lighting and shadows can strongly affect tints in a scene. http://www.incense-man.co.uk/T-shirt_whiter_shade_of_pale350.jpg http://www.incense-man.co.uk/T-shirt_whiter_shade_of_pale350... The shirt in the sun is white, the shoulder in the shade is blue. There's enough info in this image that everyone should be able to mentally balance the whites. In the case of the dress, some are applying this white balance without a strong reference point, others are not.
      - mbel 12y ago
        http://imgur.com/MRAiWxB http://imgur.com/MRAiWxB here you go, a nice blue sleeve :)
- kyberias 12y ago
  I don't think this explains it at all.
mcwidget 12y ago
Although the debate is how the dress looks in the picture, the dress is actually blue/black. BBC ran an article here http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/31655696 http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/31655696. I can't see it as white/gold at all. Today's XKCD does a good job of showing me how it could appear that way to others though. http://xkcd.com/1492/ http://xkcd.com/1492/
kul_ 12y ago
Guys try this, * First focus on the the upper part of dress where there is a bright light with eyes wide open. -> ( white/golden ) * Now focus on the lower part (looking down squintng a little ) -> (blue/black) :D
- bhayden 12y ago
  Holy shit that was weird. It was instantly black/blue and I had never seen it that way before.
- thomasfromcdnjs 12y ago
  This also worked for me and was fun. Thanks!
- thomasfromcdnjs 12y ago
  This also worked for me and was fun. Thanks!
bikamonki 12y ago
I see both (using the slider) what does it mean?
davidgerard 12y ago
Cognitive illusion: Clickbait colour debate goes global http://newstechnica.com/?p=4097 http://newstechnica.com/?p=4097
jallensm 12y ago
The use of technology aided this picture very much!!
jallensm 12y ago
The use of technology aided this very much.
lukev 12y ago
Some clarifying notes, since there's still a lot of misconceptions bouncing around here and elsewhere: This is not a screen issue. Multiple people physically in the same room looking at the same screen see different things. The explanation that makes the most sense to me is that it is an instance of this optical illusion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checker_shadow_illusion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checker_shadow_illusion This demonstrates that the brain literally sees different things, on a completely pre-conscious level, based on contextual assumptions. If you assume that the scene lighting is warm/gold, you see a blue/back dress. If you assume the scene lighting is cold/blue, you see the white/gold (I am unable to do this, personally).
- chorizos22 12y ago
  I don't think so, if you isolate the board is easy to detect the same gray. But in the dress case no matter how the image is corrected, I always see blue-gold.
- sixothree 12y ago
  Maybe it is the way these colors are represented on screens? If we were to see this dress in real life would there be any argument? Or are there any real world objects as simple as a dress that aren't designed as optical illusions that would evoke the same response? My opinion is the picture is just terribly poor quality. Maybe that has something to do with it.
  - sixothree 12y ago
    Seems I got downvoted a bit but this is a crappy picture. RGB 135,148,190 is nowhere near the actual color.
_lce0 12y ago
at first I saw it white/gold .. but then it became blue/black and then my girlfriend came, and we were talking about the dress (ATM she hadn't ever seen it) and to my surprise she starts seen it as white/glod!!! -- and I was (puzzled) seeing it clearly blue/black after some 2 o 3 minutes, she started seeing it was starting to _change_ .. and then boom! all she sees is a black/blue dress, and also she notes that the image has background, before she was only seeing the dress and backlight .. before she could not recognize anything in the background as there was too much lightning is this something the brain could "fix" and after that period, you cannot unsee?
lsaferite 12y ago
My wife and I started very divided. Blue/black for me and white/gold for her. A few hours later she only sees blue/black. The interesting/funny thing is we just started watching Brain Games on Netflix and the first episode was about colors and perception. They very visibly demonstrate this with the color gray. https://www.youtube.com/v/BnPbT3wgfG8 https://www.youtube.com/v/BnPbT3wgfG8
kristofferR 12y ago
Sony just introduced a new white and gold PlayStation Dualshock controller: https://twitter.com/PlayStationAU/status/571176841777516544 https://twitter.com/PlayStationAU/status/571176841777516544
danielam 12y ago
You have to distinguish two questions: 1) what color(s) is the represented dress? 2) what absolute pigments are present in the physical image? These are very different questions. Painters know this distinction, at least implicitly, since a big part of painting is producing illusions with the clever application of color. The checkershadow illusion is a similar demonstration of the distinction between medium and message (or sense and reference, to borrow Fregean language). Phenomena like this reveal that color isn't something known purely by sense perception and that some reasoning is required to conclude what the color is. (A superficial analogy may be made with the theory-ladenness of observation perhaps, though that is a different phenomenon). I wouldn't be surprised if there is a relation between the differences in colors perceived and the ability to reason contextually. Indeed, autism and Asperger's have been characterized as entailing "context blindness".
- delecti 12y ago
  Yeah, the lace always looks gold to me, but the other part depends on whether you're asking about the image or the dress. It looks like a blue tinted picture of a white dress. I see the blue, but it looks like a white dress.
seandhi 12y ago
Even when I move the slider over the "white and gold", I can only see blue and black... just one that is washed with a gold tint.
- tomelders 12y ago
  I know. It's like the magic eye thing all over again. Everyone talking about something I can't see. It's always blue and black.
- delecti 12y ago
  And on the other hand, even when I move the slider over to "Blue/Black" all I see is white and gold. Even knowing that the dress is really blue, I can't help but interpret the adjusted version as having its colors tweaked from white/gold.
leereeves 12y ago
My perception of the dress changed when I zoomed in super close on the white/gold version. (the version I didn't "see" before)
afandian 12y ago
Why "opinionated"? That doesn't seem like the right word at all.
moron4hire 12y ago
Am I missing some sort of context? Everyone is talking about this thing like they know exactly what is going on and they have a very strong opinion one way or another. I can't even tell what is supposed to be happening. Okay, there is a slider. It changes the colors. Why?
chrisBob 12y ago
For the love of God, hold a 50% neutral grey card next to the dress and take a picture with proper white balance so that we can all continue with our lives!
indrax 12y ago
In my very limited sample, if you invert the image colors, you'll see the same colors in the different parts of the dress. I see it blue-black, inverted it looks like blue lace with dark fabric. If I saw this first I would think that the original lace would look yellow and the fabric light.

134 points by mmastrac 12y ago

You can flip the color of the original picture in your head by working slowly from one side to the other by using the left/right arrow keys.

thornofmight 12y ago

Nice job getting this together so fast. I wonder if the reason this dress color thing has been spreading around so fast is because of the different devices everyone is using to view it. When I first saw the dress on my Macbook Pro screen (non-retina) the dress looked white and gold. Then I checked on my iPhone 6 in the dark later on and it looked blue and black. I've been seeing articles about how the reason people are seeing different colors is because of different types of eyes, psychology, etc...maybe the answer is much simpler.

enobrev 12y ago
I had initially thought the same about different screens but then I saw it change on my phone. The first time I passed by my friend's post with the photo on my facebook feed, it was white and gold. I ignored it and scrolled on. A few minutes later while scrolling back up to the top, that same exact picture (same post) was blue and black. I've seen it switch a couple times since on my phone (nexus 4). Although on my desktop it's always white and gold.
- zamalek 12y ago
  Did you move between different locations? The difference could come down to being outside vs. being inside - or at least eye-shot of sunlight.
  - enobrev 12y ago
    Didn't move at all - besides my finger as I scrolled through my feed. Ambient light was the same - pretty much everything was the same.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
ilyanep 12y ago
Some coworkers and I were looking at the photo on the same screen and had differing opinions at the time.

kyberias 12y ago

Some context, please?

desdiv 12y ago
Someone posted a picture of a dress on Tumblr; some people perceive the dress as gold/white, while others saw it as blue/black. http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2xbfxp/what_color_is_the_dress_why_do_some_people_see/ http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2xbfxp/what_colo...
- Kiro 12y ago
  This needs to be upvoted to the top. I had no idea what I was looking at.

majormajor 12y ago

Light is weird! Here’s an essay from a dilettante with too much time spent in Lightroom… Everyone (including the Wired people in the submitted article here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9117137 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9117137) seems to be trying to white-balance the image as if it has only a single light source. "He saw blue in the highlights, telling him that the white he was seeing was blue, and the gold was black. And when Harris reversed the process, balancing to the darkest pixel in the image, the dress popped blue and black. “It became clear that the appropriate point in the image to balance from is the black point,” Harris says." I don't understand why. The blown out highlights of the background (which seems to be people carrying bags outside a window?) seem to make it clear that whatever's hitting the dress is a different light than what's filling in the background. The hardest question I feel remains, then, is: if the dress is white, why is the foreground light blue-cast? Generally indoor lighting is yellow than outdoors... possibly a flash? The quality of the image is so poor that it appears that there was still not nearly enough light hitting the front of the dress, but on the other hand I don't spot anything on the front of the dress that I'd say was definitely a flash highlight... my best theory is that it's a 100% crop of a bigger image and the flash isn't sufficient because the photographer was actually quite a bit further away (and had a poor camera/cameraphone). But that light temperature question is a problem the other way too: if it's a blue dress under warm indoor lighting (hence the yellow/gold-ish tinge to the 'black' parts), what's up with the particular shade of blue the light part of the dress is rendering as? That doesn’t look like blue in warm light to me. That's a really weird shade for blue to render as, I see that shade far more often when looking at white objects in cool light. People also tracked down (don't have original source, just people reposting on Facebook) this site which sells a very-similar-if-not-exactly-the-same dress in both a blue and white variant (hard to be sure of the details with the poor quality of the original pic)! But neither secondary color (seems to be untinted black in both cases): http://www.romanoriginals.co.uk/invt/70931?colour=Ivory http://www.romanoriginals.co.uk/invt/70931?colour=Ivory - and in none of the “corrected” blue images I’ve seen does it look like that shade of blue, without clearly crushed shadow detail indicating underexposure. But if that is exactly the same dress, than I honestly can’t say, since there are weird things about both color rendering options! (Why wouldn't the dark lace be blue-cast too? Alternately, why is the blue less gold-cast than the lace if the dress is really blue?) EDIT: another option for how the exposure got so weird in a blue-dress scenario: there could be another item in the hypothetical uncropped original photo that is not overexposed that explains how both the dress and the background are overexposed? If just the dress was the original subject of this photo I'm surprised by how poorly the camera picked the exposure/white-balance.

efnx 12y ago

Even in the highest white gold setting I still see the dress as being blue and black - just with low saturation. I don't get it, but this helps, thanks.

mod 12y ago
I'm here as well. I've seen tons of adjusted versions at this point (25+) and zero of them have had white. I do get a gold tint on the black, for sure, but if I were asked the colors of the dress, it's still unquestionably blue & black, the whole photo just looks like it has a sickly yellow tint on it. Edit: I should have said I get the gold tint when I slide the slider to the yellow (right).
- eclipxe 12y ago
  That's so weird to me, I have trouble seeing blue & black - looks gold and white to me at all times
  - lettergram 12y ago
    I see the blue when I adjust the scale, but can still make out some gold at the top.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - hnal943 12y ago
      right, there's no lighting scenario in which black fabric looks gold.
  - scarlson 12y ago
    I'm still not convinced the white and gold people aren't just trolling. I want to know what some tetrachromacic people see.
    - 12y ago

acosmism 12y ago

not sure how many people are aware of the eclipse of mars illusion: http://www.moillusions.com/eclipse-of-mars-illusion/ http://www.moillusions.com/eclipse-of-mars-illusion/. but basically digital screens have trouble and variances in displaying cyan. is the dress possibly cyan?

jvdh 12y ago

It's fascinating to see all the comments around it on Reddit and other sites. See http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page for more links. The largest group of people commenting seem to be able to see both 'versions' of the dress just by looking at it, looking away and seeing it again. There are also very many who see only the gold version of the dress and have a lot of trouble seeing the blue version. Finally, there are very few who can't seem to see the gold version at all. (This is in no way scientific, there is very likely a very large bias present in the commenters.)

lettergram 12y ago
I can't see black and blue for the life of me. I even ran some computer vision algorithms on it (none of which said the lighter image had black, or any sizable amount of blue). My guess, some people are either color blind, dimming their screens trying to see it, or they are seeing a different image...
- mod 12y ago
  Those guesses are all incorrect. My girlfriend and I see different color dresses on the same screen/ambient light, and neither of us is color blind.
  - lettergram 12y ago
    Then I am totally mind blown.
- peteretep 12y ago
  Given that everyone who is seeing it in black and blue is seeing the correct image (as later verified), it's a bit odd for you to suggest they're the ones with problems with their sight. This is the dress itself: http://s3-ec.buzzfed.com/static/2015-02/26/22/enhanced/webdr02/enhanced-1984-1425006448-3.jpg http://s3-ec.buzzfed.com/static/2015-02/26/22/enhanced/webdr... Which is exactly the colours it looked like in the original image, to me, and to I suspect everyone else who can't make it look anything other than black and blue.

mruocco 12y ago

Still interesting is the differences in who perceives it differently. Take the survey : http://digitalorchard.co/dress/survey.html http://digitalorchard.co/dress/survey.html

flipp3r 12y ago

I'm sure people will come up with really fascinating ideas on why some people see the white gold and others as blue black.. Even my desktop and laptop screens have their own opinion. I think the image is mainly a good test for calibrating your screen. http://imgur.com/Agxo20K http://imgur.com/Agxo20K

InclinedPlane 12y ago

Suggestion: put a thick (100px or so) border around the image that changes from white (for blue/black) to black (for white/gold). Alternately change the background color of the whole page. It makes a big difference perceptually.

nakedrobot2 12y ago

Maybe because I'm a photographer and I understand colors better? there is NOTHING about "white and gold" in this photo, no matter where you put the slider. I really don't get it at all! :)

chorizos22 12y ago
You understand colors better than who?.

kristofferR 12y ago

I really don't get how people can see the dress on the picture as blue and black. The average color of the gold/black part is #6e5d4d, which is brown/gold. The average color of the white/blue part is #9298b0. White/blue composite: http://i.imgur.com/DvhPP7v.jpg http://i.imgur.com/DvhPP7v.jpg Gold/Black composite: http://i.imgur.com/aIFUWgE.jpg http://i.imgur.com/aIFUWgE.jpg Image color analyzer: http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/color_summarizer/?analyze http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/color_summarizer/?analyze

IgorPartola 12y ago
What about the blue?
- kristofferR 12y ago
  #9298b0
raverbashing 12y ago
This is the dress http://www.amazon.co.uk/Roman-Womens-Detail-Bodycon-Dress/dp/B00SJEUCWU http://www.amazon.co.uk/Roman-Womens-Detail-Bodycon-Dress/dp...
- evanb 12y ago
  I hope the manufacturer is internet-savvy enough to start producing the dress in white & gold.
- greggman 12y ago
  I know this is 8 days old but the picture of the real dress is irrelevant. The image of the dress is objectively white and gold regardless of whether or not the original dress is blue and black. Both colors can be measured and shown objectively be white and gold. They can not objectively be shown to be blue and black. If I take a picture of a flag and then in photoshop rotate the hue 180 degrees I'll get an aqua-ish and gold-ish-green flag. http://imgur.com/HkzeCU2 http://imgur.com/HkzeCU2 The fact that the original flag was red and blue is irrelevant. The image itself is aqua-ish and gold-ish-green

IgorPartola 12y ago

My wife sees white/gold, I see black/blue on the same exact screen. Observations: I did not know there was a contraveesy when first shown the image. She did. I am 100% sure I am seeing the correct image (I am since color dropper verified). She is trying to figure it out. Can this be the power of suggestion since the initial person she saw it from said gold/white? I tried zooming in on parts of the image to show her that it was indeed black/blue. She saw the blue at high zoom but as soon as any color variation to the blue or a little of the black started to show, she said it flipped back to gold/white for her. When zoomed in on the black she cannot see it as black, and I start seeing a gold tiny to it. She saw the decomposed color swatches and acknowledged them as black/blue. When looking at pictures in better lighting of the supposed same dress, she sees it as black/blue. Hypothesies: (1) this is the case of the power of suggestion. Once you are told it is a certain color you cannot unsee it. (2) this has to do with poor quality of the image. Is the image on the cusp of some uncanny valley where most people's brains try to fill in the missing information? I say most because apparently around 70% of people see it as gold/white (Sploid poll). (3) Maybe this has to do with some type of screen refresh rate? Would have been a lot more likely with CRT screens, but don't know if there is some tech on LCD's that can have this effect. Someone please explain this. I am losing sleep here.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
usea 12y ago
Your brain does a lot of work when you look at things. You don't perceive exactly what your eyes see. You will use context to see something one way or another. [1][2] The dress photo is deceptive because of the exposure, levels, and cropping. When some people look at it, they see a lot of light behind it, and subconsciously assume that the dress is probably in shadow. A white-gold dress in shadow would look the way the image does, so their brain says the dress is white and gold. When others look at the dress, they instead see a dress that is illuminated by light probably behind the photographer, or maybe an over-exposure in some other way. Either way the dress is washed-out, and a blue-black dress would look that way if it were washed out. So their brain says the dress is blue and black. In reality the dress is blue-black, but the photograph is essentially an optical illusion. Within the context of the photograph only, both ways are valid. You can even switch the way you see it if you can get your brain to "reset" the assumptions it's making about the image. For those of you seeing white-gold, try looking at an upside-down version of the image. [3] Here is an image that might do a better job at demonstrating what I'm trying to convey. [4] [1] http://lesswrong.com/lw/290/blue_and_yellowtinted_choices/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/290/blue_and_yellowtinted_choices/ [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checker_shadow_illusion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checker_shadow_illusion [3] http://s4.photobucket.com/user/ometauru/media/YNOPKWp_zpstcvt2hqd.png.html http://s4.photobucket.com/user/ometauru/media/YNOPKWp_zpstcv... [4] http://i.imgur.com/9N4KNLn.jpg http://i.imgur.com/9N4KNLn.jpg

Kiro 12y ago

I see blue and gold.

cel1ne 12y ago

I don't get where people get "white" from. I see blue and black (if i turn it very very dark) or blue and gold.

danielweber 12y ago
People very rarely see true white or true black, so what we common call "black" is a whole bunch of really dark thinks and "white" is really light things.

pjc50 12y ago

The useful thing you should take away from this? Other people do not see things the same way as you do. Remember that the next time you're insisting that the only "rational" answer is your own.

TillE 12y ago
Or that people tend to form very strong, often incorrect opinions based entirely on crappy data.
cjslep 12y ago
Yes, and I am very glad I came to read the comments. I could see both as I moved the slider and was wondering what was generating so many comments. Otherwise I would have entirely missed the fact others did not see the white/gold or blue/black.
lmm 12y ago
Unfortunately since the dress actually is black and blue I'm pretty sure the "lesson" I'll internalize is just that my perception is correct and some people are dumb :(.
- meragrin 12y ago
  I was thinking WTF myself until seeing a heavily cropped and shrunk version on Google News. Once it grew, it just became the blue and black dress even when it shrank back down. I can only guess that those who do see it as a white and gold have a brain the is wired to analyze areas smaller than the dress or in low detail.

thraxil 12y ago

In my other life I'm an artist, with a lot of training and experience in color theory and painting. I'm honestly a bit surprised that this whole thing is confusing and dividing so many people. This seems like a straightforward demonstration of Color Constancy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_constancy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_constancy) and the distinction between local color and perceived color (http://practicalpainter.blogspot.nl/2010/05/local-versus-perceived-color.html http://practicalpainter.blogspot.nl/2010/05/local-versus-per...). I had thought that this kind of thing was more widely understood outside art education, but perhaps I'm wrong. The short version is that the dress could be either and the photo doesn't really give enough context to say anything definitive. The longer version is that all color perception is relative. Light of a particular makeup of colors hits an object, it absorbs and reflects different amounts at different frequencies, and that's what hits your retina. Our brains then attempt to "reverse engineer" the "local color" of the object by comparing it to the surrounding light (presumably because local color is more useful for identifying and discriminating objects), and that's what we "perceive". In normal conditions we do this really well. But when you strip out the context, our brains keep trying but are easily fooled. James Gurney tends to do an excellent job dissecting this phenomenon: * http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.nl/2010/01/color-constancy.html * http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.nl/2012/11/yellow.html * http://www.amazon.com/Color-Light-Guide-Realist-Painter/dp/0740797719/

bjornsing 12y ago
I completely agree that's what's going on. But what's fascinating here (to me at least) is how individual our interpretations are. Can you see what assumptions the gold/white crowd is making in their interpretation? Even with the slider in the OP I can't see it. :) And even worse: I can't understand what assumption I need to make (about the color of objects in the background or shadows or something) to be able to see a gold/white dress. Phrased differently: I can't imagine how I would construct a scene with a gold/white dress and then take a picture that looks like the one in the OP (regardless of the position of the slider). Scary! :)
- lucio 12y ago
  do you really see "black" here ? https://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/3452082/no_black_dress.0.png https://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/3452082/n... Objectively, there's only "yellow-brown" (gold) and "light blue" which most people "mentally" correct to "white"

lucio 12y ago

This is a good image with adobecolor picks http://i.imgur.com/8XRB3QY.jpg http://i.imgur.com/8XRB3QY.jpg no black in sight. The "bluish" most people's brains "correct" to white.

mattdesl 12y ago
Heh, I see no white or gold in that palette. Just blue and dark blue.
- emddudley 12y ago
  The pixels are objectively blue and brown. Our brains are guessing at what "true" color we're supposed to infer from the pixel values. Some people infer blue/black and others infer white/gold.

bruceb 12y ago

If you want to go real deep on TheDress two MOOCs about vision, light, the brain: https://www.coursebuffet.com/tag/Vision https://www.coursebuffet.com/tag/Vision

amelius 12y ago

Could it be that some people have "absolute" colour vision, while others have not? Just like, in music, some people have absolute pitch?

lmm 12y ago
Not really. I mean, when you put the same object under yellow light or blue light, the physical photons going into your eyes will be different. It would be like being someone who didn't hear the Doppler effect when a police car drove past.

shazeline 12y ago

I did some basic color analysis here. http://shahidchohan.com/resolving-the-dress-color-debate/ http://shahidchohan.com/resolving-the-dress-color-debate/

dchest 12y ago
Ceci n'est pas une robe. You did the color analysis of the picture of the dress, not the dress itself ;-)
- shazeline 12y ago
  You're right. But it's already known that the actual dress is "blue and black" as someone found it on amazon. It's essentially the picture that is creating the ambiguity.

bd 12y ago

If you are "blue and black" person and can't understand how somebody could see "white and gold", here is the best explanation I have seen so far: "I think my brain is interpreting the bluish part as a white surface reflecting some indirect blue light." I personally can under no conditions see "white and gold", I always see just "blue and black" (I tried different ambient light, different screen brightness, different screens, Photoshop manipulations; my brain can always mentally subtract artefacts of shown physical RGB pixels and decode true colors of the captured scene, I can't force my vision not to do these corrections). But at least this explanation made me understand how somebody else's vision could get "white and gold" perception (even if it's incorrect interpretation of the real world scene captured by that photo).

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

mbel 12y ago

At least for me, today's xkcd [0] does much better job at explaining the problem. I wasn't able to see gold/white before seeing it with dark background. [0] https://xkcd.com/1492/ https://xkcd.com/1492/

chao- 12y ago
But the original doesn't have a dark background, so it still doesn't explain how people see it, in that picture's context, as white and gold.
- lincolnq 12y ago
  I see it as white/gold. The background is lit so brightly that it seems backlit, and the dress is in shadow. The shadow has a bluish tinge, and my eye is also correcting for the shot which appears to be white balanced to the background.
  - seanalltogether 12y ago
    I've been trying to show people this image all day to explain why I see it as white and gold. Lighting and shadows can strongly affect tints in a scene. http://www.incense-man.co.uk/T-shirt_whiter_shade_of_pale350.jpg http://www.incense-man.co.uk/T-shirt_whiter_shade_of_pale350... The shirt in the sun is white, the shoulder in the shade is blue. There's enough info in this image that everyone should be able to mentally balance the whites. In the case of the dress, some are applying this white balance without a strong reference point, others are not.
    - mbel 12y ago
      http://imgur.com/MRAiWxB http://imgur.com/MRAiWxB here you go, a nice blue sleeve :)
kyberias 12y ago
I don't think this explains it at all.

mcwidget 12y ago

Although the debate is how the dress looks in the picture, the dress is actually blue/black. BBC ran an article here http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/31655696 http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/31655696. I can't see it as white/gold at all. Today's XKCD does a good job of showing me how it could appear that way to others though. http://xkcd.com/1492/ http://xkcd.com/1492/

kul_ 12y ago

Guys try this, * First focus on the the upper part of dress where there is a bright light with eyes wide open. -> ( white/golden ) * Now focus on the lower part (looking down squintng a little ) -> (blue/black) :D

bhayden 12y ago
Holy shit that was weird. It was instantly black/blue and I had never seen it that way before.
thomasfromcdnjs 12y ago
This also worked for me and was fun. Thanks!
thomasfromcdnjs 12y ago
This also worked for me and was fun. Thanks!

bikamonki 12y ago

I see both (using the slider) what does it mean?

davidgerard 12y ago

Cognitive illusion: Clickbait colour debate goes global http://newstechnica.com/?p=4097 http://newstechnica.com/?p=4097

jallensm 12y ago

The use of technology aided this picture very much!!

jallensm 12y ago

The use of technology aided this very much.

lukev 12y ago

Some clarifying notes, since there's still a lot of misconceptions bouncing around here and elsewhere: This is not a screen issue. Multiple people physically in the same room looking at the same screen see different things. The explanation that makes the most sense to me is that it is an instance of this optical illusion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checker_shadow_illusion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checker_shadow_illusion This demonstrates that the brain literally sees different things, on a completely pre-conscious level, based on contextual assumptions. If you assume that the scene lighting is warm/gold, you see a blue/back dress. If you assume the scene lighting is cold/blue, you see the white/gold (I am unable to do this, personally).

chorizos22 12y ago
I don't think so, if you isolate the board is easy to detect the same gray. But in the dress case no matter how the image is corrected, I always see blue-gold.
sixothree 12y ago
Maybe it is the way these colors are represented on screens? If we were to see this dress in real life would there be any argument? Or are there any real world objects as simple as a dress that aren't designed as optical illusions that would evoke the same response? My opinion is the picture is just terribly poor quality. Maybe that has something to do with it.
- sixothree 12y ago
  Seems I got downvoted a bit but this is a crappy picture. RGB 135,148,190 is nowhere near the actual color.

_lce0 12y ago

at first I saw it white/gold .. but then it became blue/black and then my girlfriend came, and we were talking about the dress (ATM she hadn't ever seen it) and to my surprise she starts seen it as white/glod!!! -- and I was (puzzled) seeing it clearly blue/black after some 2 o 3 minutes, she started seeing it was starting to _change_ .. and then boom! all she sees is a black/blue dress, and also she notes that the image has background, before she was only seeing the dress and backlight .. before she could not recognize anything in the background as there was too much lightning is this something the brain could "fix" and after that period, you cannot unsee?

lsaferite 12y ago

My wife and I started very divided. Blue/black for me and white/gold for her. A few hours later she only sees blue/black. The interesting/funny thing is we just started watching Brain Games on Netflix and the first episode was about colors and perception. They very visibly demonstrate this with the color gray. https://www.youtube.com/v/BnPbT3wgfG8 https://www.youtube.com/v/BnPbT3wgfG8

kristofferR 12y ago

Sony just introduced a new white and gold PlayStation Dualshock controller: https://twitter.com/PlayStationAU/status/571176841777516544 https://twitter.com/PlayStationAU/status/571176841777516544

danielam 12y ago

You have to distinguish two questions: 1) what color(s) is the represented dress? 2) what absolute pigments are present in the physical image? These are very different questions. Painters know this distinction, at least implicitly, since a big part of painting is producing illusions with the clever application of color. The checkershadow illusion is a similar demonstration of the distinction between medium and message (or sense and reference, to borrow Fregean language). Phenomena like this reveal that color isn't something known purely by sense perception and that some reasoning is required to conclude what the color is. (A superficial analogy may be made with the theory-ladenness of observation perhaps, though that is a different phenomenon). I wouldn't be surprised if there is a relation between the differences in colors perceived and the ability to reason contextually. Indeed, autism and Asperger's have been characterized as entailing "context blindness".

delecti 12y ago
Yeah, the lace always looks gold to me, but the other part depends on whether you're asking about the image or the dress. It looks like a blue tinted picture of a white dress. I see the blue, but it looks like a white dress.

seandhi 12y ago

Even when I move the slider over the "white and gold", I can only see blue and black... just one that is washed with a gold tint.

tomelders 12y ago
I know. It's like the magic eye thing all over again. Everyone talking about something I can't see. It's always blue and black.
delecti 12y ago
And on the other hand, even when I move the slider over to "Blue/Black" all I see is white and gold. Even knowing that the dress is really blue, I can't help but interpret the adjusted version as having its colors tweaked from white/gold.

leereeves 12y ago

My perception of the dress changed when I zoomed in super close on the white/gold version. (the version I didn't "see" before)

afandian 12y ago

Why "opinionated"? That doesn't seem like the right word at all.

moron4hire 12y ago

Am I missing some sort of context? Everyone is talking about this thing like they know exactly what is going on and they have a very strong opinion one way or another. I can't even tell what is supposed to be happening. Okay, there is a slider. It changes the colors. Why?

chrisBob 12y ago

For the love of God, hold a 50% neutral grey card next to the dress and take a picture with proper white balance so that we can all continue with our lives!

indrax 12y ago

In my very limited sample, if you invert the image colors, you'll see the same colors in the different parts of the dress. I see it blue-black, inverted it looks like blue lace with dark fabric. If I saw this first I would think that the original lace would look yellow and the fabric light.