What color is this dress??? (the interwebs are asploding)......

[Arcadio]

 

[HN]

I know what that says

Not because I can read it, but because someone here told me what it said years ago.

anyone ever ask why your avatar just has a blank space in the upper left?

 

[Aikouka]

On my desktop at home, I saw black and a weird shade of white. Methinks my ASUS PB278Q is badly calibrated. Since iPhones usually have good calibration out of the box, I took a look on it there, and it's blue and black for me.

Those of you who see it as blue, can you print it and tell us what you see?

Argh!!! ALL I SEE IS BLACK AND GRAY!! D:

 

[Stopsignhank]

Argh!!! ALL I SEE IS BLACK AND GRAY!! D:

OK, that is funny. I guess I did not specify to print it on a color printer.

 

[11thHour]

I saw white/gold on tv, now purple/black and can't go back here.

 

[Belegost]

On my desktop at home, I saw black and a weird shade of white. Methinks my ASUS PB278Q is badly calibrated. Since iPhones usually have good calibration out of the box, I took a look on it there, and it's blue and black for me.



Argh!!! ALL I SEE IS BLACK AND GRAY!! D:

The dress has made you color blind!

Fear the dress!

 

[Narse]

It's an optical illusion. It has less to do with the actual photon proportions (the 'true colour') and more to do with how our brain interprets it. Colour is subjective in many cases, and can be affected greatly by context and lighting. Our minds try to filter out the affects of lighting and so forth but can be tricked, just like in the 'which square is darker illusion'.

This exactly, IMO it's because the picture was taken with a flash and the mirror behind the dress reflects the light and this tricks our brains to think the front of the dress is in shadow. But in actuality the light is coming from the front not the back.

 

[HN]

I saw white/gold on tv, now purple/black and can't go back here.

Hence the saying "once you go black..."

 

[Humpy]

Now that this is settling down some real disturbing questions are raised. I don't like the idea that different people can look at the same picture and see completely different things. It's dangerous.

If a person looks at a colored dress and insists it is white what other abominations are they capable of? What color would Hitler see? How many people are dead/in prison because someone's senses were tricked?

 

[Thebobo]

 

[Gooberlx2]

I can't believe how big this thing has blown up. It's really fucking sad to be honest. Millions of people would rather gossip and BS over some dress' color, than talk about how the NSA breaks into SD card manufactures, how ISIS is kidnapping more people, etc etc.[/I]

Geez, you must be a blast at parties.

"It's really sad that we're sitting here drinking and having fun while scores of women are being raped for profit around the world..."
- z1ggy

 

[luv2liv]

Now that this is settling down some real disturbing questions are raised. I don't like the idea that different people can look at the same picture and see completely different things. It's dangerous.

If a person looks at a colored dress and insists it is white what other abominations are they capable of? What color would Hitler see? How many people are dead/in prison because someone's senses were tricked?

i still dont know if allah or buddha or jesus is real. but i havent killed anyone over that.

 

[njdevilsfan87]

I can see the gold in the black, but I can't see how people are getting white out the blue. Maybe when I go home later today it will change on me!

 

[flexy]

can't believe this is now also on CNN and basically everywhere

 

[IronWing]

The dress is alpaca!

 

[HN]

The dress is alpaca!

pretty sure it's llama

 

[njdevilsfan87]

Add me to the list who has another next to me looking at the same image seeing white and gold. This is rightfully so the most interesting news of the day! :awe:

 

[mcurphy]

I have not been able to see it as White/Gold, it has always been blue and black for me. Odd that it has gained this much attention.

 

[IronWing]

I wonder if she left the hat on?

 

[SearchMaster]

I can see the gold in the black, but I can't see how people are getting white out the blue. Maybe when I go home later today it will change on me!

We don't see pure bright white, it's white with a bluish tint.

 

[disappoint]

Science bitches!

Here's the colour values for the strip at the top of the dress people say is gold.

And here's the part immediately below it that people are saying is white.

Pretty hard to argue with that, as those are the colour values the camera interpreted. It definitely looks like it was shot with a fridge though.

I think what's confusing things is the white balance setting, as I said earlier. Looks like it may be in an environment where there's halogen lights (background) mixed with fluorescent (foreground). AWB is grabbing the background, so that gives the white in the foreground a blueish tinge.

So what we can do is fix that in GIMP by telling the computer what white is. Notice how yellow the background now is? Clear indication of a poor white balance.

Here's a neat trick to make the dress look black and blue by black balancing the image. I'm telling the computer the gold part is actually black.

As to why people are seeing the unedited image like that, I can't really say.

Also, what's black and blue and white and gold?

A pimp in a white suit backhanding a John.

People are seeing the unedited image like that because that is what they, usually subconsciously, expect the image should have been if it had been properly exposed in the first place. People's minds are literally imagining colors that aren't there because they are compensating for what they know is an incorrectly exposed image.

 

[vi edit]

The sweet delicious ironing in this is the poll results through Buzzfeed. 75% said White and Gold.

75% were wrong. Social media in a tidy little case study right there!

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

The sweet delicious ironing in this is the poll results through Buzzfeed. 75% said White and Gold.

75% were wrong. Social media in a tidy little case study right there!

I think the whole point of this is that there is no "wrong," just what people observe. The fact that there is such strident disagreement is itself interesting. I personally saw it and was initially confident it was white and gold, but now am equally confident (and in fact correct) that it's blue and black. I find that interesting in terms of what it says about the operation of the visual cortex and its interaction with the rest of the brain.

 

[vi edit]

Yeah I'm mostly being facetious. My wife was so confident that it was white and gold last night and considered me the crazy one. Even pulled out the buzz feed study to rub it in my face (was 75% in agreement with her).

Then I wake up this morning and see most of the scientific responses supporting my beliefs. Warmed the cockles of my heart, maybe below the cockles, maybe in the subcockle area even.

 

[rudeguy]

You guys should watch Brain Games on Nat Geo sometime. They do weird stuff like this and it really trips me out.

What we see can be very different than what is actually there and its not just with colors.