A community for sharing and discussing cool optical illusions.
The illusion that ruined friendships since 11 years ago.
Do you still see the dress as having the same colors as you first see it, or are the colors changing to you? I always see it as black and blue, and no matter what I do, I can't have my eyeballs see it as white and gold.
Grey and mustard, as always.
I am used to manipulating digital images (photoshop, 3D, etc.). Even in the gifs that supposedly show how people can see both by changing the exposure and warmth, I still see black and blue... just even more overexposed. I do not personally know a single person who manipulates digital images frequently that sees white and gold. (anecdotal)
I know some people have "shifted" their view at some point... and I still cannot fathom getting this wrong, or changing how it can be seen. Even when scientists break down how it works, my brain just points out the overexposed background and bright yellow lighting, and is convinced roughly 50% of humanity is just trolling.
The part that kills me is how the dress(?) behind it on the left has the same black and... actual white.. and people don't seem to notice that. How‽
Even in the gifs that supposedly show how people can see both by changing the exposure and warmth, I still see black and blue
It is 100% white and gold for me
I usually see this as black and blue, but today saw white and gold. I snapped it back by holding my hand over my phone and making a gap between fingers only over a bit of the dress. Can't see white and gold now.
Genuine question then: for you, what colors are:
the general environment on the right?
Brownish near the top, with a red spot. Below that everything seems to be overexposed, and the overexposed parts look bright. Yellowish hues are there.
the piece of wood on the right?
Brown
the dress(?) on the left?
Darker brown, looks like it likes probably lighter in proper lighting though
I know I said "brown" a lot but I have full colour vision.
Is anything I described different from what you see?
The right side is white near the top (nearly pure white, likely sunlight overblown by the photo), there is some generally dark clutter with a spot of red, and then a white or pale beige lit with yellow-ish lighting.
The "beam" is either some light wood, or just the shadow on a ledge; it is made brown-ish because of the yellow lighting's illumination but lack of exposure to the exterior backlighting.
The dress on the left is white and black. Made yellow and dark-ish brown-ish by overexposure and strong yellow indoor lighting.
Fundamentally, and the science points to this, you are likely seeing the environmental yellow as actual colors, and not the result of lighting; which I understand on paper... but I cannot see a scenario where blue lighting would produce a bright yellow when overexposed; even if there is yellow in the actual object colors (because blue-ish light would tarnish the warm colors to light grays or possibly light greens I guess)
Sounds like we are seeing more or less the same thing when it comes to the background.
But I cannot see a scenario where blue lighting would produce a bright yellow when overexposed
I think the contrast provided by the strips is what makes the difference here. We don't see colour in isolation, our brain only processes colours in relation to other colours. For example, take this optical illusion:
The squares A and B are actually exactly the same colour and tone, here. If you look at each square in isolation (by eg zooming in 1000x on your screen) you'll see this clearly. It's only when the squares are put into the context of the full scene that this starts to sound counterintuitive. So we are not just processing the colour itself. We are processing the relationship that colour has to other colours.
Similarly, with the black/white + white/gold combo, I think there are probably some similarities in the relations between these two colours. If I had to guess, I'd say that when you look at the wavelength size of these colours, the black/white + white/gold combos would have the same ratios between them. Put differently: in colour space, the distance between black and blue is the same distance that white is from gold. So the relative distances between these two colours are the same even though the colours themselves are very different. That's just my best guess anyway.
Like I replied to another comment, how can you explain that the surrounding environment is yellow then? Based on this diagram, white+gold could only work if the rest of the image was lit with blue light... which it clearly is not.
The dress appears to be in the shadow to me (light source between dress and background, with the dress shielding the light source from view in the picture), so it wouldn't be affected by the yellow light.
still cannot fathom getting this wrong, or changing how it can be seen.
When I visited this thread earlier, it was white and gold. Now I came to it again and it's black and blue. lol1
The mystery has long been explained, particularly by this image from Wikipedia.
But that only works if you completely disregard the surrounding environment, right?
Otherwise how do you explain the bright yellow lighting and overexposure? It would have to be blue... like in the example.
That's the part I never got. In fact, that illustration seems like the perfect way of pointing out how it should not appear white and gold, based on the surrounding colors.
The assumption from the people arguing white and gold was that the light was outside, and the dress was under a ceiling and it was darker inside. They would think this was backlit.
But then you would have light bleed around the edges. Unless you are in an extremely dark room, reflection and diffusion would make the curved edges of the dress receive some of that outside light. Yet the floor at the foot of the dress is well lit.
Back to my original conception of things: understanding of lighting and photography makes the white-gold seem impossible.
I do not deny that people can instinctually miss these details... But I am surprised that further analysis doesn't inevitably resolve in these conclusions.
That's what I've always thought as well. The picture is clearly taken in a bright room and the exposure turned too high.
When I linked to it a few days ago, it looked blue/black to me. Later that day (and still currently as of writing), I see white/gold. I think the same thing happened when I first ran into it but that was too long ago for me to be sure.
This happens to me too. I think it's related to my surroundings. Like in a sunlit room it looks white+golden, but in a shadowy room the white becomes blueish and in artificially lit rooms the gold becomes black. Maybe it deoends on light intensity, as the sun is much stronger than regular LED bulbs.
im over here seeing blue and gold...
