Is the dress blue or white?

[Jazeki]

When it was first loading, it was white and gold. But then my eyes adjusted and it stayed blue/black. That nearly brown shade that people are seeing is because of the store lighting in the background.

[Tazzay]

Oh my gods guys NO.

 

Tilt the screen and adjust the brightness. It depends on the angle you are looking at it which colour the dress is.

 

It's a heavily altered photo, just please stop.

[Wandering4Ever]

white and gold.

my brain can't understand the blue and black.

after seeing the designer photos of the dress, i will concede that it is probably actually blue and black in real life.

but in that photo. i CANT see anything but white and gold. for a split second i'll see blue and black, but the minute i see the yellow tint and how washed out that 'blue' is compared to the designer photo, we're back to white and gold.

 

i kinda wanna burn it at this point. it's annoying me that badly because just. uuuuugh.

[Randiriel]

It's fascinating. I see blue and black no matter at which angle or screen brightness...I wonder if there are any confusing photos which people perceive two different colours before? (But honestly though I understand the theory of cones and rods, I find it hard to imagine this thing as white and gold)

...on the other hand, if there really are colours/shades that different people see as totally different, wouldn't this render online shopping and stock photos pretty useless

[Syphoneira]

Things can look VERY different on different browsers/computers/monitors.

 

That dress looked blue and gold to me in the 2nd photo, blue and brown-gold in the first.

 

DC dragons looked completely different when I got this computer as compared to the way they'd looked on my old antique, but there are differences even between computers and monitors of a similar age, as I'd discovered when using the downstairs computer a few years ago on a small monitor and different again when hooked up to the TV, and different again on my brother's laptop.

 

Not just regarding colours, but different levels of detail showing that really alter the general impression.

 

And I can't adjust brightness on this screen but could on others, which again can make a difference in the appearance of colours.

 

So apart from any 'fool the eye' stuff that may be going on here, there's likely more here than greets the eye - or involves it, lol.

[Obscure_Trash]

Black and blue.

 

Here's the explanation (it doesn't really have to do with cones): http://www.buzzfeed.com/virginiahughes/why...that-damn-dress

[Dawnwing]

I consistently saw white-and-gold. Then I messed around with the exposure in Photoshop, and I see how a blue/black dress would look the way it did. Now I'm seeing it as blue-black consistently.

[NatPur]

Definitely blue and black for me.

[whitebaron]

I can play the mindgames necessary to alter it to a gold and white for myself, but clearly, this is just a crappy picture with bad lighting and even worse color-correction.

 

if you see no blue, that's likely just due to bad lighting, bad screens. the picture definitely is blue. But with many people nowadays just glimpsing over stuff on their phones, in bright sunlight, it's no big surprise people see all kinds of color, even when it would be just blue and black/brown square dots.

 

also, this:

 

 

It's a heavily altered photo, just please stop.

 

probably setting someone their phone to postprocess the fotos automatically to get "better quality". that someone even considers trying to get original colors out of this picture, is way beyond what I'd as a photographer would try - you can't say, really, you can't, unless you see the real thing OR have a very natural picture of it.

Edited February 27, 2015 by whitebaron

[Fuzzbucket]

Mostly what I see is... a photograph with terrible lighting, likely taken with a cellphone

...further distorted by a vast range of monitors on which it is viewed.This is one of the SILLIEST things I've seen in MANY years.

 

And I'm 70 years old, for bleep's sake !

 

Is it a super-washed-out picture of a blue and black dress, or a stupidly-darkened picture of a white and gold dress? Or even a darkened AND washed out picture of a white and black dress?

 

Who cares :? I have very good colour discrimination (my optometrist remarked on it !) - and in fact I see NONE of the variants one is supposed to pick from. And you know what ? I don't care

 

A new low from social media ON which I am not

[Prince_Xanthius]

I see both - initially on a laptop in a suunlit room white and gold, then on a TV screen blue and black, or by tilting the laptop screen. Currently in a darker yellow lit room, it looks blue and black. White and gold is prettier...

 

It's just a really crappy photo taken with really crappy light and very little frame of reference. People see different colours because of how well the compensate for the lighting, as well as a whole host of other factors.

[Pixxelation]

The photo's colors are physically a goldish color and a lilac/blue-white/blue-gray/etc. color. Even though the dress is actually royal blue and black, the colors in the photo are far from them. Team white and gold is correct in terms of the actual picture.

[sh20000sh]

For my eyes, its color is blue and gold.

[Shienvien]

The photo's colors are physically a goldish color and a lilac/blue-white/blue-gray/etc. color. Even though the dress is actually royal blue and black, the colors in the photo are far from them. Team white and gold is correct in terms of the actual picture.

It is medium-light slightly grayish blue and murky dark brown (according to my photo-editing program), and light plays a vast role in how colors would come across, so you can't really say either is "correct" in terms of the actual picture.

[Fuzzbucket]

Does this test hold up if we are in front of the ACTUAL DRESS ? THAT would be more interesting.

[Shienvien]

@Fuzzbucket: No. There is another picture of the dress on the first page - and that is as blue and black as blue and black goes. It is just terrible cell phone camera that made the weird colors* appear.

 

(*All light-colored cars are gray at night, 'kay? And if a camera thinks it is darker than it is, it will auto-adjust to brighten everything...)

Edited February 27, 2015 by Shienvien

[Fawkesian]

Oh man, I think this debate has invaded every forum I'm part of…

 

The dress looks white and gold to me.

[MedievalMystic]

I see blue and black. Well, faded blue and faded black. I don't get how people are seeing white anywhere. lol

[maylin]

I saw white and gold at first but then my eye corrected so that I see only black and blue.

http://www.sciencealert.com/here-s-the-sci...t-goddamn-dress

It really is blue even if it looks white to you, its weird how are eyes and minds work.

 

[Windy]

For me, it's blue and brownish gold.

[Ribombee]

I saw it as gold/white the first time from my phone, but mostly I see it as black/blue. It'll sometimes pop up as gold/white then, if I look away and back, it'll return to black/blue.

[Ayesthine]

The photo's colors are physically a goldish color and a lilac/blue-white/blue-gray/etc. color. Even though the dress is actually royal blue and black, the colors in the photo are far from them. Team white and gold is correct in terms of the actual picture.

Neither camp is correct "in terms of the actual picture" as the actual picture is neither purely white and gold or purely blue and black. People who see the photo as blue and black are adjusting for an orange bias as opposed to the blue orange and white people are adjusting for.

Here are the actual colors of the photos

They're just as far from white and gold as they are from blue and black. If anything, the people who are correct in judging the true colors of the photo are people who see it as blue and goldish brown.

[EavingStar]

I see white and gold, and I'm tired of reading that my eyes aren't working properly or that someone elses' eyes are better because they see blue and black. Why can't we just figure out why the difference exists, and be okay with it? What's so interesting about the world if we all see it the same way, anyhow?

 

I saw this for the first time last night, and then on my way out of my first class this morning, there were four girls sitting together having a pretty intense debate about it.

 

EDIT: I know it isn't about quality of eyesight. I just don't appreciate (very much) the people who discuss it strictly as such, or say "Well we all know that the dress is really (insert blue/black, white/gold), and we are superior to those who see (insert blue/black, white/gold)."

 

Though Ellen's tweet about it was entertaining.

Edited February 27, 2015 by EavingStar

[Ayesthine]

We have discovered why people see the colors differently. It has nothing to do with the quality of your eyes or eyesight. It's a color theory problem C:

The vague greyish-blue and brownish shades of the photo can look more blue and black when compared to something yellow or orange, and can look more white and gold when compared to something blue due to their "intermediate" nature.

Ripping this from the Pixel Joint tutorial:

See that greenish shade? It's not actually green at all!

It's a neutral gray:

The color LOOKS green when compared to the super saturated purple because of the difference in the shades.

 

There's absolutely nothing wrong with your eyes or anyone elses, or at least you can't tell from something like this. If you really want to see the photo as a different color, try overlaying something blue or yellow over/next to it and see how it changes.

[Obscure_Trash]

Black and blue.

 

Here's the explanation (it doesn't really have to do with cones): http://www.buzzfeed.com/virginiahughes/why...that-damn-dress

Here is one that goes a little more in depth: http://www.wired.com/2015/02/science-one-agrees-color-dress/

 

Oooh, Ayesthine, I wanna reply to some of your comments, but I have to run to class, so hopefully I can remember to come back to color therory, which is so interesting and weird!