@Alien88 Thanks for the link, because I had no idea this was going on. So glad up I'm hep to the latest internet now. Blue-black. I tried staring for a while but it didn't change. The skirt stayed too long. Kept my original vote of wtf you talking about.
@primrosewater all three of those dresses stop the wired article look blue w/ black to me, just different shades of blue. I still feel like the Internet is punking me.
@Perkalicious I thought the internet was punking me too when I first saw a white and gold dress. I was intrigued, clicked on the original (maybe?) post and kept seeing white/gold. When I saw the blue/black I thought the original image was actualy a .gif or something. Nope. My brain just decided to see it differently after I looked at a bunch of images with the contrasts, etc. altered. So weird.
@primrosewater 70% of people see it white and gold, most of the rest blue and black (which it apparently is) and some see it blue and yellow or other weird things. Apparently the photo is over exposed and some people's brains compensate and other people's brains do not.
I saw it as white and gold, said how the hell do people see it as blue and black, read something about lighting, and poof when I scrolled up it was blue and black. While I agree with @christinerenee about wishing I didn't know, it is one of the more interesting things to take the internet by storm. (Which isn't saying much).
buzzfeed did a poll and 73% of people say its white and gold. So I guess there's something wrong with my eyes or the lighting or my computer or something.
It all has to do with how open your pupils are when you look at it. Kinda like those things you see that says "stare at the green dot for 20 sec and then look to the right" and you see a full color girl's photo. What color you see the dress as, depends on what you were looking at before you saw the fugly thing.
@Ruger9mm It looked more brown and periwinkle to me when I first saw it--just like it does in the image above, and I can see how some thought it was white & gold/tan with just some hideously bad lighting.
@Moose That's what I'm saying: this looks like light blue and brownish gold to me on both sides. Maybe there's something wrong with my monitor. Or maybe most everyone else is fucking insane and delusional. Yeah, I'm going with the second option. ;-)
@Lotsofgoats I like the way you think. Having emphatically starred a couple of your comments in this thread, I thought I should take it another step. :-)
@joelmw hey thanks! I just think it's fascinating, but I'm lucky enough to have seen brief glimses of the white/gold even though I see black/blue every time I look for more than an instant. I imagine people who can't are frustrated with this even being a thing, because it's hard to conceptualize.
@Lotsofgoats I love the science behind it and the whole idea of deconstructing perception and appreciating the "gray areas" (so to speak). What I hate is the entrenchment on both sides, though, ultimately, it confirms a lot of what I believe about human nature (and politics, religion, etc.).
Also, color and perception are kind of a big part of my current job (making maps and preparing and delivering presentations), so it's something that has real, practical impact for me on a daily basis.
Was clearly white and gold this morning when I first heard about this.
Was reading an article that had pictures altered both ways. Then I could alternate it between the two by changing the focus of my eyes. Now I can only see black and blue. What a weird hour.
@OnionSoup it's not! the same person can see the exact same color as two different colors. for example, the center tile on the top face and the center tile on the shadowed face of this cube ARE THE SAME COLOR. literally open it in paint and color select and your brain will break.
@OnionSoup Not a joke, as far as I know. And I SWEAR I ONLY see white and gold in the picture. This picture, of the supposed dress being worn, is the ONLY time I see blue & black:
@LaVikinga What I was saying, the left looks the most gold, but even though the right one is dark, it still looks like gold at the top. It looks black, but I can see traces of Gold.
@hart No, it doesn't. How the fuck does anyone who doesn't have serious visual impairment see white or black in any of these images!? This is starting to drive me fucking crazy. This isn't a repeat of the Eggstension scenario, is it?
@joelmw I'm an outlier here, but I can see white, at least, because I'm used to seeing shitty cellphone photos from shitty cellphone cameras owned by people who think cellphones take awesome photos and have no idea what white balance even is. (Although the cellphone part of that is less important than I make it because even if people had swingin' full-frame DSLRs, they'd be using them in Auto mode.) Anyway, my brain is used to compensating for color temperature.
I've tried and tried to make myself see white and gold, but I can't. It's always black and blue. Normally, I can flip my brain back and forth when it's an optical illusion. I mean, I can see some lightness on the black based on how the light is falling and the blue is a light blue, but it's always blue. It reminds me of those old-timey photos where the black is not not really black...or when old pen ink oxidizes and turns brown...
It is blue and black... Such a useless waste of time debating... There are multiple pictures of this on the web which go extreme on white balance to keep the uselessness going...
The image itself, if you pick the individual colors off of the image and examine them what you get is Blue and Gold.
But the dress itself is blue and black. It's the lighting that is changing it to very pale blue and gold. If you examine other things that should be black, white, or grey in the image, you can see that they all have slightly more red and slightly less blue to them. Thus, the slightly more red and slightly less blue of the gold on the dress is actually a grey.
So it really comes down to your experience with fabrics, and how your image processing hardware in your head deals with weird lighting. It's actually easy to spot the blue in the area that might be white or blue, but it's just very faint because the lighting is muting the blue part of it, so it's only about 3/32nds more blue in the image than it is white. (but the lighting is probably muting about 1/8 to 1/16th of the blue that should be there.)
The Black part you have to figure out by looking at the dress on the left side of it in the background. That one is much more obviously black because of the waves that are pointing towards and away from the light. The ones pointing towards the light have a gold tint to them, while the ones pointing away look black. Really, if they had tilted the dress at all so that there was part of the black facing away from the yellow light, then it would be more obvious that it was black.
Still, I saw Blue and Gold in the image and had to reason my way to blue and black by closely examining it. It's a clever trick.
@Ignorant No way. I didn't do any software analysis of the blue, just picked one (top color sample) that looks close to me. Your suggestion (at bottom) is totally different.
@Lotsofgoats Indeed, where is @Barney in the midst of all of this. Some of the images look kinda purple to me, so you'd think @Barney would at the very least be expressing appreciation.
I think it's "officially" black and blue now, according to the women who took the picture. However, if you look at just how dark a blue the dress is, it's nuts, and frankly the original picture looks more like the "ivory" color: http://www.romanoriginals.co.uk/invt/70931?colour=Ivory
@BillLehecka What bothers me is that he's implicitly suggesting that the idiots be stupider, because he obviously has some room to improve with the drinking.
If you do a google image search (based on "visually similar") using the URL of the original dress picture, you'll find that google returns mostly blue images. Google agrees: It's blue and black.
If I put my face really close to the desk and look up at the screen, the dress looks nearly COMPLETELY black, much like the rest of the screen! My eyelids are stuck now. Must have gotten polar eyes-ed.
Here's the thing. It has to be blue and black because you can get white and gold from blue and black if the lighting is weird but there is no way you can get blue and black from something that is actually white and gold.
@christinerenee Sure you can. Ever hear of white balance on a camera? It is to correct for that so things do not appear blue (or any other wrong color) when taking a photo.
@Thumperchick Because, "“I pretty much got it because, I mean, I keep up with all the social memes and hysteria and whatever, and this is the only one that I really couldn’t wrap my brain around,”
Blue and black, only
@dave Blue and dark brown.
I love purple.
@dave I hate purple
White and gold, only
I love purple.
@dave I hate purple
First one and then it changed.
@dave And some color blind people probably just guessed.
What the hell are you talking about?
@dave My response here makes no sense now that you've posted the image in question. I hereby change my vote.
Are those kinds of pot?
I now hate my eyes, my screens, and that damn dress.
@Thumperchick I would've put the dress first on that list… thing is damn ugly, whatever the color!
I wish I didn't know what you were talking about.
White and gold for me, blue and black for husband.
I love purple.
@lisaviolet I hate purple
@anti_barney
I had to change my vote, because when searching for the picture I see it as blue and black now. WTF.
http://swiked.tumblr.com/post/112073818575/guys-please-help-me-is-this-dress-white-and
@Alien88 Thanks for the link, because I had no idea this was going on. So glad up I'm hep to the latest internet now. Blue-black. I tried staring for a while but it didn't change. The skirt stayed too long. Kept my original vote of wtf you talking about.
I love purple.
I don't understand how anyone could think it's white and gold. Is this some kind of color blindness test?
@christinerenee It has something to do with the lighting and our brains compensating.
@christinerenee This isn't what I read, but it gives a better explanation: http://www.wired.com/2015/02/science-one-agrees-color-dress/
@christinerenee i couldn't say it better myself
@primrosewater Interesting.
@primrosewater all three of those dresses stop the wired article look blue w/ black to me, just different shades of blue. I still feel like the Internet is punking me.
@Perkalicious I thought the internet was punking me too when I first saw a white and gold dress. I was intrigued, clicked on the original (maybe?) post and kept seeing white/gold. When I saw the blue/black I thought the original image was actualy a .gif or something. Nope. My brain just decided to see it differently after I looked at a bunch of images with the contrasts, etc. altered. So weird.
I love purple.
@christinerenee I hate purple
@primrosewater 70% of people see it white and gold, most of the rest blue and black (which it apparently is) and some see it blue and yellow or other weird things. Apparently the photo is over exposed and some people's brains compensate and other people's brains do not.
I saw it as white and gold, said how the hell do people see it as blue and black, read something about lighting, and poof when I scrolled up it was blue and black. While I agree with @christinerenee about wishing I didn't know, it is one of the more interesting things to take the internet by storm. (Which isn't saying much).
I love purple.
@primrosewater I hate purple
Doesn't matter if you were able to change it in time, you probably wouldn't have remembered to save it.
buzzfeed did a poll and 73% of people say its white and gold. So I guess there's something wrong with my eyes or the lighting or my computer or something.
But I still think it's black and blue.
@christinerenee Just because most of the people disagree with you, doesn't mean that they're not wrong. But you're wrong too. ;-)
I love purple.
@christinerenee I hate purple
fucking ugly. who cares what color it is.
@Headly That was my last thought about this thing before it popped up on meh.
I thought it was blue and gold.
@sykl0ps I saw that too at one point.
@sykl0ps @Pamela This is the only thing I see. I can believe that it's one of the other two things, but @dave, why isn't blue and gold an option?
I love purple.
@joelmw It is an option! Now, anyway. As in, people will vote on this answer if they choose this color.
@sykl0ps I see that too
It all has to do with how open your pupils are when you look at it. Kinda like those things you see that says "stare at the green dot for 20 sec and then look to the right" and you see a full color girl's photo. What color you see the dress as, depends on what you were looking at before you saw the fugly thing.
@hippiechik so what do you have to be looking at to see it which color?
@Kidsandliz meh I dunno...that was just my lil lame opinion :)
white & gold. And only white & gold. Ever.
I love purple.
@debraae I hate purple
It is obviously blue and black or some terrible lighting.
I love purple.
@jimmyd103 I hate purple
It took XKCD for me to figure out what you guys are talking about.
@Ruger9mm It looked more brown and periwinkle to me when I first saw it--just like it does in the image above, and I can see how some thought it was white & gold/tan with just some hideously bad lighting.
@LaVikinga I saw brown, not black, so there's that... Guess it's like snow, which isn't really white. Our eyes interpret it thus.
@Ruger9mm @LaVikinga Yeah, I for damn sure don't see either black or white in any of these images.
@Ruger9mm
for those who need help/proof with this picture
@Moose That's what I'm saying: this looks like light blue and brownish gold to me on both sides. Maybe there's something wrong with my monitor. Or maybe most everyone else is fucking insane and delusional. Yeah, I'm going with the second option. ;-)
@Moose Brown and blue!
I love purple.
@Ruger9mm I hate purple
@joelmw I see it the way you do
It blue and black. I don't care what anyone else says.
I love purple.
White and gold, and my wife swears I'm just lying about it.
I love purple.
we're shit at colors
http://www.ted.com/talks/beau_lotto_optical_illusions_show_how_we_see
alternatively, our brains are too good at injecting context into the signals received by our eyes
@Lotsofgoats I like the way you think. Having emphatically starred a couple of your comments in this thread, I thought I should take it another step. :-)
@joelmw hey thanks! I just think it's fascinating, but I'm lucky enough to have seen brief glimses of the white/gold even though I see black/blue every time I look for more than an instant. I imagine people who can't are frustrated with this even being a thing, because it's hard to conceptualize.
@Lotsofgoats I love the science behind it and the whole idea of deconstructing perception and appreciating the "gray areas" (so to speak). What I hate is the entrenchment on both sides, though, ultimately, it confirms a lot of what I believe about human nature (and politics, religion, etc.).
Also, color and perception are kind of a big part of my current job (making maps and preparing and delivering presentations), so it's something that has real, practical impact for me on a daily basis.
I love purple.
@joelmw "I love the science" "What I hate is the entrenchment" You're wrong. On both counts.
Was clearly white and gold this morning when I first heard about this.
Was reading an article that had pictures altered both ways. Then I could alternate it between the two by changing the focus of my eyes. Now I can only see black and blue. What a weird hour.
@MrMark you witnessed your brain subconsciously learning something in real time and that is extremely cool
I love purple.
@MrMark I hate purple
@dave you missed an option. Blue and gold...am I the only one who sees that combo?
@chellemonkey No, you're not! It seems like a clear case of a false dichotomy to me.
I love purple.
Is this a joke.
Even after reading wired article I can't see how anyone thinks it is white gold?
Is this some sort of inside joke?
@OnionSoup it's not! the same person can see the exact same color as two different colors. for example, the center tile on the top face and the center tile on the shadowed face of this cube ARE THE SAME COLOR. literally open it in paint and color select and your brain will break.
@Lotsofgoats ow! my brain!
@OnionSoup Not a joke, as far as I know. And I SWEAR I ONLY see white and gold in the picture. This picture, of the supposed dress being worn, is the ONLY time I see blue & black:
I love purple.
It helps if you turn the contrast up on your monitor.
@hart still, the right looks like gold, especially at the top
@juststephen The RIGHT?
@juststephen how can we even be sure that you hate purple anymore
@juststephen The right image of those three.
@LaVikinga What I was saying, the left looks the most gold, but even though the right one is dark, it still looks like gold at the top. It looks black, but I can see traces of Gold.
@hart No, it doesn't. How the fuck does anyone who doesn't have serious visual impairment see white or black in any of these images!? This is starting to drive me fucking crazy. This isn't a repeat of the Eggstension scenario, is it?
@joelmw I'm an outlier here, but I can see white, at least, because I'm used to seeing shitty cellphone photos from shitty cellphone cameras owned by people who think cellphones take awesome photos and have no idea what white balance even is. (Although the cellphone part of that is less important than I make it because even if people had swingin' full-frame DSLRs, they'd be using them in Auto mode.) Anyway, my brain is used to compensating for color temperature.
I love purple.
@hart I hate purple
)_( Not here... but of course I will see it here
Apparently MIT has a free online course to tell you what color it really is...
https://mobile.twitter.com/MIT/status/571325404377526272/photo/1
I've tried and tried to make myself see white and gold, but I can't. It's always black and blue. Normally, I can flip my brain back and forth when it's an optical illusion. I mean, I can see some lightness on the black based on how the light is falling and the blue is a light blue, but it's always blue. It reminds me of those old-timey photos where the black is not not really black...or when old pen ink oxidizes and turns brown...
I love purple.
@medz I hate purple
Nobody wants it to be blue and brown because they hate brown.
@katylava I see blue and brown.
I love purple.
It is blue and black... Such a useless waste of time debating... There are multiple pictures of this on the web which go extreme on white balance to keep the uselessness going...
I love purple.
@clselfridge I hate purple
The image itself, if you pick the individual colors off of the image and examine them what you get is Blue and Gold.
But the dress itself is blue and black. It's the lighting that is changing it to very pale blue and gold. If you examine other things that should be black, white, or grey in the image, you can see that they all have slightly more red and slightly less blue to them. Thus, the slightly more red and slightly less blue of the gold on the dress is actually a grey.
So it really comes down to your experience with fabrics, and how your image processing hardware in your head deals with weird lighting. It's actually easy to spot the blue in the area that might be white or blue, but it's just very faint because the lighting is muting the blue part of it, so it's only about 3/32nds more blue in the image than it is white. (but the lighting is probably muting about 1/8 to 1/16th of the blue that should be there.)
The Black part you have to figure out by looking at the dress on the left side of it in the background. That one is much more obviously black because of the waves that are pointing towards and away from the light. The ones pointing towards the light have a gold tint to them, while the ones pointing away look black. Really, if they had tilted the dress at all so that there was part of the black facing away from the yellow light, then it would be more obvious that it was black.
Still, I saw Blue and Gold in the image and had to reason my way to blue and black by closely examining it. It's a clever trick.
I love purple.
@Barney although you didn't type it, this time i read your statement as "tl;dr I love purple"
@kazriko I hate purple
@katylava Exactly!
@Barney ts;dr
If you didn't star white and gold it might be time for a checkup.
Ignorant So you're saying the dress is the same color as the background of this site?
@medz a pure white? No. Closer to snow hex #fffafa
I love purple.
@Ignorant No way.
I didn't do any software analysis of the blue, just picked one (top color sample) that looks close to me. Your suggestion (at bottom) is totally different.
@medz ok you win, I was just eyeballing in on my phone while out for a walk.
Just looking at it still looks like gold and a shade of white to me. But 0 is the actual amount of shits I give about the color of a dress.
@Ignorant Yes! (fist pump)
how do we have a thread about colors without anybody blaming @Barney who is clearly at fault here
@Lotsofgoats Indeed, where is @Barney in the midst of all of this. Some of the images look kinda purple to me, so you'd think @Barney would at the very least be expressing appreciation.
You've got a lot to answer for, goat.
@Lotsofgoats Maybe @Barney is upset that there's no Team Purple option?
@Thumperchick if I don't see a "purple/purple" reply I don't know what anything even is anymore
@Lotsofgoats @joelmw @Thumperchick I love purple, but not even purple would make that dress look good.
@Barney ok fair enough, and happy purple to you
@Lotsofgoats Happy purple!
@Barney Bwahaha!
I see Lime Green with Magenta....
I love purple.
@unoriginal26 Gotta say, that's kind of original. Now if you'd said mauve and teal . . .
@joelmw Black and blue, white and gold.
The dress appears to be in shadow, and as a result it looks white and gold to me.
I love purple.
I think it's "officially" black and blue now, according to the women who took the picture. However, if you look at just how dark a blue the dress is, it's nuts, and frankly the original picture looks more like the "ivory" color:
http://www.romanoriginals.co.uk/invt/70931?colour=Ivory
@BillLehecka What bothers me is that he's implicitly suggesting that the idiots be stupider, because he obviously has some room to improve with the drinking.
Remember, turn off F.lux before deciding. It was totally white/gold for me, then I thought to turn off Flux, and poof Blue/Black
I love purple.
@trilliongrams I love F.lux, and you are amazing for knowing it too.
If you do a google image search (based on "visually similar") using the URL of the original dress picture, you'll find that google returns mostly blue images. Google agrees: It's blue and black.
I love purple.
So this is what the internet community is up to at the moment? Perhaps I should get that landline phone dealie.
If I put my face really close to the desk and look up at the screen, the dress looks nearly COMPLETELY black, much like the rest of the screen! My eyelids are stuck now. Must have gotten polar eyes-ed.
I love purple.
@Barney i know you do, Barney, and I'm pretty sure purple loves you.
@SpeakerDoc Aww.
I vote for black and tan.
I love purple.
@Barney Me too but not for beer, unless it's
@BigBalzac Oh.
@BigBalzac Hear, hear!
Purple only for @Barney
@on I love purple!
Meh did it first with the socks that looked beige in some pictures and gray in others. ........
I love purple.
red
I love purple.
Here's the thing. It has to be blue and black because you can get white and gold from blue and black if the lighting is weird but there is no way you can get blue and black from something that is actually white and gold.
End of story.
@christinerenee Sure you can. Ever hear of white balance on a camera? It is to correct for that so things do not appear blue (or any other wrong color) when taking a photo.
why is everyone going on about the purple and gold... ok seriously I think the dress is #e5e4e3 and gold... too lazy to figure out the gold in hex...
@jqubed What's all this fuss about Black Falcon?
Why do people do this?
@Thumperchick Because, "“I pretty much got it because, I mean, I keep up with all the social memes and hysteria and whatever, and this is the only one that I really couldn’t wrap my brain around,”