What color is this dress?

[Itisamuh]

This thing has been annoying the crap out of me. The first time I looked at it, it was white (or possibly an extremely pale blue) and gold, maybe bronze. And I kept looking at comments, wondering if people were trolling, seeing no change. Then suddenly I looked at it and saw blue and brown, no change since then. At no point have I seen black though.

[Bryntrollian]

https://twitter.com/Adobe/status/571...491010/photo/1

[Regalbeast]

White and Gold. Anyone else who says differently is flat out wrong!

[Zoaric]

White and Gold. Anyone else who says differently is flat out wrong!

Oooor



(No idea how accurate this is. I see blue and a brown/black mix.)

[Dendrek]

MAIN COLOR: A light, heavily tinted (tint = a lot of white in it) blue. Or it could be described as white with a subtle blueish-violet hue.
SECOND COLOR: A desaturated, cool golden-brown.

^ These are the exact colors that appear on my monitor, btw. (Of course, depending on how your monitor's gamma, brightness, and saturation settings are adjusted, your monitor might display these colors differently than mine does.)

Simpler answer: White and Gold.

The "light blue" is visually interpreted as white because the of light source in the image and how our eyes interpret that. The light source is on the other side of the dress and happens to be an intense orange-yellow-based white. Since we're looking at the shaded region of the image (the side opposite the light source) the colors are saturated by the compliment (compliment = opposite) of the light-source's color. The compliment of orange-yellow is blue-violet. So the part of the dress we see is saturated by a light blue-violet. Our eyes are trained to acknowledge that effect in order to determine the underlying color. While we see bluish-white, we recognize that the actual color is white. So I can understand why there's disagreement on if the first color is white or blue. However, I can't imagine why anyone would see the second color as black (unless people have the brightness of their monitors set very low, the gamma is off on their monitor, or they have some kind of color blindness -- maybe green or red color blindness?).

One important thing to consider is that viewing colors on a computer monitor is not the same as viewing colors in real life. If you and I are at the same location looking at the same object, there's a high likelihood that we'll both see the same or a very similar color (it's not actually guaranteed we'd see the color the "same" -- but that gets a lot more technical than I am able to explain). But if we are in our separate homes looking at the same image on our monitors, there's a good chance we won't see the same colors. If you've ever looked at the display of TVs at an electronics store, you'll probably have noticed that some of the images are sharper, some are bluer, some are duller, and overall very few show the exact same image the exact same way.

For a similar reason, computer monitors usually do not display image colors remotely like their real-life counterparts. One thing you'll usually notice if you print an image is that the printed version is usually A LOT darker than how it appeared on your computer screen. Monitors usually have their brightness set very high. Also, the RGB (red, green, blue) of a computer screen cannot fully display all colors in their true-to-life hues. There's an entire range of colors in the visible spectrum that cannot be displayed on your monitor at all. Likewise, printers usually use CYMK (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black), which again do not display colors the same way RGB does.

TL;DR: Your eyes and your monitors, yo.

[Edit] It seems I may have been wrong about the light source. The image is being heavily tinted (white washed), which suggests there's actually a second light source somewhere behind the camera (or a reflection of the main light source from somewhere behind the camera).

[Chirri]

The dress itself is blue and black, but the image quality and lighting are absolute shit so people's brains are freaking out.

[Dendrek]

Oooor



(No idea how accurate this is. I see blue and a brown/black mix.)

I'm pretty sure some of that is wrong.

People seeing black do not have better eyesight. I can pretty much guarantee that. They're losing distinctions in color, not gaining distinctions.

- - - Updated - - -

The actual dress is black and blue. http://i.imgur.com/mFqCtOw.png The lighting is just messing with some people so they see white and gold.

I personally only see black and blue, though due to the quality of the image and the lighting at the top of the picture, the black looks a little brown at the top.

Well shit... I'm wrong then.

[Edit] Actually, I'm not wrong. My monitor literally shows the RGB of those colors as being in the ranges Blue and Gold. This isn't an issue of my eyes seeing it wrong.

[Jester Joe]

TL;DR: Your eyes and your monitors, yo.

My monitor does like to get randomly really dark when alt tabbing. I'm gonna blame that.

[Spiral]

Bluish white and gold. I've tried looking away and looking from different distances and it doesn't change at all for me. I am on a phone though.

[Foosha]

As with a lot of things in life, having the correct information, ie. in this context THE PROPER GOD DAMN LIGHTING would help. But leave it to tumblr retards who take everything on their shitty phone camera to believe its "quality". The lighting is shit, hence the picture is shit, and it leads to this illusion so to speak. If you look at the bottom mainly, and firstly, you'll see the darker colors (because the lighting is so, so bad. I cannot stress this enough).

[StationaryHawk]

As with a lot of things in life, having the correct information, ie. in this context THE PROPER GOD DAMN LIGHTING would help. But leave it to tumblr retards who take everything on their shitty phone camera to believe its "quality". The lighting is shit, hence the picture is shit, and it leads to this illusion so to speak. If you look at the bottom mainly, and firstly, you'll see the darker colors (because the lighting is so, so bad. I cannot stress this enough).

I think the lighting is the point.

[Chirri]

My initial take on it was white and gold when I saw it earlier tonight - the main image I saw was sort of cropped to only show more of the upper portion of the dress, and the bright light in the back on the right had my brain assuming and compensating for "lit from behind." which would cast white in a blue tone, and cool the gold portion. Rather than the blue just being a faded blue, and the black with warm light/crap camera turning brownish. Also, the order in which the color pairings in question were asked put white/gold first. (either way it was a terrible image, so the suggestion was all that tipped the scale)

The dress itself in the originally shared image only sort of resembles the dress sold through the website, which has a much stronger and more defined blue and black because it's their business to use good lighting and equipment to represent their products. They want your money.

In the end I can tell my brain to see it either way. But... I'll know it's blue/black. Or Light Blue and Brown, as the case may be.

[Viscoe]

I can't imagine how anyone sees that light blue/lavendar color as white.

It's blue and brownish tawny gold - almost bronze. Or just brown if you wanna be easy. :P

Fix your monitors!

[Gourmandise]

The dress itself is blue and black, but the image quality and lighting are absolute shit so people's brains are freaking out.

Don't people see that quality! The camera is pointing straight at a bright light source too, definitely messing with the camera.

[Boricha]

I saw white and gold, tabbed away for like 10 minutes and it's been black and blue ever since.

[Gourmandise]

I think the lighting is the point.

They're not teaching a lesson tho, they just look stupid. Just get someone who was there in real life to say what the colors are. I don't care about what the color is in a warped picture. Hell, EVERYTHING used to be black and white, i'm sure that didn't fool people.

[Lady Dragonheart]

White and gold, it's not illuminated the blueness is the shadow that its casting.

[Doctor Amadeus]

I shit you not its blue and gold anybody else see that?

[StationaryHawk]

They're not teaching a lesson tho, they just look stupid. Just get someone who was there in real life to say what the colors are. I don't care about what the color is in a warped picture. Hell, EVERYTHING used to be black and white, i'm sure that didn't fool people.

It's just to show how people perceive it differently. Do you really care what the actual colour of the dress is that much?

[Danuru]

For people wondering why people are saying white and gold (which is the only thing I can see. I can't see black and blue at all unless I turn down the brightness or tilt my monitor), Take anything that's pure white, and view it shaded against a bright background (you don't even need a camera to see it.)

Her's what I found with a quick google search of snow:


Now compare that to the dress. They are pretty damned close, in fact the snow looks more blue.

Edit: That was a lot higher resolution than I realized o.o