What color is the dress??
Posted: Mon Mar 02, 2015 1:04 pm
You're probably sick of hearing about The Dress by now, I was before I fully understood the story, but bear with me because this is in fact something that truly deserves posting about. You just have to get past all the stupid drama that has hijacked the story. The photo iself is actually very significant, the fallout from it is just clouding why.
Let's throw away all the distracting and annoying theatrics surrounding this and go through just the meaningful parts of the story.
A wedding guest was looking at a photo she had taken of a blue dress someone had been wearing when a friend remarked that they saw a photo of a white dress. Disturbed by this, she posted the photo online and asked people what color they saw. Some said blue, some said white, and a war erupted across the internet.
That was where a lot of the media coverage went, and it soured people on the topic, which is disappointing because that isn't what the story here is. The people having dumb fights was a sideproduct, the actual story is in why the fights originated. There is a fascinating biological phenomenon at work here.
Here is the photo:
If you see a blue dress with black fringe you're wondering what in the world all the fuss is about.
But many people, including myself, see a white dress with gold fringe.
What is going on here?
It turns out this photo happened to capture a rare combination of elements which result in an image that doesn't project a definite color to the viewer. The particular style of this dress, when combined with the specific lighting of this photo, allows the individual brain of each person to decide which color to "see" in the image.
So what color is the dress really? It is blue and black. Here is a photo of one that doesn't mess with the brain:
And here is another photo of the same dress in question from that same day:
When you look at this photo, or if you saw the dress in real life, you should see it for what it is. But the specific lighting in the original photo just happened to be exactly right to leave the colors up to individual interpretation.
So the people who said the dress is white were wrong, because it is in fact blue, but they weren't incorrect, because they genuinely did see white. To get super technical, they should have said "I see a white dress" rather than "The dress is white" to be completely correct, but why would they have thought to make that distinction? This is an incredibly rare occurrence, the elements of the photo just happened to be exactly right to produce this ambiguous image. No one looking at it would think to consider it wasn't showing what they were seeing; that's just not something you question.
This gif adjusts the white balance of the image so that everyone should be able to see it both ways (first blue, then white):
Likewise this image directly contrasts the original image (center) with one that has been balanced to a level that should force white (left) and one that should force blue (right):
Now you can understand what each side has been seeing, and why they're so sure the other is crazy.
This image, captured by pure chance, is an incredible thing! This is a concrete example of how the brain determines what colors to show us and why some people interpret some colors differently. That's usually something you can only think about in theory, but people can actually see it here.
This is a good article that gives straightforward information on the real story without going into the pointless drama too much, and provides a scientific yet very clear and understandable explanation of why the color choice happens:This article goes into detailed analysis of the colors:
After studying the image a lot, I can actually bring myself to see it both ways. If I'm just looking at it regularly I see white, but if I look at it through my fingers or some other way that allows me to focus exclusively on the dress it changes to blue. So for me it seems it's a combination of the light in the background of the photo and the background of the screen that the image is displayed on that gets me. All together, the visual tricks me into seeing white. If I cut all that out and look just at the dress itself, I can see the true image.
Let's throw away all the distracting and annoying theatrics surrounding this and go through just the meaningful parts of the story.
A wedding guest was looking at a photo she had taken of a blue dress someone had been wearing when a friend remarked that they saw a photo of a white dress. Disturbed by this, she posted the photo online and asked people what color they saw. Some said blue, some said white, and a war erupted across the internet.
That was where a lot of the media coverage went, and it soured people on the topic, which is disappointing because that isn't what the story here is. The people having dumb fights was a sideproduct, the actual story is in why the fights originated. There is a fascinating biological phenomenon at work here.
Here is the photo:
If you see a blue dress with black fringe you're wondering what in the world all the fuss is about.
But many people, including myself, see a white dress with gold fringe.
What is going on here?
It turns out this photo happened to capture a rare combination of elements which result in an image that doesn't project a definite color to the viewer. The particular style of this dress, when combined with the specific lighting of this photo, allows the individual brain of each person to decide which color to "see" in the image.
So what color is the dress really? It is blue and black. Here is a photo of one that doesn't mess with the brain:
And here is another photo of the same dress in question from that same day:
When you look at this photo, or if you saw the dress in real life, you should see it for what it is. But the specific lighting in the original photo just happened to be exactly right to leave the colors up to individual interpretation.
So the people who said the dress is white were wrong, because it is in fact blue, but they weren't incorrect, because they genuinely did see white. To get super technical, they should have said "I see a white dress" rather than "The dress is white" to be completely correct, but why would they have thought to make that distinction? This is an incredibly rare occurrence, the elements of the photo just happened to be exactly right to produce this ambiguous image. No one looking at it would think to consider it wasn't showing what they were seeing; that's just not something you question.
This gif adjusts the white balance of the image so that everyone should be able to see it both ways (first blue, then white):
Likewise this image directly contrasts the original image (center) with one that has been balanced to a level that should force white (left) and one that should force blue (right):
Now you can understand what each side has been seeing, and why they're so sure the other is crazy.
This image, captured by pure chance, is an incredible thing! This is a concrete example of how the brain determines what colors to show us and why some people interpret some colors differently. That's usually something you can only think about in theory, but people can actually see it here.
This is a good article that gives straightforward information on the real story without going into the pointless drama too much, and provides a scientific yet very clear and understandable explanation of why the color choice happens: