[sterretje]

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What Color Is This Dress?

Please don't kill each other about it. I have three uncalibrated monitors and they all 'say' light blue with brown.

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Last edited by Tom S.; 02-27-2015 at 08:16 AM.

[robtcorl]

Spoiler alert!
or at least I think so.



I read through enough comments to get to the bottom (or is that hem) of things.
On a laptop, tilt the monitor and it changes from gold/white to blue/black.

[Rimfiredude]

Light blue and brown with a gold tint. Lesson #1...NEVER USE A LAPTOP TO EVALUATE COLOR! Of course all monitors are different and keeping them in balance is another thing. Just walk into Walmart and look at the difference in each and every monitor on the wall. I still like the old way of doing things: Take a picture of a Kodak Scale Kodak Color Separation Guide and Gray Scale 1527654 B&H Photo and calibrate your monitor to it.

[photolady95]

On my uncalibrated monitor, it's blue and brown.

[robtcorl]

https://vine.co/v/O21nlFP9KKl

[mrNewt]

That is Purple-Brown (a muddy, grayish brown - that's why you get the effect of gold).

Photoshop color sample doesn't lie:

From what people believe is blue: #7e86b4
From what people believe is gold: #776443

Foot notes:
- The dress is ugly as... I'll let your imagination complete that sentence
- The picture is as bad as it can get (stop blaming the monitors, the photographer should be fired ).

[boriscleto]

xkcd: Dress Color

[UncleVanya]

My daughter and I looked at this on various monitors and phones and we see it different from each other on the same devices even those with ips screens.

[reeftool]

I have a calibrated monitor and I'm seeing a light blue and a gold/light brown color. I get the same colors also on my IPhone and iPad and on 4 different browsers, IE, Firefox, Opera, and Safari. The light is harsh and the dress most likely has some metalic fibers woven into the fabric to give it a shimmery look but also reflect strong light and give it the appearance of different colors. The gas tank on my Harley is like that. It changes color in the light and can appear anywhere from an orange to a dark maroon depending on light and angle of view. I don't see the black except in the very bottom of the "gold " bands but I'll bet that someone with a TN screen monitor looking at it from an angle could see something completely different. Every screen I currently have in use is of the IPS variety. I did see gold-white looking at the dress on one news site but never in the picture above.

[micromacro]

I see periwinkle and antique gold colors.

[Undot]

xkcd: Dress Color

The explanation from xkcd ist, as usual, straight the point.
It also explains why some see it a certain colour in the morning and a different one at night.

There's a much better photo of the dress on amazon.co.uk - and you can order it in two colours, too.
Roman-Womens-Detail-Bodycon-Dress
Roman Women's Lace Detail Bodycon Dress

[UncleVanya]

The explanation from xkcd ist, as usual, straight the point.
It also explains why some see it a certain colour in the morning and a different one at night.

There's a much better photo of the dress on amazon.co.uk - and you can order it in two colours, too.
Roman-Womens-Detail-Bodycon-Dress
Roman Women's Lace Detail Bodycon Dress

But it didn't explain what is going on when people viewing it on the same equipment in the same light see it differently.

[micromacro]

Honestly, I don't understand the issue. I've been photographing so many fabric and yarn with crappy p&s camera, with flash or not, and I know for sure that in the situation like on that picture there is the common color misrepresentation. I'm talking about that particular picture from the first link. Back light and most likely in camera flash- that's all.

[Undot]

But it didn't explain what is going on when people viewing it on the same equipment in the same light see it differently.

I guess it's like one of these optical illusions. It depends on what your brain first settles with, which optical clues it picks out to make the image "click":




But there's so much going into how we perceive colour. It even depends on if you had coffee or not or you got a cold, because that impacts how perfused your retina is.

[robtcorl]

The Science of Why No One Agrees on the Color of This Dress | WIRED