Not a joke, what colors is this dress?

On February 27 2015 14:32 Whole wrote:
Depending on the lighting/brightness of my screen, it appears either.

snip

On February 27 2015 14:33 Shiragaku wrote:
This appeared on my newsfeed
http://www.buzzfeedsucksdicks.com/catesish/help-am-i-going-insane-its-definitely-blue#.kuZP3yW3j

On February 27 2015 14:38 tokinho wrote:
"To be honest, I don't really understand the point of this thread though. ALl of this is going to change in LotV." "As far as I know, none of my clothes come from cambodia." "Do you jerk off to them?"---you are troll and troll like a troll.

Even the title is troll, you honestly just like to argue. will someone close this please>>

On February 27 2015 22:40 Ghostcom wrote:
You are late to the party. And the dress has been established to be actually be blue/black.

On February 27 2015 14:38 Ayaz2810 wrote:
In what universe is that blue and black?

On February 27 2015 22:16 Oshuy wrote:
Yeyy let's get stupid !



Compliments to xkcd, exactly the same as MarlieChurly's one, but with colors similar to the dress example.

Edit: the point of course is that dress color is the same on both sides, only background changes, like the tiles A and B exactly have the same colors in the first example.

On February 27 2015 23:20 Umpteen wrote:
This is a strange one. To me the dress itself is obviously blue and black, but I'm looking at it with a fuzz of lens flare and high-iso noise over the top.

The XKCD image does illustrate how our eyes compensate for ambient light, but it doesn't explain anything here.

Look at it carefully: the XKCD picture in which the dress looks white is in a dark blue environment, so our eyes say "That must be a very bright pale dress to appear the way it does". But the dress in the OP is in a very bright, yellow environment (like the right-hand XKCD image) - so why are people seeing it as white?

On February 27 2015 23:33 c0ldfusion wrote:
I still think everyone who says it's gold/white is a troll. -_-'

On February 27 2015 23:33 c0ldfusion wrote:
I still think everyone who says it's gold/white is a troll. -_-'

On February 27 2015 23:51 BallinWitStalin wrote:
How are people getting black out of this?

blue-gold for me.

The blue I can see people mistaking for white.

But I really don't get how that gold is supposed to be black.

On February 27 2015 23:58 SKC wrote:

People can see how lighting can add an yellow tint to the black dress. So even if it looks yellowish, they can see that the dress was originally black. The whole picture seems to be affect by an yellowish light.

The opposite is actually harder imo. I can't see how lighting would make a white dress this blue. Diferent shades of blue, like the XKCD pic sure, but it's always at least a light blue.

On February 27 2015 23:58 SKC wrote:

People can see how lighting can add an yellow tint to the black dress. So even if it looks yellowish, they can see that the dress was originally black. The whole picture seems to be affected by an yellowish light.

The opposite is actually harder imo. I can't see how lighting would make a white dress this blue. Diferent shades of blue, like the XKCD pic sure, but it's always at least a light blue.

On February 28 2015 00:23 linuxguru1 wrote:


How can lighting make black appear brown/gold? Black does not reflect light rays, no matter what color the light is.

On February 28 2015 00:23 linuxguru1 wrote:


How can lighting make black appear brown/gold? Black does not reflect light rays, no matter what color the light is.

On February 28 2015 00:30 Umpteen wrote:


Oh come on, really?



Coal would like a word with you.

Black is the color of coal, ebony, and of outer space.[1] It is the darkest color, the result of the absence of or complete absorption of light. It is the opposite of white and often represents darkness in contrast with light.[2]

On February 28 2015 00:30 SKC wrote:

You are taking it way too literally. With poor saturation/brightness/etc levels black can look gold. If you need an example, check the OP. A black dress looks gold.

On February 28 2015 00:28 Powerpill wrote:
Simple lighting and shadow

I always loved this example


A and B are the same color btw

Edit: someone beat me to it, doh

On February 27 2015 14:34 MarlieChurphy wrote:



That was fast, What pixel is it zoomed in on thoguh?



Rule #1000020 on the internet. Never ever link to buzzfeed.

On February 28 2015 00:28 Powerpill wrote:
Simple lighting and shadow

I always loved this example


A and B are the same color btw

Edit: someone beat me to it, doh

On February 28 2015 01:12 lolfail9001 wrote:

My brain honestly can't figure out how A and B are same color, considering that A is same color as every other dark cell and my brain refuses to accept that B is not light cell.

On February 28 2015 01:13 SKC wrote:

The letters. Not the cells.

On February 28 2015 01:00 Technique wrote:

This is something else though...

The picture of the dress is just a horrible picture.
In your example the real color shows up if you either eye drop it in photoshop or isolate it.

On February 28 2015 01:16 marvellosity wrote:
no, it's the cells

On February 28 2015 01:16 Plansix wrote:

The whole point of the photo is that the "real color" is based on how your brain processes the information it receives. It can receive the same information, but based on the placement of the color, you will get vastly different outcome. It also differs from person to person.

On February 28 2015 01:22 Technique wrote:

In his example yes.

The picture of the dress is nothing more than a bad photograph with very poor white balance...
There is no trickery going on... if you stood infront of it you would not see what you see in the photograph.
While the example he gave you can recreate in real life as well.

On February 28 2015 01:26 Plansix wrote:

But there are conditions where the dress would appear white and gold to the naked eye.

On February 28 2015 01:27 SKC wrote:

It would be very hard to create a condition where this dress looks white and gold to the naked eye
+ Show Spoiler +

The concept between those optical illusions and the dress issue is also still diferent. The illusions are something everyone can see, and most people can accept how it works. Two people seeing the same image but diferent colors is something new.

On February 28 2015 01:51 saltywet wrote:


except that dress is not the dress in the op

On February 28 2015 01:52 SKC wrote:

It is? Unless there has been some new development that I'm missing.

Here it is with the colors "fixed"
+ Show Spoiler +

On February 28 2015 01:56 saltywet wrote:


original pic has huge ass sleeves, the pic you posted has cut off. The "fixed" pic you posted is just a photoshopped pic, not an actual undoctored pic under normal lighting

On February 28 2015 01:52 SKC wrote:

It is? Unless there has been some new development that I'm missing.

Here it is with the colors "fixed"
+ Show Spoiler +

Also, the second reply in the thread already "proves" that the actual colors in the image are gold/brown and blue.

On February 28 2015 01:58 SKC wrote:

That's a coat. Not the sleeves. Here is another pic:
+ Show Spoiler +

On February 28 2015 02:02 saltywet wrote:



Here is an examp of how we percieve the blue as white:

http://img2.imgtn.bdimg.com/it/u=2891002381,3237060887&fm=21&gp=0.jpg

its clear as hell what color the snow really is

On February 28 2015 01:46 SolaR- wrote:
The first time I saw this it was blue/back from my girlfriends phone. Now I've been staring at this for the past hour and I can't see anything but white/gold. There is a light bluish tint to the white but that appears to be shade. I don't know how I was once able to see blue/black but now I can't. Now it seems crazy to me that people are seeing blue and black..

this is driving me mad

On February 28 2015 02:04 SKC wrote:

404

But if it's a picture of blue snow, it's a completelly diferent issue. The sky also isn't actually blue. Everyone can see Ice being blue in certain ocasions. In the same way we know water isn't blue. But sometimes it is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_ice_(glacial)

On February 28 2015 01:57 opisska wrote:
This is one of the things that make me feel too old for the internet. So many people comment on a completely mundane image of completely mundane dress as if it were the Second coming. What the fuck is so interesting about the fact that if you change brightness of a picture, colors look different, as well as if you take images with bad exposure? What is ambiguous about colors on an image which can be easily once for ever measured in any graphics program, as it is done at the very beginning of this thread?

I just don't get it.

On February 28 2015 02:14 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
It's a cute little illusion because of the poor/ reflected quality of the dress, but it's actually a black and blue dress.

On February 28 2015 02:26 Cheren wrote:


yeah it looks white/gold (but apparently not to everyone which is weird) because the picture's overexposed

On February 28 2015 02:26 Cheren wrote:


yeah it looks white/gold (but apparently not to everyone which is weird) because the picture's overexposed

On February 28 2015 02:40 opisska wrote:
I still don't believe there is any illusion at all. It's either people trolling to go along with the idea of the illusion, or just people with very badly calibrated monitors.

On February 28 2015 02:30 Daray wrote:


Your brain is just trying to create a context and it's one or the other, even changing when looking at it again. Apparently the most interesting thing in the internet this year, what a time to be alive.

On February 28 2015 02:45 marvellosity wrote:
Just saw it blue/black for the first time. Then it went back to white (or pale blue)/gold. Can't get it back to black/blue no matter how I scroll/look D:

On February 28 2015 02:47 MrMatt wrote:


If you look at the cow pattern fabric behind the dress you get the 'colour balance' of the scene. So you can see what white and black look like. since the dress doesnt have a blue spotlight on it it is blue and black. under with an over exposed yellow cast.

On February 28 2015 02:50 opisska wrote:
IDK may be it has something to do with the fact that I have done too much DTP and can not only see immediately roughly what colors are in an image, but also how bad it would look on paper in our cheap 4-colour print on various kinds of paper... but I just see no way to misinterpret these colours. The dress takes most of the picture, so there is no real way to "immerse" in the scene, making the rest of the image largely irrelevant - and then it's just two kinds of pretty homogeneous areas with pretty clear hues.

On February 28 2015 02:58 Thax wrote:


Oooooh. I was seriously confused. Thinking the squares were supposed to be the same color. I see the letters A and B as the same color though. Same with the xkcd picture. No matter the background they have exactly the same colors to me. At least now I know what that was all about when I saw it at xkcd earlier. I just saw identical dresses in different backgrounds and was a little confused at what it was supposed to say.

On February 28 2015 02:58 Thax wrote:


Oooooh. I was seriously confused. Thinking the squares were supposed to be the same color. I see the letters A and B as the same color though. Same with the xkcd picture. No matter the background the dresses have exactly the same colors to me (white-blueish and gold). At least now I know what that was all about when I saw it at xkcd earlier. I just saw identical dresses in different backgrounds and was a little confused at what it was supposed to say.

On February 28 2015 02:55 Orek wrote:
No matter how many times I look at it, it just looks like blue(violet?)/gold.
Neither white/gold or blue/black happens to me.

On February 28 2015 03:01 MrMatt wrote:


The tiles represented by A and B are also the same colour. Take your hand and cover up most of the drawing so you just see the two colours without context

On February 27 2015 23:33 c0ldfusion wrote:
I still think everyone who says it's gold/white is a troll. -_-'

On February 28 2015 03:03 opisska wrote:


We need to start building an underground substructure of sane people to rule the world when everybody else will lose their ability to percieve reality.

On February 28 2015 06:36 SkelA wrote:
Its black and blue ... how does white and gold is winning LOL?

Just look at the background there is too much light, maybe thats why you could see white/gold (wtf?).

On February 28 2015 06:46 Laserist wrote:
What black, seriously guys. Stop trolling , there is no black.

On February 28 2015 07:16 Latham wrote:
Honestly? I see it as white + bronze/light brown. I can settle on gold.
My mind is blown that people see black and blue there. I haven't yet read the whole thread, but before reading it i can only deduce their gamma of their monitor is fucked up O.o

On February 28 2015 07:27 phrenetiC wrote:
I'm beginning to think I've been trolled. I tried all adjustments of gamma/brightness possible on both monitors to make it appear black and blue... it remains white and gold/beige.

Only skimmed through the first pages of this thread. Have you guys ruled out dyschromatopsia? No clue...

On February 28 2015 07:37 PoP wrote:
Those are the three main shades of the lighter color in the dress btw. How some (most) people can see this as white is pretty amazing to me.

On February 28 2015 08:40 Mensol wrote:
why the hell people voting on blue/black?

lol.

On February 28 2015 09:00 Mensol wrote:


hmmmmmm.

On February 28 2015 09:23 JuneMay wrote:
I see blue/violet and brown/gold.

People who "see" black most likely saw true picture and trying to brag how they have super vision, when in reality people who see black are wrong. There is nothing black on that photo. Yea the dress is black and blue in reality, but in photo its gold blue.

On February 28 2015 14:10 ElMeanYo wrote:
The screenshot in the OP is white/gold. If you think otherwise, your monitor is not calibrated correctly and you need to do some adjustments.

On February 28 2015 14:10 ElMeanYo wrote:
The screenshot in the OP is white/gold. If you think otherwise, your monitor is not calibrated correctly and you need to do some adjustments.

On February 28 2015 12:12 Orcasgt24 wrote:
I see blue black. I have always seen blue black.

I read a theory that night owls like myself will usually see it as blue black but people who are more day people will see it as white gold.

I asked three other people I work with and they all see white gold :p So thats probably squished haha

On February 28 2015 15:33 CursOr wrote:
People aren't getting any smarter, that's for sure. Idiocracy here we come.

On February 28 2015 14:42 GreenHorizons wrote:


roflmao. The funny thing is that you are probably serious.

On February 28 2015 15:11 ZenithM wrote:

Interesting! I'm also a darkness kinda guy (I'm trying to make it sound cool but the reality is sadder) and I also see it blue/black.

On February 28 2015 16:09 ETisME wrote:
I don't know how anyone see black in that photo at all

On February 28 2015 16:44 SkelA wrote:


I can understand your point but how ppl see white in that photo ?????

On February 28 2015 09:23 JuneMay wrote:
People who "see" black most likely saw true picture and trying to brag how they have super vision

On February 28 2015 17:28 xM(Z wrote:
yea, people "seeing" black in that pic are such conformist tools.

shit is fake anyway because it's not about the white lighting (contrast/brightness) but about color filters added on top/below(behind) the dress which literally change its color.

On February 28 2015 17:47 Orcasgt24 wrote:

I see black because that's what my eyes see. That makes me a conformist tool? Sounds like your completely unwilling to admit that a low quality photo with a bright background to the right and a dark on on the left can result in human eyes filtering the light reflecting off the picture differently.

Or you are just a conformist tool for seeing white. Probably this one

On February 28 2015 17:47 Orcasgt24 wrote:

I see black because that's what my eyes see. That makes me a conformist tool? Sounds like your completely unwilling to admit that a low quality photo with a bright background to the right and a dark on on the left can result in human eyes filtering the light reflecting off the picture differently.

Or you are just a conformist tool for seeing white. Probably this one

On February 28 2015 18:52 WolfintheSheep wrote:
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that no one actually sees "white" or "black" there. They either see a darkish-brown and assume it's a washed out black, or they see a lightish-blue and assume it's white that's tinted by shadows.

It's a trick of context as much as it is perception.

On February 28 2015 14:10 ElMeanYo wrote:
The screenshot in the OP is white/gold. If you think otherwise, your monitor is not calibrated correctly and you need to do some adjustments.

On February 28 2015 19:17 Sbrubbles wrote:
I do find it funny how a lot of people get extremely angry at the discussion itself. I found the whole mess to be kinda fun. Also, it's white and gold (though I can understand the white has a certain blue-ish glow to it).

On February 28 2015 19:25 Umpteen wrote:


The dress is, according to the person who took the picture and the websites selling the dress, black and blue.

On February 28 2015 19:17 Sbrubbles wrote:
I do find it funny how a lot of people get extremely angry at the discussion itself. I found the whole mess to be kinda fun. Also, it's white and gold (though I can understand the white has a certain blue-ish glow to it).

On February 28 2015 19:34 Talin wrote:


Yeah, same. The whole thing was pretty fascinating to me, both the actual dress color issue and the fact something as mundane can get viral so insanely fast.

Edit: I suppose I can add to the whole thing by saying that it looks sky blue and gold-brown to me.

Did they see what they saw/see and conclude 'it is what I see' other peoples explanations and perceptions be damned ("They must be trolling, color blind, settings screwy, defective, etc...)

Did they see a dress/optical illusion easily explained and immediately say/think "this is stupid I'm not even going to think about this thing Please make it go away there is nothing to be learned here!" or "Here's the science stupids now go back to your day"?

Did they see both and try to mediate heated arguments about whether someone's brain/monitor/eyes were defective or convince someone that they weren't trolling when they said they can only see white and gold or blue and black or orange

On February 27 2015 23:55 Dingodile wrote:
I (still) only see gold/white as real colour of this dress. This white tends to be dark white & very lightly violet because she stays at sun-shade.

On February 28 2015 19:54 RookerS wrote:
seriously how can people say its white? the tl background colour is white? can you not see the difference in the colour of the tl background and the blue of the dress? i aint no eye scientist but im pretty sure i can see properly

On February 28 2015 22:23 quirinus wrote:
lol @ people seeing black.

it's gold or goldish-brown
+
light blue or white (depends on what was the lighting/shadow intensity)

I bet you were the one who, as a kid, was trying to eat crayons instead of painting with them

On February 28 2015 22:30 Poopi wrote:
Yeah but the colors on the pictures are indeed gold / light blue. Who cares what the actual color is.

On February 28 2015 22:47 PoP wrote:


Well when so many people clearly see it as the color it actually is (I do), then it's pretty funny to consider only the other part is right.

On February 28 2015 22:51 Yurie wrote:


If you check the third post, what colour is it at in the scale? On my monitor it is nowhere near black or white on either of the scales.

On February 28 2015 23:21 llIH wrote:
I still have no idea how anyone can consider that "white" color. Makes no sense. Blue is 100%.

On March 01 2015 00:23 Fi0na wrote:

here are some RGB-values from analysing different pixels of the dress:
100/105/129
130/146/182
125/134/160
140/148/184
156/175/200
163/177/211
071/080/112

So yes, while blue is the dominating color, it does not dominate by much. Yes, you get these colors if you use blue and turn on some knobs.

HOWEVER, if you use the HSL model (hue-saturation-lightness) you can quickly find out that the saturation is far less than 50% on the blue for every single one of these probes I took. Which means there is two to three times as much white than there is blue. Add to that the fact that the lightness is always over 50% (even more white) and it is very easy to conclude that white does in fact dominate over blue in this picture. Which is why it is perfectly reasonable to say that you see a white dress that is slightly more blue-ish and grey-ish than the white you are used to.

Now if you would factor in the brightness of the background you could come to the conclusion that the dress is more blue-ish than it appears at first sight. But just from looking at the dress itself it clearly is white. And if you say "but the original piece is actually black/blue" then I can provide you with a splendid picture to illustrate my point:
+ Show Spoiler +

On March 01 2015 00:25 SKC wrote:

And do some people clearly see that square as red-pink while others clearly see it as white as paper?

For the people that see blue, the blue is about as deep as the headlines in each post in TL. Not light blue as the background. It's not something reasonably mistaken with white.

On March 01 2015 05:22 KadaverBB wrote:
Please leave this thread open, it is harmless

On March 01 2015 06:47 Coagulation wrote:
chalz stahp
+ Show Spoiler +