POLL: Dress colors

[harrumph]

The picture is negbait.

[opusthepenguin]

Opus, I am confused by your implication that light blue somehow does not count as blue. The blue/green boundary can be vague. The white/yellow boundary can be vague. But blue (even light blue) and white are very distinct and separate colors in my mind.

As for the other color, it looked black to me at first, but after staring at it for while I think it looks more brown - maybe a golden brown, but not true gold. But the blue is certainly blue, unless you have a very loose definition of "white" that somehow includes light blue.

I don't think we're disagreeing. The actual dress is apparently a deep royal blue. The blue color in the controversial photo isn't. It's more of a periwinkle. I agree, as I say, that it isn't white, even though it appeared/appears white (with a bluish tinge) to me in the photo.

As for gold vs golden brown vs brown, I suspect that's a difference in nomenclature. Clothing in that color tends to be labeled as "gold," so that's the term that comes to mind when we're talking about a dress.

[Woof]

try changing the brightness on your screen while you look at the dress.

I agree that I can force the colors to look black and medium blue by darkening them. I also agree that the "white" part is more blue than it appears to me in the context of the picture.

Part of this might relate to the known phenomenon that to make a fabric look "whiter" textile manufacturer's add dyes that fluoresce blue. That's why your white fabrics glow blue under a blacklight. All-fabric bleaches also include blue fluorescent dyes in them for the same reason.

[cinemaniax7]

Yesterday and today, I've seen it as gold and light blue/periwinkle. In any case, it's not a very good photograph.

[This Is Kirk!]

But blue (even light blue) and white are very distinct and separate colors in my mind.

Go take a photo of snow in the shade with your camera's color temperature set for sunlight and tell me what color the snow is in the resulting photograph. So does that mean snow is really blue?

[dhkendall]

I showed it to my wife, without telling her the two choices (because I forgot, just thrust the iPhone in her face and said "What colour is this dress?") and she replied "tan". (When BMSed for a second colour, she added "and a light blue".) When I then explained the two choices that are going around, she then picked the "white and gold" option. (Because "black and blue" is obviously wrong. There's something not right with you guys who are answering that. And *I*'m the one wearing glasses here?)

[bpmod]

Somebody mentioned it upthread, but it really cannot be stressed enough: The colour of the dress is one thing. The colour in the photograph is another. The colour in a digital rendering of the photograph (if the original was not digital) is yet a third.

Brian

[TenPoundHammer]

I see it as magenta with green polka dots. Clearly I need my eyes checked.

[Magna]

I imagine some of this is our applying our own experience of looking at photographs taken in different conditions and interpreting what colors are being depicted. Here, the whole dress has some kind of sheen. In part, I think people are interpreting that (e.g., black with gold sheen, or gold with black sheen) based on our experience of how light plays off of fabric, and contextual clues in the photo. For example, if we see properly lit fabric with some shadows, it may look white/gold. If we see bright highlights or sheen on otherwise properly lit fabric, it may look blue/black.

according to "the science".

Fwiw, in this article's comparison photos, I see all three as being some shade of blue, plus (in photo #1) a very dark shade of gold, (in photo #2) very dark gray, and (in photo #3) black. In photo #1 I read the fabric as being light blue that appears lighter (but still blue) is due to the bright white light shining on it.

[Stanislaus Jacob]

I showed it to my wife, without telling her the two choices (because I forgot, just thrust the iPhone in her face and said "What colour is this dress?") and she replied "tan". (When BMSed for a second colour, she added "and a light blue".) When I then explained the two choices that are going around, she then picked the "white and gold" option. (Because "black and blue" is obviously wrong. There's something not right with you guys who are answering that. And *I*'m the one wearing glasses here?)

See, I feel just the opposite - the blue is non-negotiable, and since the other color is a vague muddy color at the black/brown/gold boundary, I am OK with "blue and black." Whereas you think the gold is non-negotiable and therefore are willing to accept calling the blue white.

[zakharov]

Can I post a thread asking whether a hot dog is a sandwich?

[BigDaddyMatty]

Can I post a thread asking whether a hot dog is a sandwich?

Asked and answered (sort of).

[triviawayne]

DO THESE LETTERS LOOK BLACK TO YOU?

wow, opus, calm down...I really didn't think my joke would go over the head of anyone on this site; however, if I got even one person to play with their monitor settings, then go me!

[Volante]

NOTE: This has nothing to do with what the colors of the physical dress actually are, only with the colors in the picture. I don't doubt that the colors in the picture can have been produced from a dress that, in the sunlight, is blue and black.

Exactly. I could ask what the color is of the dress in this image:

And you'd be wrong because the color is being misrepresented.

Spoiler

There's not actually a dress in that image...

As for the other color, it looked black to me at first, but after staring at it for while I think it looks more brown - maybe a golden brown, but not true gold. But the blue is certainly blue, unless you have a very loose definition of "white" that somehow includes light blue.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shades_of_white

I think I noticed the blue tint, but I also noticed how...off the coloring was and figured the blue might have been a saturation issue. So between 'light blue' or 'white' with 'gold' (because, let's face it, that's definitely trying to be gold in the photo) I'd say white. It may be a white with a touch of blue, like an azure from the link, but that doesn't immediately make 'white' wrong, it's more a 'i don't have an exact word or words to describe that color immediately at hand and you're putting me on the spot here and it seems to be trying to be more white than any other major color, so i'm going with white and can we go home already? you're making a DP cry.'

[ÕώÕ]

It looks blue and gold for me, But the gold is probably black.

I could be wrong though...

[Leander]

I see gold and white. The dress looks like it is in the shade, so I can be persuaded the white is really pale blue, but I can't see the gold as black.

I showed the photo on my ipad to my girlfriend and she immediately said it was black and blue. She told me she saw it on TV this morning and thought it was gold and white the first time she saw it

[Stanislaus Jacob]

I think I noticed the blue tint, but I also noticed how...off the coloring was and figured the blue might have been a saturation issue. So between 'light blue' or 'white' with 'gold' (because, let's face it, that's definitely trying to be gold in the photo) I'd say white. It may be a white with a touch of blue, like an azure from the link, but that doesn't immediately make 'white' wrong, it's more a 'i don't have an exact word or words to describe that color immediately at hand and you're putting me on the spot here and it seems to be trying to be more white than any other major color, so i'm going with white and can we go home already? you're making a DP cry.'

This is why I find this controversy fascinating - to me this paragraph is gobbledygook having nothing to do with the clearly blue and not even remotely white color of the dress. And yet I don't doubt that it describes what you actually see. Is there a much greater variation in human color perception than I thought?

[Magna]

The dress looks like it is in the shade, so I can be persuaded the white is really pale blue, but I can't see the gold as black.

What people perceive the lighting to be might be influencing this. I see the dress as being in direct light, which in my mind means the colors are probably darker than shown in the photo. If you think the dress is in the shade, you might think the real colors are lighter than the ones that literally appear in the photo. Here's an optical illusion that illustrates this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checker_shadow_illusion

[opusthepenguin]

Exactly. I could ask what the color is of the dress in this image:

And you'd be wrong because the color is being misrepresented.

Spoiler

There's not actually a dress in that image...

Spoiler

Well, the lady in the picture should put something on. We're not that kind of web site.

[Andromus]

I'm also not really seeing either of the poll choices when I look at the picture. My first impression on seeing the picture was light blue and a sort of tan.