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Author Topic: What color was the dress?  (Read 14854 times)

LenR

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What color was the dress?
« on: February 28, 2015, 11:42:32 am »

I saw white and gold (in what looked like cool shadows).
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digitaldog

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Re: What color was the dress?
« Reply #1 on: February 28, 2015, 12:31:01 pm »

This is one of the dumbest discussions of color in recent memory. I saw a number of sites showing the dress differently AND the bkgnd elements too, indicating not only is this a color management nightmare of image posting of untagged data, the RGB data is all over the map too. Optical Illusions as the Nightly News suggested? A group of awful, different, un-color managed images?

If any good comes of this silliness, maybe the masses who never considered that what they see from images on the internet can be horribly mangled will open their eyes to how unreliable the web is for posting awful images that are awfully produced can appear.
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LenR

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Re: What color was the dress?
« Reply #2 on: February 28, 2015, 01:10:17 pm »

C'mon now Andrew, tell us what color you saw the dress to be.
Remember, there.s no wrong answer:)
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: What color was the dress?
« Reply #3 on: February 28, 2015, 01:22:58 pm »

This isn't an issue of color (mis)management at all. It doesn't matter if it is tagged, mangled, etc. What matters is that two (or more) people, standing next to each other, looking at the same image, see it differently. That's what is fascinating about it. Being grumpy and dismissive isn't.

digitaldog

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Re: What color was the dress?
« Reply #4 on: February 28, 2015, 01:23:13 pm »

C'mon now Andrew, tell us what color you saw the dress to be.
Of course you're joking right?
First off, as I said, I've seen several different posts that all appear different due to what has to be processing and mishandling of the data and probably lots of other factors. 2nd, the color from each individual image you pick is easy to define; open in Photoshop, guess at a profile and examine the Lab values. Those are the color values, not the colors I necessary see per se. Color isn’t a wavelength or property of light. Color, is a perceptual property, something that occurs deep inside our brains.

Are the two color patches (A and B) seen here the same color? They appear different:

http://www.takegreatpictures.com/photo-tips/software-tips-and-techniques/color-management-and-your-display-by-andrew-rodney

This digression about the color of TS's dress is silly and illustrates that the web masses talking about it may have now (?) discovered the need for managing digital color!
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digitaldog

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Re: What color was the dress?
« Reply #5 on: February 28, 2015, 01:36:17 pm »

What matters is that two (or more) people, standing next to each other, looking at the same image, see it differently.
You mean just like this:

BFD!
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Tim Lookingbill

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Re: What color was the dress?
« Reply #6 on: February 28, 2015, 01:46:36 pm »

I kept seeing a black and blue dress.

But the way it's been shown in the media on TV has some versions lightened which still didn't change the color of blue and some TV coverage would show the same dress but in white and gold, but I didn't know if they were doing it as a demonstration of what others were claiming to see.

But when you find out the increase in sales of that dress from that particular dress designer/manufacturer, I think we all can figure out it was just a clever publicity stunt.

This has nothing to do with color management.
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: What color was the dress?
« Reply #7 on: February 28, 2015, 01:53:48 pm »

You mean just like this:

No, I do not mean "just like this." I meant looking at the same, single image and seeing it as vastly different, not just slightly changed shade.

P.S. Too early in the thread for your profanities.

Alan Goldhammer

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Re: What color was the dress?
« Reply #8 on: February 28, 2015, 01:59:07 pm »

Chartreuse and mauve
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: What color was the dress?
« Reply #9 on: February 28, 2015, 02:05:42 pm »

I think the story is extremely important and might have a very useful impact on the masses. It might popularize the fact that how things look to us is often a matter of perspective and perception. If our very own eyes play tricks on us and lead us to different and erroneous conclusions, it might open our eyes (pardon the pun) to how not just visual, but also cognitive biases shape our opinions. It reinforces the already known concept of unreliability of witness testimony. It might make people pay more attention to how things look like from somebody else's perspective. It might shake the confidence of those who think they are absolutely right in their assumptions, beliefs and prejudices.

digitaldog

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Re: What color was the dress?
« Reply #10 on: February 28, 2015, 02:08:10 pm »

I meant looking at the same, single image and seeing it as vastly different, not just slightly changed shade.
It is the same image and the same numbers. Just like the optical illusion you missed.
« Last Edit: February 28, 2015, 02:10:29 pm by digitaldog »
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Simon Garrett

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Re: What color was the dress?
« Reply #11 on: February 28, 2015, 02:12:19 pm »

No, I do not mean "just like this." I meant looking at the same, single image and seeing it as vastly different, not just slightly changed shade.

If we were all looking at the same physical manifestation of the image, then yes it would be about different people perceiving the colours differently.   

But that's not what's happening.  The image is being presented as RGB data of unknown colour space, and being rendered on a zillion monitors, most of them displaying the wrong colours. 

It's much, much more likely to be about colour management than about colour perception. 

My guess, what we're seeing is:

  • The white looks blue on monitors with high colour temperature white. 
  • The gold looks black on monitors with excessive contrast, or being viewed in high ambient illumination. 

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digitaldog

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Re: What color was the dress?
« Reply #12 on: February 28, 2015, 02:25:30 pm »

If we were all looking at the same physical manifestation of the image, then yes it would be about different people perceiving the colours differently.   
But that's not what's happening. 
Exactly! Further, anyone who wished to watch the silly report last night on NBC news should see what I saw, different representation of the same image that looked vastly different in the background part of the image where NO dress represents the image. It's like two totally different manipulated images. Of course they look different! 
Quote
It's much, much more likely to be about colour management than about colour perception. 
colour mismanagement.

Get real folks, just LOOK at just this screen capture (color managed) of the SAME dress from two different sites, do they match?
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digitaldog

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Re: What color was the dress?
« Reply #13 on: February 28, 2015, 02:33:47 pm »

http://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/the-science-behind-the-black-and-blue--or-white-and-gold--dress-405695555960

Just stop the video at around 42 seconds. Slight difference in exposure of the THREE renderings shown? You bet.
Kind of shocking that an audience usually so sophisticate about color, let alone image manipulation would even discuss such silliness. :'(
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: What color was the dress?
« Reply #14 on: February 28, 2015, 02:39:12 pm »

If we were all looking at the same physical manifestation of the image, then yes it would be about different people perceiving the colours differently.   

But that's not what's happening...

That IS exactly what is happening.

What you see on TV is a reporting about the phenomenon, not the phenomenon itself. TV end media are reporting about it AFTER it reached a viral status in social media. By the time you see it on TV, you are already a century behind the real event.

This is how it strarted (well, in my case at least): my teenage daughter comes to me with her friend and they show me a single image of the dress on one phone and ask me what I see. I say black and blue. My daughter agrees, but her friend is in shock as she swears she sees it as white and gold. That is what it is about.

Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: What color was the dress?
« Reply #15 on: February 28, 2015, 02:41:32 pm »

.... Slight difference in exposure of the THREE renderings shown?...

Jesus, it is like talking to a deaf person. It isn't about looking at two or three renderings, it is about looking at a single image.

elliot_n

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Re: What color was the dress?
« Reply #16 on: February 28, 2015, 02:44:17 pm »

Exactly. This is not about colour management.
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elliot_n

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Re: What color was the dress?
« Reply #17 on: February 28, 2015, 02:48:37 pm »

I've seen that same image as white/gold and then blue/black. The white/gold image was at the top of web news story. I scrolled down to read the story. When I scrolled back up the dress had switched to blue/black. I was so shocked I thought web designers must have switched the jpeg. They hadn't.
« Last Edit: February 28, 2015, 02:50:55 pm by elliot_n »
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elliot_n

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Re: What color was the dress?
« Reply #18 on: February 28, 2015, 02:49:51 pm »

The BBC invokes Wittengstein to sort this out:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-31662317
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bjanes

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Re: What color was the dress?
« Reply #19 on: February 28, 2015, 02:51:45 pm »

http://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/the-science-behind-the-black-and-blue--or-white-and-gold--dress-405695555960

Just stop the video at around 42 seconds. Slight difference in exposure of the THREE renderings shown? You bet.
Kind of shocking that an audience usually so sophisticate about color, let alone image manipulation would even discuss such silliness. :'(

More scientific analyses are given on Wired and the New York Times.

Important considerations are color constancy and discounting of the illuminant and these two color scientists do not regard the exercise as trivial.

Bill
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