The Dress

[Wolfe]

My wife and I just fought over this. I can understand where people get "gold" from the way the light hits the black fabric, but I'm gobsmacked that so many people get "white" out of the blue fabric. It's a washed-out photo, not an underlit one. The dress is casting shadows on itself. There's a garment with white fabric in the background on the left, same photo, same lighting. The fact that it's literally a blue and black dress ought to have settled it.

It's just...so blue. I'd have more sympathy for the white/gold crowd if they thought it was a very light blue instead.

When you change the colour of the background it makes the dress change colour, some peoples eyes disregard the background colour in different ways.

They look exactly the same to me.

 

[GTP_Ingram]

It's a blue and black dress.

The photo is taken on a poor quality camera, so the image is over-exposed, as is apparent from the background (compensating for this makes it more black and more blue than it already is.) There is even some sort of clothing with white in the bottom left corner of the image, which when compared to the "white" on the dress, makes this debate seem all the more baffling.

Plus there is the fact that both the manufacturer themselves have stated that it is blue and black, as have people who were present at the wedding where the dress in question was first photographed.

Not to open up another can of worms, but I've had a similar debate with people before over the colour of Valentino Rossi's race number. Some people seem to think it is green. It's luminous yellow.

 

[Famine]

The fact that it's literally a blue and black dress ought to have settled it.

The colour of the dress isn't relevant. The colour of the image is - and the image is off-white and beige on properly calibrated screens. I don't think anyone's going to say that the dress in this image is gold and white...

Using the original dress's colour as an argument is nonsensical - unless you want me to post a picture of my red car that I've Photoshopped to make it blue and berate you for calling it blue when the original car is red?

 

[Brend]

If people buy that dress as a result of it being viral for a few hours they seriously need to re-evaluate their purchases.

 

[Wolfe]

@Famine -- It seemed to me like plenty of people are arguing about the dress itself, not the image. Which is why I said what I said.

As for a "properly calibrated screen"...in a paint program, like the screenshot you posted yourself, the values for the "white" region are demonstrably a blue hue. That's the first thing I checked myself. Even looking at the photo from an angle on my laptop screen, so that it's extra washed-out, it's still very blue. Either way, like GTP_Ingram said, based on all other indications in the photo, the logical conclusion is that the dress is blue.

I would be lying if I said I could relate to how people perceive it as "white". It's blue any way I look at it.

 

[ViscousTraction]

I just strained my eyes and brain badly trying to see it as white and gold.

 

[Ridox2JZGTE]

Sometimes color can be a long debate Like this Murcielago 40th Anniversary painted in Jade Green, but some of my mates said it's blue with greenish pearl effect.

 

[Famine]

@Famine -- It seemed to me like plenty of people are arguing about the dress itself, not the image. Which is why I said what I said.

How are people to say what colour the physical object is from a photograph where the colours are not the same?

The actual dress is clearly royal blue and black. Do you see royal blue in the image, or just bits that are bluish?

As for a "properly calibrated screen"...in a paint program, like the screenshot you posted yourself, the values for the "white" region are demonstrably a blue hue.

And yet the blue value (188) and the saturation (29%) is low. The hue value of 226 is indeed blue (blue peaks at 240), but the low saturation and high brightness pushes it toward the brighter and whiter end. The indicator is well to the left of and above the centre.

Compare to a point sample of the promotional shot. I get 3344d8, with blue at 216 (H at 234 - very blue) and saturation at 76%.

 

[Blitz24]

Sometimes color can be a long debate Like this Murcielago 40th Anniversary painted in Jade Green, but some of my mates said it's blue with greenish pearl effect.

But blue vs. green (essentially what it is) is quite common. I doubt many people will have the argument when compared to asking if something is white or black (polar opposites).

 

[cjr3559]

If you have an iPhone with IOS 7, go to Settings > General > Accessibility > and then flip the switch 'Invert Colors'.

Voila, presto change-o. Blue becomes brown, and black becomes white.

 

[JR98]

I've maxed out the brightness on my screen and tilted it slightly downwards now it looks White and Gold. Gosh how bright do you guys have your screens!

I'm looking at it on my phone. White and gold

I'm a bit odd on this because I alternate. Sometimes I see White and Gold while other times I see Blue and Black on the same screen, sometimes even get Blue and Gold.

its whent from white and gold to blue and gold

 

[Soundtrack]

Little need for a calibrated display to consider or analyse a poorly exposed and poorly white balanced pictured.

Still, the (poor) picture of the (blue/black) dress remains blue and black beyond reasonable doubt, at least to my eye.

The only way for me to perceive a gold and white dress in there would actually require to invert the values of said picture.

 

[CSMDuty11]

Its impressive how one phone with a horrible camera can cause a massive arguement in the 'Murican community.





I refuse to call this a war, there are no real tanks, planes, ships, guns. or rocket launchers involved.
And calling it "World War 3" is seriously stretching it.

 

[Saidur_Ali]

I can imagine the scenario where people might use something like the Dulux Visualizer app to decide colour to paint walls and end up getting a blue colour thinking it is white. Yet to see it resembling white though, looks quite different in 256 colours. I suppose people will have their mind blown thanks to this dress going by the poll on here, what they might be seeing before might have been very different in colour.

 

[Ridox2JZGTE]

I used GIMP to firstly invert the brightness of each pixel, then invert the colors, here's how it looks, not other edit :

 

[Moglet]

I've seen it appear as both colours now, annoyingly. I quickly glanced at it on a mainly white background in a dark room and it was white and gold. I then viewed it at work in a brightly lit office and it was blue and black.

I still don't get the hype over it though, it's absolutely insane.

 

[G.T.Ace]

This whole thing makes me feel dumber the more I think about it.
Will mankind now analyze every bad digital photo on the web?

 

[SlipZtrEm]

I've seen it appear as both colours now, annoyingly. I quickly glanced at it on a mainly white background in a dark room and it was white and gold. I then viewed it at work in a brightly lit office and it was blue and black.

I still don't get the hype over it though, it's absolutely insane.

I saw it a few different ways, because naturally, people have been slightly editing it as it's gone viral. Which is more than a little frustrating.

The original, which doesn't have as saturated blues and blacks as some of the others passed around, is pretty clearly a poorly exposed and poorly white-balanced mobile shot. Depending on the lighting in the shop and the surroundings out-of-frame for the dress, it's not unreasonable the blues look white and the blacks look gold. It's easy enough to fool my iPhone into badly white-balancing a shot.

The dress is blue/black, but our eyes take the poor lighting into affect and tell us it could be white/gold. It's sort of like this visual trick:

EDIT: Confused myself just now!

 

[Grayfox]

Science Time
This video may explain a few things

 

[danbojte]

The poll should have a third option:

Blue - Gold (Brown)

This is how I see it and others too.

 

[daan]

unless you want me to post a picture of my red car that I've Photoshopped to make it blue and berate you for calling it blue when the original car is red?

But if you photoshopped Red into Blue, what colour would it be?

 

[TJ13]

It's not the color itself it's the ambient lightning making it look different colors at different times/angels making it appear to change colors. So if people would look at the science than what everyone else says it would make so much more sense.

 

[BobK]

When I first saw the image it was clearly white and gold to me. After seeing the full-length picture of the dress (which was clearly blue and black), the image appeared to be pale blue and a muddy gold color.

I'll view the image on a properly color-calibrated screen and see what my eyes perceive it as.

 

[Downhill Dino]

My friends showed me this and they all started arguing. I knew it what it was.

 

[Beeblebrox237]

I wonder, could this have something to do with matte vs. glossy screens? I've got a glossy screen and I see it as white and gold, but I think that on a matte screen it would likely look much closer to blue and black.

 

[DustDriver]

I've watched the picture on multiple screens in different rooms and to me it always looks blue-gold/brown.
Tilting the screen and moving my eyes can make the gold/brown appear black for a moment though.

So everyone who voted on the poll is wrong, the blue-black choice being the lesser of 2 evils

 

[G.T.Ace]

But if you photoshopped Red into Blue, what colour would it be?

If you photoshop a tree, but no one is there to colour it, what sound does it make?

 

[Famine]

If you photoshop a tree, but no one is there to colour it, what sound does it make?

More importantly, can it take off from a treadmill?

 

[Lizard]

Shall I wear it and we will see?


I see white and gold.

 

[ImaRobot]

@Wolfe My other half and I where also arguing about it. She saw white and an off-orange, and I saw blue and black. The blue is clear as day to me, which boggled my mind to see so many people saying white. The black is a little more understandable as the material that is reflecting the light is throwing off a brownish tint, I'm guessing because of the light source.

Here's a little article on the matter.