Who remembers this?
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It’s not though, it’s about the picture. We don’t have access to the dress only a digital representation which objectively is a very pale blue and brown, not black and blue.
I gave some of the reasoning as to why this happened in my original comment, but given you’ve doubled down on ‘interpreting the lighting correctly’ and that people are just ‘bad at looking at things’ I guess it’s a bit above your pay grade.
Nonononono, you are wrong. The question has always been "is this DRESS this color or this color?" NEVER EVER has the question been "Is this PICTURE of the dress this color or this color?
I doubled down on... being correct? I mean. That's what happened. I interpreted the lighting correctly. So... go ahead and argue against that?
What do you mean you gave your reasoning? You're talking about how you explained how some people interpreted the lighting incorrectly because they are bad at looking at things?
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Just asked my kids (Not around for the first time). One says blue and black/gray and the other said purple and green/gray. I've never known anyone who actually saw it as white and gold. Only heard that people do.
It's white/gold if you recognize that it's lit from behind. So the dress appearing darker is due to there being much less light on it than the stuff behind it.
I can't see it as blue/black because I can't make my brain ignore the fact that it's backlit. But if your brain never recognizes that, then I suppose it would look blue.
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You missed the whole point. If I take a white dress and then shine a blue lamp on it, then take a photo.The pixels will be 100% blue, but would that mean the dress itself is blue?
But you can clearly see that the lighting is bright yellow-white, not blue...
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It’s not though, it’s about the picture. We don’t have access to the dress only a digital representation which objectively is a very pale blue and brown, not black and blue.
I gave some of the reasoning as to why this happened in my original comment, but given you’ve doubled down on ‘interpreting the lighting correctly’ and that people are just ‘bad at looking at things’ I guess it’s a bit above your pay grade.
Sorry, forgot to clarify in my last post:
How, exactly, is the lighting ambiguous? The entire picture is covered in golden light.
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Nonononono, you are wrong. The question has always been "is this DRESS this color or this color?" NEVER EVER has the question been "Is this PICTURE of the dress this color or this color?
I doubled down on... being correct? I mean. That's what happened. I interpreted the lighting correctly. So... go ahead and argue against that?
What do you mean you gave your reasoning? You're talking about how you explained how some people interpreted the lighting incorrectly because they are bad at looking at things?
It is a picture of a dress. It’s not a real dress. It’s a
digital representation. Any question posted alongside it is regarding the digital representation obviously as it is not a real dress in front of us.You doubled down on lacking the depth to understand what’s actually going on and why you cannot see the true pixels displayed when others can.
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That's... literally not what this phenominon is about, either. Talk about missing the point.
It's exactly the point. White fabric will appear blue in blue light, which is why some people see this white dress and think it's blue.
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Sorry, forgot to clarify in my last post:
How, exactly, is the lighting ambiguous? The entire picture is covered in golden light.
The image has a strong yellowish tone, but there’s no clear source of light, no visible shadows, no specular highlights, and no environmental cues like windows or lamps. The background is a blown-out mess of overexposure, and the lighting direction is totally unclear.
Some people’s brains interpret that yellow cast as warm lighting falling on a blue and black dress. Others interpret it as cool shadow across a white and gold dress. That’s why it’s ambiguous — the image lacks the kind of contextual clues we usually use to judge lighting. What you see as a scene bathed in golden light is your brain choosing one of two plausible explanations and running with it.
If the lighting were actually obvious, this would never have gone viral.
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Nope. Color cannot be measured, it is created in the brain. Pickers show pixel values (stimulus) and often don't correlate to the experienced color.
But you could use one I think, and then have that colour isolated and then dump it somewhere
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Oh wild. When I first saw this on lemmy it was white and gold. Then I clicked the image and looked and thought, "yeah, that's what I figured." Then I scrolled up and it was blue and brown. Can see white and gold again. Fun.
I looked at this a few hours back when the sun was shining. Obviously white and gold, no question. Looked at it again just now after the sun went down and the house was darker. It's blue and black. I can't see how it could be white and gold. I'm not sure if this is some joke and I'm being fucked with here, so I've downloaded the image and I'll take another look when the sun's shining again.
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It is a picture of a dress. It’s not a real dress. It’s a
digital representation. Any question posted alongside it is regarding the digital representation obviously as it is not a real dress in front of us.You doubled down on lacking the depth to understand what’s actually going on and why you cannot see the true pixels displayed when others can.
Yeah, buddy, sorry. You're wrong. The debate was solved when the store selling the dress came out and said it was black and blue. You, and maybe some other people who have particularly literal interpretations of things, may have misunderstood the debate entirely from the beginning. It seems that's the case.
I already established that I wouldn't argue against pixel values on the picture matching white and gold. I believe you.
People that are arguing that they see black and blue DO SEE THE WHITE AND GOLD that is literally present in the picture DUE TO THE EXPOSURE. They just know it's obviously black and blue, because they can look at it and interpret it correctly.
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It appears white/gold to me on it's own, I've never been able to see anything different.
Grabbing this specific image and sampling the colours though; they appear more of a grey/brown colour. I can sorta maybe understand blue, but definitely not black.
This is just using Polish photo editor on android:
It's funny how people will keep barking about it even when you slap them in the face with color picker which is mathematical display of the color. There is no "how brain is seeing things". It's literally WHAT THE COLOR IS. To call white with faint blue tint "blue" and what is clearly a "gold" shade can't possibly be black. If photo was heavily manipulated through photo editing or lighting, that doesn't prove anything at all. Or the question was stupid. No one was really asking "what color is the dress", they were asking what colors are on the photo. And photo has no relation to the real dress because of light conditions manipulation or even photo editing.
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If theyre the same color, why can i see the black outlines way clearer in the yellow dress w/ blue tint side ?
wrote last edited by [email protected]That would be because the outlines themselves are not the same colors, just the blue/white and black/yellow sections. Here's an image I quickly edited with the outlines and skin removed, so you can see just how much an effect they have on the image. Both dresses still look normal, but they no longer look like completely different colors when compared together this way.
(edit): And here's the same image with the outer boxes removed, to show how much the lighting is affecting things, where one of the dresses just looks completely wrong to me now.
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But you could use one I think, and then have that colour isolated and then dump it somewhere
You cannot measure perception with a color picker. Eyes + brain is not a measurement instrument.
Just like you cannot measure amount of salt used in a dish with your tongue.
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The image has a strong yellowish tone, but there’s no clear source of light, no visible shadows, no specular highlights, and no environmental cues like windows or lamps. The background is a blown-out mess of overexposure, and the lighting direction is totally unclear.
Some people’s brains interpret that yellow cast as warm lighting falling on a blue and black dress. Others interpret it as cool shadow across a white and gold dress. That’s why it’s ambiguous — the image lacks the kind of contextual clues we usually use to judge lighting. What you see as a scene bathed in golden light is your brain choosing one of two plausible explanations and running with it.
If the lighting were actually obvious, this would never have gone viral.
It's hard for me to agree it's ambiguous because to me, the lighting is pretty clearly coming from the direction of the camera, since that's how exposure works.
Yeah, so I'm better at looking at things. My brain chose the right solution. Skill issue for white and gold people, sorry.
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It's hard for me to agree it's ambiguous because to me, the lighting is pretty clearly coming from the direction of the camera, since that's how exposure works.
Yeah, so I'm better at looking at things. My brain chose the right solution. Skill issue for white and gold people, sorry.
The whole reason The Dress became a phenomenon is because there’s just enough visual ambiguity to make multiple interpretations plausible. That doesn’t mean your perception is more accurate — it just means your brain committed quickly to one version and stuck with it. Congrats, but calling it a skill issue only shows a lack of understanding about how perception works. If this were about raw visual ability, neuroscientists wouldn’t still be studying it. You didn’t “solve” anything — you just landed on one of two stable percepts and assumed it was the only correct one. And funnily enough, seeing it as white and gold might actually reflect a system tuned to compensate more for low-light environments, possibly allowing better function in situations where light is limited. So if anything, you might be the one running on default settings.
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It's white/gold if you recognize that it's lit from behind. So the dress appearing darker is due to there being much less light on it than the stuff behind it.
I can't see it as blue/black because I can't make my brain ignore the fact that it's backlit. But if your brain never recognizes that, then I suppose it would look blue.
Does it help that you can see the shadows of the sleeves on the body of the dress? There has to be light in front and above for that to happen.
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The whole reason The Dress became a phenomenon is because there’s just enough visual ambiguity to make multiple interpretations plausible. That doesn’t mean your perception is more accurate — it just means your brain committed quickly to one version and stuck with it. Congrats, but calling it a skill issue only shows a lack of understanding about how perception works. If this were about raw visual ability, neuroscientists wouldn’t still be studying it. You didn’t “solve” anything — you just landed on one of two stable percepts and assumed it was the only correct one. And funnily enough, seeing it as white and gold might actually reflect a system tuned to compensate more for low-light environments, possibly allowing better function in situations where light is limited. So if anything, you might be the one running on default settings.
Raw visual ability is funny. You're a silly guy.
It's a skill issue, sorry.
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Yeah, buddy, sorry. You're wrong. The debate was solved when the store selling the dress came out and said it was black and blue. You, and maybe some other people who have particularly literal interpretations of things, may have misunderstood the debate entirely from the beginning. It seems that's the case.
I already established that I wouldn't argue against pixel values on the picture matching white and gold. I believe you.
People that are arguing that they see black and blue DO SEE THE WHITE AND GOLD that is literally present in the picture DUE TO THE EXPOSURE. They just know it's obviously black and blue, because they can look at it and interpret it correctly.
Everyone agrees the physical dress is black and blue. That was never the actual debate. The reason this became a global phenomenon is because the photo is so overexposed and lacking in lighting cues that different people genuinely perceive different colors. It’s not about being literal or mistaken — it’s about how the brain interprets visual ambiguity.
Saying black and blue viewers “see” white and gold but just know better doesn’t line up with the research or lived experience of the people who see it differently. Many white and gold viewers don’t consciously override anything — they see pale blue and brownish gold as stable, consistent colors. And those are close to the actual pixel values. So in terms of what’s present in the image, their perception is just as grounded as anyone else’s.
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I looked at this a few hours back when the sun was shining. Obviously white and gold, no question. Looked at it again just now after the sun went down and the house was darker. It's blue and black. I can't see how it could be white and gold. I'm not sure if this is some joke and I'm being fucked with here, so I've downloaded the image and I'll take another look when the sun's shining again.
Another fun trick is being able to flip which way you think the ballerina is spinning. I used to be able to do it. Helluva time right now, though.
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It's white/gold if you recognize that it's lit from behind. So the dress appearing darker is due to there being much less light on it than the stuff behind it.
I can't see it as blue/black because I can't make my brain ignore the fact that it's backlit. But if your brain never recognizes that, then I suppose it would look blue.
They established that its blue and black. I see white and gold but the actual colour was never the debate.
