Nobody is being stupid and people are actually seeing different colors. This is an example of a color constancy effect, and the changing colors upon given different information is a more subtle, somewhat related version of the McCollough effect.
Basically, ‘color’ isn’t real. Different wavelengths of light are real, but how your brain perceives them is a learned phenomenon. Like many other illusions manufactured by your brain, context matters, and the perception of the colors themselves becomes a relative, not objective, phenomenon. It’s all in your head.
The dress is blue and black in most lighting circumstances. In some, you can get strange cues that play with your brain. Don’t worry about it, just enjoy the experience.
Is a fun color illusion, I hope to one day see the blue version, I am stuck because my eyes can only see the white and gold version.
Is interesting the reaction of people, specially “deniers”.
When I first saw the image, the dress appeared white and gold. It looked like the dress was mostly in shadow, with a weak blue-coloured light illuminating the front. An hour later, the colour switched in the middle of reading an article and now I can’t see it the other way. The effect was so striking that I went back and looked at a copy of the image that I had saved locally to assure myself that they didn’t change the linked image on the web page.
If you look at the bottom half, it’s easy to see black and blue. If you look at the top half, it’s easy to see white and gold. Just scroll the image on your screen blocking out one half or the other.
It’s largely because the material at the top is sheer and with the light passing through does in fact appear gold or copper. Even the Wired color measurement demonstrates this. It’s the gradual shift of light and the elimination of the sheer material as you scan down that causes the ‘flip’.
What’s weird is that I absolutely cannot see anything but the blue and black. Even the color-corrected versions that supposedly tilt the image one way or the other, just look like different shades of blue to me.
You’re so stupid. What’s wrong with you?
My eyes are broken.
^^ Looks like purple and yellow
That’s obviously blue and black.
FUCK, it just flipped for me. Sooo creepy. Quick, tell me how to flip back!
It was impossible to see the blue/black until I did this. Now it’s a like a kaleidoscope seeing the color change as I scroll back and forth.
Try looking at the top half, but once your brain gets it locked in you’ll only see blue/black after a point.
Once it flipped for me, I saw it once ever again as white, now I never do.
I can only see white and gold (though the white has a bluish tint). Trying the tricks everyone relates does nothing for me. I never see it as blue/black (except on the website where the dress is sold, obviously).
Photoshop’s eyedropper tool says it’s gold and light blue.
I think mine got three votes.
And Photoshop voted for it, too.
What do I win?
It’s clearly octarine.
Place your finger on the image and block the division between the blocks and note how the color changes. It’s a more clear example of exactly how much of your color perception is based on what your brain is doing rather than the data your eyes are feeding it.
That’s hardly necessary, since the original photo does in fact have a strong blueish tint. I see it as pretty much exactly what the eyedropper tools says it is-- stripes of yellowish-brown and blueish-white. Anyone whose brain manages to somehow parse yellow-brown as BLACK has problems exceeding the bounds of this thread.