Sometimes things that are gray look blue to me, for example in the image on this black and white TV the sky, and to some extent the ground, look blue or blue gray. Do they look blue or bluish to anybody else?
The image on the black and white tv is most definitely blue (or somewhere between blue and cyan) in this picture. How it would look in real life to me, I don’t know. I might see a hint of blue in the shades by the window, but the ground doesn’t really look blue to me.
B&W TV’s have always had a cool cast. Even Blondie noticed it.
Ooh baby, I hear how you spend night-time
Wrapped like candy in a pure blue neon glow
Fade away and radiate
Fade away and radiateOoh baby, watchful lines vibrate soft in brainwave time
Silver pictures move so slow
Golden tubes faintly glow
That’s how I remember them – but the last time I actually saw a black and white TV was … oof … the 90s? (But I don’t remember them as blue as in the picture above. Cut the saturation by half and maybe something like that is what I remember.)
That’s because that image is not grey. The image on the TV screen has a blueish tint. This is what it would look if it were actually black & white:
A video I just watched is what prompted this post, but since most people don’t like clicking on videos I just Googled B&W TV images and found an example of something I’ve noticed for a long time.
Since the image actually had some blue in it, I’m going to guess that when I see something like that in the future that the camera (video or still) has something to do with it. Thanks.
All colour is colour, even ‘grey’ - which is a huge blanket term for a whole spectrum of colours. In design, we often talk of ‘warm greys’ (brownish) and cool greys (blueish). But greys come with all sorts of tones. Same is also true for whatever we might call black.
So, you’re not weird, and aren’t colour blind.
In addition to black and white TVs not producing completely balanced greys, both your eyes and cameras do white balance adjustments to make what your brain, or the photographer thinks should be white register as white.
Yep. Our brains color correct images, and they all don’t do it the same way. See the blue dress vs gold dress conversation from a few years ago. With camera white balance, the camera has to make an educated guess at what it thinks you want to be the white point. In the picture of the TV in the first post, you have a light source coming from the TV, which is probably on the cool side (over 5500K), a daylight source coming through the windows (around 5500K, though it’s almost all completely blown out to pure white), and the room ambient, which is going to likely be either some tungsten (around 3200L) or just pure diffused daylight, bouncing around wam colored walls and floor, which would make the effective white point on the warmer side. The camera will probably pick a white point of, I’m guessing, around 4500K (slightly warmer than daylight), so the apparent blue glow of the TV will come out even more exaggerated than it may be objectively. If the photo were framed such that the entire TV screen filled it, I would expect a neutral color balance and the blues would become [neutral] gray, or at least a less bluish one.
Wow, that’s a pretty detailed analysis. Thanks.
Yeah - my wife and one of my daughters have crazy sensitivity to this. It has ceased to even be something we mention, when she’ll say something like, “This yellow has too much blue in it.” WTF? Wouldn’t that make it green? 
As we walk our dog, she’ll often comment on siding/paint choices on houses we pass, saying, “That is too cool of a grey,” or “That grey has too much brown in it.” And don’t get me started on taupe - if there even is such a thing!
Have you ever seen one of those tests, where they display a huge number of hues and you have to place them in some order. My wife and kid just click away w/ 100% accuracy whereas I just say, “Wait - these aren’t the same?”
Yeah. I score relatively low on that. I’ve always had trouble telling blues and greens apart in low light conditions, where others had no issues. The test suggested I have tritanomaly, and looking at my 23andMe result I did find I have one copy of an allele associated with that.
A guy I went to school with became an actor in a hospital Soap. He told me that all the white coats, white sheets etc, were actually light blue as that showed up better as white on a B&W TV.
They had to be careful about patterns too- - no zigzags or small dots for example/
It’s not uncommon for “white paint” to have a little blue mixed in to make it appear brighter. If you know any old folks, ask them about adding “blueing” to the laundry when washing sheets and such.
My dad had a jacket that he said was grey and my mom said was green (or vice versa, doesn’t matter). It was a friendly debate for years–“I’m going to wear my grey jacket” “You mean your green one?” etc.
One year the dry cleaner around the corner had a St. Patrick’s Day special, where anything green was half price. My dad saw it and said, “We’ll let them be the arbiter”.
In he went, and came back to report that while they gave the discount, they described it as “grey-green”. Did not resolve the debate.
My mother used to add “Reckitts Blue” to the wash.
You can still buy it: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Reckitts-Blue-Bluing-Tablet-14g/dp/B00DN7KIHM