# What color is this dress? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 27, 2015, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742 "2015-02-27T02:07:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 15
**Author:** ![Ellis\_Aponte\_Jr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@Ellis\_Aponte\_Jr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellis_Aponte_Jr)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742/281 "2015-03-02T15:43:28Z")
I see it always and from any angle as periwinkle & mustard/bronze. So now I don’t know whether I have a somewhat uncommon ability to see colors in their actual RGB values, or a mental glitch that prevents me from correcting an image to see colors as they are in real life. One thing I’m curious about. The blue & black crowd are “correct” in this case, but could there be a different case in which the white & gold people are correct, or is their mental calibration simply off? Also, is there anyone who sees the dress as black & white? And one more question… if the dress were cut out from the background and people just looked at the image of the dress, would everyone see it the same? ---
**Author:** ![Ellis\_Aponte\_Jr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@Ellis\_Aponte\_Jr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellis_Aponte_Jr)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742/282 "2015-03-02T15:59:10Z")
> [@Flywheel](#): > > An odd question for the “blue and gold” people: do you mishear song lyrics more often than most people? I wonder if there might be a similar process at work in both cases (amateur neuroscientist time…): your brain says “that’s what I perceive, so I guess that’s that,” rather than “hold on, that can’t possibly be right!”. That’s like the Seinfeld episode when Elaine brings up the song “Witchy Woman,” which Jerry doesn’t recognize until she sings it and he says, “ah… Witch-_ay_ Woman.” Jerry is hearing the lyric as it actually sounds whereas Elaine is mentally correcting to make it logical. (So Jerry = blue & gold people and Elaine = blue & black people). ---
**Author:** ![Macca26](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/13edae/32.png) [@Macca26](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Macca26)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742/283 "2015-03-02T16:35:20Z")
> [@Flywheel](#): > > An odd question for the “blue and gold” people: do you mishear song lyrics more often than most people? I wonder if there might be a similar process at work in both cases (amateur neuroscientist time…): your brain says “that’s what I perceive, so I guess that’s that,” rather than “hold on, that can’t possibly be right!”. > > For the record, I’m still unable to see the dress as anything other than blue and gold. I’m a “light blue and bronze dress” person. I do in fact have a lot of trouble with song lyrics. I know that I’m supposed to be parsing for correct words but a good deal of the time I can’t make out what they’re supposed to be without reading them while listening to the song. Otherwise, it’s not that they make real lyrics to me, it’s just a bunch of sounds that almost sound like words (unless the singer is particularly clear). When I try to parse it into real words I often make the wrong choices. I like foreign language music a lot because then I can stop trying to make lyrics and instead just listen to the music and the sounds and enjoy them plainly. ---
**Author:** ![Monocracy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monocracy/32/4493_2.png) [@Monocracy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monocracy)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742/284 "2015-03-02T16:41:48Z")
> [@Ellis\_Aponte\_Jr](#): > > That’s like the Seinfeld episode when Elaine brings up the song “Witchy Woman,” which Jerry doesn’t recognize until she sings it and he says, “ah… Witch-_ay_ Woman.” Jerry is hearing the lyric as it actually sounds whereas Elaine is mentally correcting to make it logical. (So Jerry = blue & gold people and Elaine = blue & black people). Why would Jerry be blue & gold? If he sees the pixels as they actually are, he would be gray-blue and deep bronze. I don’t understand why everyone keeps referring to the actual color in the picture as gold, unless they’re going by the misleading xkcd comic which took the yellowest pixel they could find to create a swatch. ---
**Author:** ![Ellis\_Aponte\_Jr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@Ellis\_Aponte\_Jr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellis_Aponte_Jr)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742/285 "2015-03-02T16:48:45Z")
> [@Monocracy](#): > > Why would Jerry be blue & gold? If he sees the pixels as they actually are, he would be gray-blue and deep bronze. I don’t understand why everyone keeps referring to the actual color in the picture as gold, unless they’re going by the misleading xkcd comic which took the yellowest pixel they could find to create a swatch. You’re right, that’s what I meant - I was just using the shorthand “blue & gold” that **Flywheel** used. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742/286 "2015-03-02T17:11:46Z")
As a white-and-gold viewer, I have screwed my hand into a tiny tube, looked at different parts of the picture, and seen…white and gold. Also, three of my family members see white and gold, and the other two think we’re crazy. I wish my eyes would convert to blue and black so I could just move on. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742/287 "2015-03-02T17:21:37Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#): > > As a white-and-gold viewer, I have screwed my hand into a tiny tube, looked at different parts of the picture, and seen…white and gold. Also, three of my family members see white and gold, and the other two think we’re crazy. > > I wish my eyes would convert to blue and black so I could just move on. Seriously. And if that frustration weren’t enough, I now have \*\*Witchy Woman \*\*stuck in my head. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742/288 "2015-03-02T17:28:01Z")
White/golders, what color is the original dress? [http://starcasm.net/archives/308050](http://starcasm.net/archives/308050) Scroll down to the other pics of the dress. ---
**Author:** ![Sicks\_Ate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Sicks\_Ate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sicks_Ate)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742/289 "2015-03-02T17:44:08Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > White/golders, what color is the original dress? > > [PHOTOS Proof that ‘The Dress’ is black and blue, not gold and white – Starcasm](http://starcasm.net/archives/308050) > > Scroll down to the other pics of the dress. Dark blue and black. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742/290 "2015-03-02T18:53:24Z")
> [@Ellis\_Aponte\_Jr](#): > > I see it always and from any angle as periwinkle & mustard/bronze. So now I don’t know whether I have a somewhat uncommon ability to see colors in their actual RGB values, or a mental glitch that prevents me from correcting an image to see colors as they are in real life. > > One thing I’m curious about. The blue & black crowd are “correct” in this case, but could there be a different case in which the white & gold people are correct, or is their mental calibration simply off? > > Also, is there anyone who sees the dress as black & white? > > And one more question… if the dress were cut out from the background and people just looked at the image of the dress, would everyone see it the same? What _conclusive_ objective evidence exists, within the photo itself, that would prove (say, for the sake of argument, all other photos of the thing in the “correct” lighting were destroyed, along with all witnesses and even the dressmakers themselves) that it actually was dark blue and black? Could we take a gold and white/light blue dress, construct a scene akin to the one in the original photo (but put the model in the shadow, not the direct sunlight) and make said new photo come out to look the same as the original one? Would some _still_ see it as dark blue and black? ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742/291 "2015-03-02T19:00:21Z")
What do you think happens if you wear the dress with a Freudian slip? ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742/292 "2015-03-02T20:18:27Z")
> [@Octarine](#): > > When I look at the picture, my brain immediately and unconsciously adjusts for a washed-out shot - just as others account for shadow. It’s not that I’m seeing a pale blue and brown and going “OK, there’s bright sunlight over there, so that means . . .” etc, etc - it’s just an instant, uncontrollable alteration. I see royal blue and total black. This was also my experience: royal blue and jet black, with an inability to even imagine that someone else could see the colors differently. My wife, who showed me the picture, said she saw a white and gold dress, and I didn’t believe her at first. Many people have asked how we blue-and-black people can see black when the picture looks bronze. The material has a satiny sheen to it, and the part on the lady’s shoulders where it looks the lightest color is reflecting the light behind and above the camera. Same with much of the black stripes - the sheen of the material is reflecting light here, and when I looked at the picture my brain automatically compensated for this. I opened the picture in an image editor, and used the eye dropper tool to sample the color that best represents the black that I see, the part that’s not reflecting light. The RGB color value that I get there is (67, 51, 36) which is a dark charcoal color, consistent with a black color in an overexposed photo. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742/293 "2015-03-02T20:24:59Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > What do you think happens if you wear the dress with a Freudian slip? Stop skirting the issue. ---
**Author:** ![Cartoonacy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/848f3c/32.png) [@Cartoonacy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartoonacy)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742/294 "2015-03-02T20:43:12Z")
I have an above-average understanding of light and color theory, and I don’t doubt the word of anyone else, and I believe that the dress is really blue and black, but I’ve been trying for a while, and I can’t see anything but white and gold. I can understand how some people are seeing blue (but not royal blue), but I don’t get anything close to black. I’m assuming that the blue-and-black people are seeing the colors of the dress as being washed out by the flash of the camera (which is truly the case)? Because I’m imagining that the light source is behind the dress, and the white-and-gold colors are muted because they’re on the shadow side. I realize now that the brightness of the background is a reflection of the flash, but I still see is as either a brightly lit window or a fluorescent wall panel, and the flash not going off. Even now that I know that the camera used a flash, I can’t get my eyes to see it that way, and I still see the dress as a shadowed white and gold. ---
**Author:** ![Cartoonacy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/848f3c/32.png) [@Cartoonacy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartoonacy)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742/295 "2015-03-02T20:47:12Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > Could we take a gold and white/light blue dress, construct a scene akin to the one in the original photo (but put the model in the shadow, not the direct sunlight) and make said new photo come out to look the same as the original one? I don’t know, but I’d try setting it up the way I’m picturing it: with a dress made out of a non-shiny material, hanging in front of a lighted wall panel, and photographed without a flash. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742/296 "2015-03-02T20:53:39Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > What _conclusive_ objective evidence exists, within the photo itself, that would prove (say, for the sake of argument, all other photos of the thing in the “correct” lighting were destroyed, along with all witnesses and even the dressmakers themselves) that it actually was dark blue and black? Here’s one photographer who explains the evidence for blue-and-black using her knowledge of color correction techniques: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEkYjTTQiwY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEkYjTTQiwY) ---
**Author:** ![DKW](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dkw/32/3118_2.png) [@DKW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DKW)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742/297 "2015-03-02T21:21:11Z")
Um…question? (Oh, uh, I see pale blue and dull brass, for whatever that’s worth.) I get internet backdraft. Really. I’m interested to know in what’s at _most_ an optical illusion (and in reality probably just a badly-shot photo) blow up into a worldwide argument. Key word: _worldwide_. The face on Mars? That raised the possibility that used to be life on Mars, and the implications of _that_ would’ve been absolutely staggering. Even though it didn’t pan out, it still counts as a cool optical illusion, like that random pile of junk that casts a shadow of a motorcycle. The face of Jesus on a piece of toast? Just the most instantly recognizable religious figure ever (especially since Mohammed has that don’t-make-his-image thing); it’s understandable that this would create a big stir. It’s PATHETIC, yes, but it’s at least UNDERSTANDABLE. Lady Gaga? Right place, right time, pushed all the right buttons. Wasn’t the first, won’t be the last. They had something. A random internet photo doesn’t. I’m tempted to dismiss this as Manti Teo all over again, but deep down I don’t think anyone ever really bought that one. It was basically a bunch of ESPN flacks who overreacted to a supposed Internet scoop, realized too late they’d been had, and desperately held out for something that could make them not look like complete fools. “Hush money! Death threats! A jilted ex-girlfriend! Drugs! Undiagnosed mental illness! **ANYTHING, GOD, PLEASE!** ” This, the outrage comes across as genuine. Six-page arguments on xkcd do not spawn from half-baked face-saving attempts. Lines in the sand don’t get drawn over vague assumptions of there maybe, possibly being more to the story. Of course, the real hell of it is that this won’t improve the sales of Roman dresses one tiny bit. 🙂 P.S.: Does anyone have the slightest idea who took that photo, what device was used to take that photo, where that photo was taken, or who that woman is? I always remind myself that there are actual human beings in these things. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742/298 "2015-03-02T21:25:26Z")
> [@DKW](#): > > Um…question? (Oh, uh, I see pale blue and dull brass, for whatever that’s wroth.) > > I get internet backdraft. Really. I’m interested to know in what’s at _most_ an optical illusion (and in reality probably just a badly-shot photo) blow up into a worldwide argument. There! Are! Four! Lights! (Episode of Star Trek, where Picard is willing to undergo agonizing torture rather than to falsely tell the torturer he sees five lights. When people see something that’s obviously there to them, it’s very difficult to back down.) ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742/299 "2015-03-02T21:53:35Z")
Ceci n’est pas une robe. (Apologies if I screwed the gender matching. And of course to Magritte.) It is a picture representing a dress that happens to be blue and black in real life but is clearly not objectively blue and black in the picture (due to camera phone effects) even though some people’s brains autocorrect to perceive it as so. The camera is not an objective recorder of reality. It illustrates how much must be on the other side of the point in the continuum, with colors pretty screwed up by the camera arbitrary representation of something real, just a bit less, and with pretty much all viewers correcting to close to a real world perception? Does anyone know of any other color flipping perceptual illusions? I am well familiar with the misperceiving the dark of the checkerboard box and colors that we perceive that are not actually there, but this is the first one I’ve seen that is similar in form to the spinning dancer for movement and the rabbit/duck or faces/vase for category placing, where something is perceived one way and then for some (for the others, most) at least can flip into another, while others can only perceive it one way or the other. How I see the dress now: Agreed. Pretty pug ugly. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Locrian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/locrian/32/14146_2.png) [@Locrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Locrian)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742/300 "2015-03-02T23:07:16Z")
> [@Sr\_Siete](#): > > Okay, so you are not seeing [THIS](http://oi61.tinypic.com/29yqhiu.jpg) colors in the picture. You are seeing different colors? Correct. What I’m seeing is gold trim on a white dress. I understand how the two colors you posted can be seen that way, but I see it as white, not blue, in a shadow. The material looks like cotton or a blend, so colors look paler on material like that. If it were made entirely of silk or satin, the colors would probably be more striking and definite. This reminds me of when I was a kid, my sisters had swim team suits that were a paisley-type pattern of white (bright white) and dark blue. At the swim meets near the pool, they looked light blue and black! I said, “Hey! You’re suits change color!”, like it was so amazing or something. They laughed and told me it was the fluorescent lights. I think it’s like that. Light and filter make all the difference apparently. Still, I see NO BLACK on the dress in question whatsoever. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742.md?page=14) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742.md?page=16)