Science Please Help: What colour is this dress?

[Rednog]

I don't even....
Seriously is everyone's monitors absolute garbage and/or everyone's eyes broken?
I honestly cannot believe people are seriously seeing white and gold. At this point I can only surmise that there are people out there who just have horrendous hue differentiation. Even in the one that's bathed in yellow/orange light you can clearly still see hues of the black and blue. The pic bathed in light makes the colors washed out, a true white/gold would turn the colors in the same direction making them a brilliant white, it would not cause them to darken.

 

[Bat Vader]

The dress looks white and very light brown to me. One is for sure though. It is a very ugly dress.

 

[Parasondox]

I just tested it out on my mate asking her what colour is this. She responded with Gold and White but then had a second look and saw black and blue. Was he brain playing tricks with her cause as someone posted with a YouTube video attached, our brains are unique to each of us.

#Colourgate. The real conspiracy, controversy, something that means nothing and sauce.

 

[Rattja]

Wow.. that is one bad picture.. That lighting is just horrible so I don't know what the dress actually looks like in reality, but on that picture right there I'd say it's some form of blue/purple and brown.
it is in no way anywhere close to being white as the ambient lighting would not turn it blue since nothing else in the picture has any hint of a blue tint. Nor is that black or gray so yea somewhere between ble and brown is my answer.

But can't you like just drop it into photoshop and pick the colour to get the code for it? At that point there really shouldn't be a doubt anymore what it is.

 

[Mutant1988]

Paint Dot Net says it's:

R: 129
G: 139
B: 187
Hue: 228
Saturation:32
Luminance: 73

Which looks like a dull blue to me. Which it is.

And:

R: 113
G: 92
B: 87
Hue: 11
Saturation: 23
Luminance: 44

Which looks brown to me. In fact, is brown, because red and green are dominant.

My eyes might lie. My monitor might lie. But the colour grading of an image editor will not lie.

It is not black and blue in that image. Anyone that says it is, in that image, has defective eyes. The only explanation for this absurd misrepresentation of the actual colour of the dress is the worst lighting humanly imaginable. Whoever shot that image should have their camera rights revoked.

I don't even....
Seriously is everyone's monitors absolute garbage and/or everyone's eyes broken?
I honestly cannot believe people are seriously seeing white and gold. At this point I can only surmise that there are people out there who just have horrendous hue differentiation. Even in the one that's bathed in yellow/orange light you can clearly still see hues of the black and blue. The pic bathed in light makes the colors washed out, a true white/gold would turn the colors in the same direction making them a brilliant white, it would not cause them to darken.

The white balance of that photo is absolute garbage. And the fact that it's posted on a white background certainly doesn't help.

 

[CrystalShadow]

OK, I was all ready to dismiss this as some stupid attempt to confuse people over nothing, but I have now legitimately had my mind messed with.

To the point I'm wondering if someone is playing a particularly sick joke and using a very slow animated gif, or some other method to periodically swap out the images, or if it's some bizarre effect of the way our brains interpret colour.

Long story short, I first saw this as Gold and white (pinkish to be precise, but in a way that I'm used to white objects looking in odd lighting)

But then, I looked through a few things in the thread, reloaded it a few times, and now it's black and blue.

And I can't get it to go back.

If it's an optical effect, I'm usually pretty good at 'flipping' my own mind between the multiple states that define such optical illusions, but in this case... Well, it's pretty weird, is all I can say...

Well, whatever the underlying reason, it's now stuck on blue/black

Though if I stare at it it goes lighter blue/ brownish

But seriously, first time I saw it I saw white/gold

Strange. Annoying, and strange... Bleh.

 

[JaceArveduin]

Well, I originally saw it as white-gold. Then I read that Dirty Hipster's post and now I only see it in blue-black.

... That's kinda creepy...

 

[Frezzato]

OK, I was all ready to dismiss this as some stupid attempt to confuse people over nothing, but I have now legitimately had my mind messed with.

To the point I'm wondering if someone is playing a particularly sick joke and using a very slow animated gif, or some other method to periodically swap out the images, or if it's some bizarre effect of the way our brains interpret colour.

Long story short, I first saw this as Gold and white (pinkish to be precise, but in a way that I'm used to white objects looking in odd lighting)

But then, I looked through a few things in the thread, reloaded it a few times, and now it's black and blue.

And I can't get it to go back.

If it's an optical effect, I'm usually pretty good at 'flipping' my own mind between the multiple states that define such optical illusions, but in this case... Well, it's pretty weird, is all I can say...

Well, whatever the underlying reason, it's now stuck on blue/black

Though if I stare at it it goes lighter blue/ brownish

But seriously, first time I saw it I saw white/gold

Strange. Annoying, and strange... Bleh.

Indeed. Seems to be the color version of the spinning dancer [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Spinning_Dancer.gif].

 

[DanteRL]

Well, clearly that dress was made with the Lovecraftian colour out of space, and it's plan to destroy the world and send us on a spiral of madness is in play.

This is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but with an internet discussion over a evil mutant dress that will devour our souls.

 

[Thaluikhain]

It's a sorta browney colour, with a sorta light blue colour.

Zooming in on patches so I can't see the rest of the dress doesn't change it much, nor does putting an opaque layer over it and erasing parts so I can only see patches. Using the eyedropper tool brought me back brownish and blue.

It's not the black and dark blue of that other image people keep showing.

 

[circularlogic88]

...

 

[TERRORADE]

After swearing to myself for hours that this damn thing was white and gold I came across lord canti's post from wired.com

And I have to say, sadly I was wrong. The dress is, in fact, blue and black.

One of the commenters was able to painstakingly, color-correct the photo using the polka dotted dress, mudguard, and background reflection as reference points.

This is what he came up with:

Now I can't un-see the black and blue.

MIND. BLOWN.

 

[Aerith]

I've seen the pic of that dress twice. This morning it was Blue and Black, this pic here is White & Gold.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

From the seller pages:

<a href=http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dclothing&field-keywords=Roman%20Women%27s%20Lace%20Detail%20Bodycon%20Dress> Amazon link

Product described as 'Royal Blue'. There is an 'Ivory' option, but lace detailing in both cases is black.

OT: So the dress is blue and black, and the photo has some crappy exposure on it.

 

[Rednog]

Original uploader has uploaded another image of the dress, and it is in fact, blue and black.


Mystery solved.

To all those who answered correctly, reward cookies will be heading your way soon.

Are you absolutely sure?

 

[IceForce]

So, what color is the dress actually? Because it looks like we're getting conflicting 'official' reports here.

Or is it a mystery that may never be solved?

 

[2xDouble]

In this image, it's aqua/light blue with bronze/brown trim, taken in very bad lighting conditions. It's also made of silk, which has interesting refraction properties that we subconsciously account for, and superceded by flare directly into the camera, altering the actual color saturation. Fun fact: the perceived color of the image will change depending on your eye saturation level, or rather, what you were most recently looking at.

I think most of us can agree, though, that it is ugly as sin.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Schrodinger's dress. It's both black/blue and white/gold at the same time.

 

[Toejam]

Are you absolutely sure?

I don't even know anymore.
I feel like my brain has been scrambled like an egg.

Fuck this hideous dress.

There'd definitely be some white on it then

This thing has really blown up, it's all over my facebook feed. lol

 

[loa]

Color is about the context it is presented in.
Change that and the same color can take vastly different appearances.
You want gray to look green, surround it with red.
This dress can be white gold under a cold lightsource or black and blue under a warm one.
It depends on which context you pick.