Lets talk about the dress

[Parkerbaby]

I first saw the image with two other people, on the same monitor. They saw it as white and gold, and I saw it as blue and black. We all saw it very clearly, and could not imagine the other seeing the color.

Then I later showed one of them a picture of the actual dress (the roman royal blue one on amazon) and after that she could only see the blue and black so clearly, she thought it couldn't be the same issue. The other guy's view of it did not change.

After reading about it and seeing it more, I still see blue, but I see it as a very washed out picture. I can easily see the gold they are talking about.

Something about the subconscious thoughts on different light contexts. The picture is garbage as far as colors, so you must subconsciously make a decision about what to 'correct' to get the true colors of the object photographed, correcting for the quality/over-exposure.

[Ambivorous]

Late to the party, but I figured I'd help out with seeing the blue and black for you guys.

I was speaking to a friend about which he saw (he saw blue black and I white gold) and he mentioned something very interesting: he doesn't see shadows on white objects as being blue coloured when in the shade surrounded by sunlight. Of course, we all know this happens. Stick white in some shade outside during the day and it will go blue, but he doesn't see that and I had to explain it to him. Clearly his brain is just doing more correction than mine is. I see blue and I know that means white, but I've never been under the illusion that shadow is grey.

So my assumption (sorry) is that I simply cannot see blue black purely because my brain doesn't see a need to correct the image.
Which of course got me thinking, "Let me just mess with the colour balance!" and here we go:


I literally just took the blue-yellow slider and shoved it in both directions and this happened.

In both of these pictures I, unequivocally, see blue black (although I can still imagine white gold of course), because my brain is being forced to correct for colour in both.

[Seiseki]

I know about blue tinted shadows, I add tons of blue when I draw stuff, but for me the blue is just too blue and with such a bright background how could it be so dark if it's white?

When I invert the image in photoshop it's very clearly gold and white, even though the colors haven't changed that much, but then the background is also darker..

[Mr. Fahrenheit]

Yeah looking at the super bright yellow background there was no way i was going to see it as white.

[rikfuzz]

Finally I know what everyone's talking about - today I perceive it completely as blue + black too.  Very interesting optical illusion.  Yesterday I was all grumpy thinking everyone is crazy for not seeing it as if it's white and gold.