"That dress" - Are people really that visually illiterate?

<p>Not a Nikon specific question I know, but the internet and news response to a rank amateur picture of a stupid dress still has me blinking in disbelief.</p>

<p>Do people really not know what the effect of overexposure and indiscriminate use of White Balance can do? I mean not just the airheads that Twitter about it, but the news media that reported on it. It's been hailed as some sort of newly-discovered visual phenomenon. When to me it's plain to see that the snapshot that started the furore was simply over exposed, and that the camera's colour balance had been thrown into a yellow cast by the bright blue it was pointed at.</p>

<p>I only hope this is a lesson to all those internet sellers that think a poorly lit amateur snap of their wares is an adequate illustration.</p>

<p>BTW, Shun, if you think this is an inappropriate discussion for the Nikon forum, please dispose of as you see fit.</p>

<p> </p>

<P>

<I>I moved the thread to Casual Photo Conversations. Even though this was a slow news day, there must be far more important issues around the world. :-) -- Shun Cheung</I>

</P>

<p>No, most people do not know what over exposure and white balance shifts can do do a photograph.</p>

<p>It's science, and pretty basic science at that, but if any of us had to explain it to someone who does not have an understanding the basics, I bet most of us will have to search Google and Wikipedia extensively for references in order to write an accurate and comprehensive explanation even though we think we know the answer. </p>

<p>I wonder how much of it is the fact that everybody's monitor out there is different, plus the phones and tablets people are viewing them on.</p>

<p>Our senses compensate nicely for changes in the quality of light or for the presence of acoustical background noise. We don't notice. For most of the things we do as human beings, not noticing these things in our environment is a good thing. It lets us see and hear things that are normally more important to us, but it doesn't work so well if we have to make a photograph or a sound recording.</p>

<p>I bet most members of photo.net, except those who shoot video with audio, notice the sound of, say, the refrigerator they have at home.</p>

<p>So true, Hector.<br /><br />I'm a musician and have done a lot of recording and live music sound as well. music is my day job. I notice every single sound in the room I'm sitting in right now, most people don't hear half of them.</p>

<p>Which do you think the media and people who follow media find more interesting:</p>

<p>1. An amazing photo that seems to change colors for different people and goes viral.</p>

<p>2. A boring photo of blue and black dress, with exposure and color balance corrected in post processing.</p>

<p>It is called click bait for a reason.</p>

Am I the only one who thinks that, as memes go, this is actually pretty interesting and a teaching opportunity?

<p>Doesn't bother me as they are not my pictures. </p>

<p>Doesn't bother me as they are not my pictures. </p>

<p>The thing that's amazed me is the number of sites that have claimed that this has something to do with the different spectral response caused by variant cone opsins (the origin of human tetrachromats) - presumably based on the claim that people stick with their interpretation of the colours once they've decided them. That is, observer metameric failure. Which would make a lot more sense if people were looking at an unusual object in person rather than on their monitors. That it's a psychological response to white balance and nothing else doesn't seem to have registered with the web sites flailing around for a more exciting explanation.<br />

<br />

Of course, there could be <a href="http://www.thedoghousediaries.com/1406">other</a> <a href="http://blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/03/color-survey-results/">explanations</a> <a href="http://xkcd.com/color/rgb/">out there</a>.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Do people really not know what the effect of overexposure and indiscriminate use of White Balance can do?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>That's not what baffled me about the image - but that apparently when of different people that look at the same image on the same display some see white/gold and some see blue/black (my visual impression is towards white/gold and nothing short of taking it into photoshop and correcting the white balance changes that impression).</p>

<p>I find it hard to believe that the gold is anything but gold - it's way off black, and there's no indication that it's in the kind of warm lighting that might do that to grey. The "white" is clearly blue tinted compared with the white point of the monitor, which may be because it's actually blue, because it's being exposed to blue light (presumably from the sky) and otherwise in shade, or because the camera is trying to turn the direct sunlight in the background from yellow into pure white. I couldn't claim a definitive answer to how far off white the paler part of the dress colour is, especially without looking at the EXIF to see what white point was chosen. But the <i>image</i> is pale blue.<br />

<br />

Other than invoking some sympathy for automatic white balance algorithms, I don't find it especially fascinating, as questions go. But then I've had a long argument with colorimeter companies who have tried to tell me that reflected photons and emitted photons are "different" and can't be made to match (yes, I was specifying an illuminant), so I've lost faith in people being able to understand this kind of thing.</p>

<p>the angle that you look at it on an LCD or LED monitor is a not-small factor in this tempest in a teapot. Try it. rotate your screen look at it from an angle.</p>

<p>meh</p>

<p>Andrew, thank you for the link to a truly scientific analysis:</p>

<p><a href="http://blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/03/color-survey-results/">http://blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/03/color-survey-results/</a></p>

<p>As for the dress, it was clearly white panels stitched to transparent panels, and so the correct colors are (1) white and (2) Real Naked Flesh (a technical term used primarily in the fashion/clothing industry).</p>

<p>If it had been a guy's striped T-shirt, who would have cared?</p>

<p>If you are really into self-flogging, though, <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=the+dress&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8"><em><strong>here</strong></em></a> are the Google results (not to be confused with <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=the+dress&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#q=the+dress+rihanna&revid=-1"><em><strong>this</strong></em></a>).</p>

<p>Bad as the whole debate was or is, it could have been <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/magazine/whats-so-bad-about-a-boy-who-wants-to-wear-a-dress.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0"><em><strong>worse.</strong></em></a></p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

<p>Here's an explanation I had to find online because the TV coverage never showed the original sourced image...<br>

http://www.wired.com/2015/02/science-one-agrees-color-dress/</p>

<p>So I guess it was a white balance issue that drastically changed the color tables of the images similar what I did in this old thread years back correcting a heavily green cast rock wall climbing facility...</p>

<p>http://www.photo.net/beginner-photography-questions-forum/00YmG4</p>

<p>Hope we are not going by the DPR model. These horse bysquits have been flogged to nauseaum, no ?</p>

<p>Hector, some of the most interesting stuff is in the ambience :>)....when recorded after everyone is gone from the set. Glad you brought that up.</p>

<p>Les</p>

 

<p>Well, throw <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-dress-a-black-and-blue-debate-over-the-color-of-a-dress-stirs-social-media-1425063162"><em><strong>this one</strong></em></a> into the mix.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

<p>Apparently <a href="http://swiked.tumblr.com/post/112073818575/guys-please-help-me-is-this-dress-white-and"><em><strong>this was the posted image</strong></em></a> that started everything.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

<p>Science, scmience. After viewing the original picture on my laptop as opposed to the 2nd hand reproduction via television reportage, it seems that LCD angle and bias has much more to do with the divided perception. And maybe ambient lighting.</p>

<p>On my laptop the original snap was clearly a poorly reproduced black/blue dress. On the TV report it was clearly a badly photographed ivory/gold dress. And I didn't swap my eyeballs between viewings.</p>

<p>Consider Peter's comment above:</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>the angle that you look at it on an LCD or LED monitor is a not-small factor in this tempest in a teapot. Try it. rotate your screen look at it from an angle.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>This really is quite a fascinating issue. There are white balance considerations, exposure considerations, background (and related comparative) color considerations, angle of LCD (or is it LED?) monitor considerations--and on top of that the question of how the eye, the brain and the mind process color, much less perceive it. Some find this issue boring. I haven't seen a popular issue related to color and exposure this interesting in a very long time, if ever.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

<p>A co worker had this up at work yesterday. We were looking at the same monitor at the same time. I saw blue and black, and he swore he saw gold and white. Figure that out!</p>

<p>Using the exact same display, still showing the exact same JPG of that photo in a room with no windows and unchanging light, I saw what appeared to be a white dress with a blue-tinted light cast on it, and gold-toned ribbon elements. This never changed ... until I took the dogs out for a walk in very bright light on snowy ground. Came back in after 15 minutes, sat down in front of the exact same display showing me the image from the exact same angle, and the dress was plainly blue with black design elements. This lasted for about 45 minutes, after which (and thereafter which) my perception changed back to notion of a blue-tinted white and gold dress.<br /><br />So in this case, is has ZERO to do with LCD angle, brightness, or room light at the time I'm looking at the image. But it did have to do with the fact I'd just cooked my eyes in very bright light, thus changing how I perceived the image (for a little while). </p>