this post was submitted on 31 May 2026
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Mildly Interesting
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The blue and the yellow are the same color (cover up the rest of the picture, there is no gradient in the bar). Same thing for the white and the blue, isn't that strange?
No, when I cover up different areas I see black and blue or yellow and white.
The top and bottom are still uncovered so the illusion is still operative.
Let me be more clear - I cover the ENTIRE IMAGE except for like an inch opening, and it's still eiher black/blue or yellow/white. I can otherwise see the whole color spectrum quite well, so I dunno what's going on but that's how it is. Not a big deal though, I read up on the original dress thing and my curiosity is satisfied, but thanks for replying.
No, you're absolutely right.
These people either have some medical condition they need to see an optometrist for, or are literally just trolling.
What do you think the image is trying to show?
You're clearly supposed to see the two dresses as different colors. The actual illusions are the rectangles. They even have lines between them so you can see the color doesn't change, yet one apron looks white and one looks blue.
I just tried it together eith my GF. She doesn't see the colors change. I block out the blue and they become gold/white to me. Doesn't work the other way around seemingly.
No I was looking at the wrong areas. To me the tan area between the lines looks darker on the left (next to the black) and lighter on the right, next to the yellow. Ok, but I don't get how this is supposed to explain why people thought a blue and black dress was white and yellow. Doesn't matter tho.
It's essentially highlighting the ambiguity the colors can convey. Because our eyes don't see in isolation from our brains, we don't see based on the actual reflected color, but based on the contrast between those colors and context clues. We essentially have white balance and color correction baked into our vision,which is part of why photos without that look weird. Lacking context you process the colors differently.
In this case people saw a blue and black dress and lacking visual context they either compensated for sunlight or the compensated for shade. The contrasts involved (black/white, blue/yellow) are because opposite compensations maintain contrast while changing brightness.
This image has someone wearing the dress photographed with the white balance specifically off so that you can maybe see what other people were implicitly correcting for.