Amaing color perception stuff

[cliffski]

If you think you understand colors... THINK AGAIN!
http://www.echalk.co.uk/amusements/OpticalIllusions/colourPerception/ColourPerception.html

Gives you new respect for artists :D

[Martoon]

I've seen these illusions before, but never with that nifty interface (dragging the swatch/mask over the picture, etc.). Nice link!

[James C. Smith]

Wow! I had to bring the 3rd image into Photoshop before I would believe that the colors in the center of each figure were really the same. There is no way to describe it. You have to try it for yourself.

[Jim Buck]

Actually, that 3rd one is logical - a blue object through a yellow filter should look the same as a yellow object through a blue filter, which is exactly what that picture is depicting.

[Robert Cummings]

Thats truely interesting. I knew about no.1 and 2, but number 3 had me thinking about my own artwork. There's a lot of colours you can't use, but could imply instead. How would this affect animation? and so on. Great stuff!

[luggage]

Actually, that 3rd one is logical - a blue object through a yellow filter should look the same as a yellow object through a blue filter, which is exactly what that picture is depicting.but they don't look the same at all? And the bits that are in the center aren't affected by the filters in any way. Aaarghh.

[Anthony Flack]

the bits that are in the center aren't affected by the filters in any way


They are affected by your perception that you are viewing them through a filter.

The brain is an amazing thing. It does a lot of processing to the images we receive. Did you know we have a whopping big blind spot in the centre of our field of vision, where our optic nerve comes out of the back of our eye? We don't see it though, because our brains fill in that space with its best guess of what is supposed to go there.

Similarly, our brains automatically white-balance images we recieve. A white shirt under red lights still looks white to us, even though its true appearance is actually red. In the same way, the images viewed through the coloured filters get "de-filtered" by your brain, which is trying to tell you what colours they would be if the filters weren't there.

It gets very difficult to say what colour something is when the lighting gets screwy, because you have to fight against your brain's built-in filtering. Sometimes I will look at objects at twilight, etc, and see if I can say what colour they would be, were I to paint them. It's really difficult. I can certainly appreciate the great eye for colour that Monet had.

[Nexic]

Wow this is amazing stuff, I really had no idea!

Most illusions I've seen, are ones where you can train yourself not to see the illusion. This is especially easy once you know 'why' it its looking different than it actually should. However with this it is quite literally impossible to make your eyes see what you know!

Fascinating!

[DGuy]

No wonder the women in our lives (females supposedly have better color perceptions than men) cringe when they see what we're wearing out the house ... God only knows what we really look like! :)

[soniCron]

No wonder the women in our lives (females supposedly have better color perceptions than men) cringe when they see what we're wearing out the house ... God only knows what we really look like! :) :) I've wondered the same thing.... [ponders plaid polkadot pants and a periwinkle paisly pullover]