Topic awaiting preservation: Strange optical illusion using shadows

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Optical.greysquares.arp.600pix.jpg

I cut sections of square A and square B and set them beside the other. The color values remained the same or similar. I wonder what this means for graphic design...

oldie but a goodie...

followed your link and ended up here



(Edited by outcydr on 11-06-2004 03:06)

Hrm. I wonder... if one could engineer a room specifically for accurate color.

Huh?

The important thing to realize here is that there's nothing tricky about the image. Your eyes are not simply devices that measure color: they also interpret color and try to make sense of it. The fact that A and B don't appear to be the same color is a good thing; if they looked the same, it could be quite confusing to look at shaded objects in the real world.


 

They look the same to me. But maybe I'm just strange.

I saw this one once before, showed it to a friend... no matter what I did (including cutting and pasting the squares side-by-side) he could not be convinced that they were the same colour!

It just goes to show that there are times when one really shouldn't believe the evidence of one's eyes.

==I don't believe it! Somebody stole my sig!!==

how about pulling the image into photoshop and taking colour samples of each square. the fact that they have the same values would have to be convincing.


Justice 4 Pat Richard

While I always have found this one interesting, I can't fathom that anyone would be very surprised, or have any kind of trouble beleiving it...

It is rather straightforward....take the same color and put in two different contexts.....it'll look different. Put it in something light....it looks darker. Put it in something dark....it looks lighter.

~shrug~

It's interesing...but it ain't 'rocket science'....

quote:

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Your eyes are not simply devices that measure color: they also interpret color and try to make sense of it.

---

Wrong. Your eyes are made up of hundreds of layers of neurons that deal with one energy, light. Not colour (though light through a spectrum produces colour). Your eyes are like the window to your brain. Through your eyes comes illumination. Your eyes don't interpret the illumination, they just focus it and show it to your brain. Your brain interprets and makes sense of the light wavelengths as colour.

(Edited by InSiDeR on 11-08-2004 06:07)

I don't think anyone misunderstood Slime's comment, or the point being made.

BTW - this sort of example image is used to argue against machine generated colorsync profiles and gamut remapping by some writers. Regardless of whether Photoshop's info palette says they are the same color/shade, they AREN'T the same color/shade in terms of human cognitive interpretation of meaning, which is really the only thing that matters to creators and consumers of visual media.

Very interesting stuff! That argument, Steve, reminds me of a similar one about whether or not we will ever opt for robotic fighter pilots over the human ones.

I found that I cannot see squares A and B as the same shade when viewing the image upright. But if I turn it sideways so that the squares are horizontal with respect to one another and I squint, I begin to see the same shade.

: . . DHTML Slice Puzzle : . . .

I like it, I think it's crazy stuff.

I know I didn't misunderstand Slime's comment

Cheers,

I find the illusion fascinating. Although I know that the colors are the same, they still appear to be different shades. One would think one could tell the brain "Look, dummy, they are the same!" and then the brain would realize it, and see them as the same.

(Edited by WebShaman on 11-09-2004 01:57)