Is it an Optical Illusion
- Thread starter shamus
- Start date
I did some cutting and pasting with my paint program and darn if they aren't the same. My eye and brain never saw it that way.
George
George
Hey Paul, that's a wonderful example to show us that we aren't able to see objectivly. Our brain always adds, subtracts or simplifies things we are looking at.
Obviously we are not able to 'measure' the absolute brightness of an object (here the squares A and B) with our eyes. Instead we are always comparing objects with their surroundings. Here we have a square mosaic, so we 'know' through daily experience that B has to be brighter than A. PERIOD!
When we do some comparing with a graphics program like George did (e.g. by using the 'pipette tool' to get the color hue of a pixel), we find that the two grays are the same indeed. But from our perception we are completely unable to accept this fact, when we are looking at the picture above.
There are lots of such optical illusions, everywhere and every day. We always see shadows much brighter than they really are. And - shadows are gray, right? Ok, then do some color analysis of the shadows in the picture below, and you'll find that they are pretty BLUE - bluer than the sky, in fact!
BTW: For us modelers there is an important message in this: Colors are not always what we think they are - and that is the reason that many a backdrop of a layout somehow doesn't look right. Oftentimes the colors are much too vivid. The real mountains far away are always in pale grayish, bluish or violet hues, never grass green or dark pine green! Look at the vivid orange-brown of the shrubs in the left foreground, compared to the washed out brownish violet of the same shrubs on the ridge in the background of the pic.
It pays to try to see the REAL colors of our environment - it's the key to reality in the model landscape!
Ron
Obviously we are not able to 'measure' the absolute brightness of an object (here the squares A and B) with our eyes. Instead we are always comparing objects with their surroundings. Here we have a square mosaic, so we 'know' through daily experience that B has to be brighter than A. PERIOD!
When we do some comparing with a graphics program like George did (e.g. by using the 'pipette tool' to get the color hue of a pixel), we find that the two grays are the same indeed. But from our perception we are completely unable to accept this fact, when we are looking at the picture above.
There are lots of such optical illusions, everywhere and every day. We always see shadows much brighter than they really are. And - shadows are gray, right? Ok, then do some color analysis of the shadows in the picture below, and you'll find that they are pretty BLUE - bluer than the sky, in fact!
BTW: For us modelers there is an important message in this: Colors are not always what we think they are - and that is the reason that many a backdrop of a layout somehow doesn't look right. Oftentimes the colors are much too vivid. The real mountains far away are always in pale grayish, bluish or violet hues, never grass green or dark pine green! Look at the vivid orange-brown of the shrubs in the left foreground, compared to the washed out brownish violet of the same shrubs on the ridge in the background of the pic.
It pays to try to see the REAL colors of our environment - it's the key to reality in the model landscape!
Ron
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Ron,
Beautiful winter scene! :thumb: One of the hardest scenes to photograph is a scene with snow as the predominant subject. Throws the camera's meter off. Tries to make snow look like middle gray. That's why photography is more an art than a science. If it were simple, Ansel Adams wouldn't have spent all that time in the darkroom.
TTFN,
James
Beautiful winter scene! :thumb: One of the hardest scenes to photograph is a scene with snow as the predominant subject. Throws the camera's meter off. Tries to make snow look like middle gray. That's why photography is more an art than a science. If it were simple, Ansel Adams wouldn't have spent all that time in the darkroom.
TTFN,
James
If you like optical delusions try http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/index.html Click on the yellow square on the right hand side
Shortliner(Jack)away up here in the Highlands
Shortliner(Jack)away up here in the Highlands
Thanks for the great link, Jack! :thumb:
Buried somewhere in this website I found another fine link to illusions of Stuart Anstis.
(This is a site I found perchance quite a time ago - and then somehow lost the URL. Now it's back, and this time I saved the web address for sure! Thanks again, Jack. May your shortline prosper!)
Have fun and enjoy!
Ron
Buried somewhere in this website I found another fine link to illusions of Stuart Anstis.
(This is a site I found perchance quite a time ago - and then somehow lost the URL. Now it's back, and this time I saved the web address for sure!
Thanks again, Jack. May your shortline prosper!)Have fun and enjoy!
Ron
they are the same..... it is surprisignly simple. but i won't give it away if it hasn't been answered!
hmmmm i was under the impression that it was a trick question, that the same colors where in each square, not that they where exactly the same....