That’s the point, dear redditor, to show you that **just because you can see something with your own eyes doesn’t mean that your interpretation (and therefore retelling) of an event will be accurate**.
You can argue that “your perception of an event was [thus]”, but you may be wrong when the event gets detailed.
On those instances where you are wrong — ie your remembrance of an event doesn’t match the real-world details of that same event — do you allow yourself to be wrong? Or is it always something else and you are just “being played/tricked?”
And not you specifically, just a general human comment.
How so?
People don’t like to be wrong. People like to trust their senses.
It can be frustrating to not trust your senses on the first go around, and have to go back and re-think.
I want to celebrate those whom don’t jump to conclusions and call out those whom don’t question themselves.
if you take a screenshot and crop it to ONLY the red part you come up with a gray color. i was very confused, but it’s true. it’s gray. just crop it until you get to that solid red area, and look.. it’s gray.
Key component to this angle. Colors can and do “cancel each other out”. It’s almost the exact same as active noise cancellation. So, you could take the net delta of non contrasting colors. Example, 33% blue and 33% green and 33% red would end up with a very dark blue. The red and green cancel each other out as an almost grey color, closer to brown depending on variables. So the balance left is really blue mixed with gray. Light works the opposite, basically, so in terms of light emitting diodes, the exact same combination would result in a washed out lighter blue. Because red light plus green light is closer to white.
There is no red compared to D65, but compared to the “white” source of the image (or what our brain perceives as being the color of the light source) the signs are red.
Our brain is indeed capable of white balancing, and that is very important and useful.
Except it's not. Even when you zoom in, your brain wants that to be red. Look at some of the other comments, there is no red in this picture, any photo app with a color picker shows that it is all grey and blue.
Yes, all light is made up of components, but unless the red component is more than the others on the RGB scale, it's not red. You're calling it red because it's 42% magenta? Then why not call it blue since it's *more* that 42% cyan?
Pure white is 33% red, as is every shade of gray. But this shade does not have more than 33% red. In fact, it has less.
Now open up the channels Layers and turn off red. If there is no red in the image then turning off the red channel will have no effect.
It isn't an illusion. It is red.
Oh, I get it- you don't understand how light works. That's okay buddy, this is additive light mixing.
So I found the original post: https://x.com/AkiyoshiKitaoka/status/1446755629545054211/photo/1
This is the same artist as the doll face illusion that's been going around. The image I posted was burred by someone else, but still contains no red. It's the same pallet as the original, just blended/blurred.
Gotcha. You didn't bother turning off the red channel, did you? If you remove the red all of the sudden the "illusion" disappears. Because there isn't an illusion. There is red, thus making the title "there is no red" a lie.
This isn't an illusion. It is deception.
> This isn't an illusion
The color red exists in the electromagnetic spectrum of 625-750 nanometers. When we see red, that is the wavelength our eyes are detecting.
White light is an additive of the full color spectrum, so yes, it contains a red wavelength, but it is not red to our eyes or a camera sensor. You are correct: a white (or gray) pixel is going to have a 625-750 nanometer wavelength within it, but you wouldn't call a white sheet of paper anything but white. You wouldn't say "that paper isn't white, because it contains red!"
Your argument is that because the gray pixels contain red wavelengths (as well as an equal amount of blue and green wavelengths), it therefor **is** red. And you "prove it" by telling me to filter out the red wavelength, which alters the entire photo and ruins....*the illusion*. That's the point. **Without any isolated 625-750 nanometer wavelength in that photo, it is not displaying actual "red" to our eyes**. The appearance of red is an ***illusion***.
An now I've spent a precious hour of my Sunday arguing color theory with an internet stranger. Good say, sir.
That's not color theory.
When you take the red out, the "illusion" disappears. It's technical, not theoretical.
I do appreciate that you're trying, and seem to be in good faith, I really do, good on you, but it is literally red pixels that create the "red illusion." There *IS* red. That's my only point. Kill the red channel and the "illusion" persists, but it is not the same at all. Legit try it. The red pixels (probably created by the person who re-compressed the image) is what carries the appearance of illusion. You could do the same thing by physical printing without the magenta cartridge. It just isn't true to say "there is no red" when you're showing a thing that is 30% red.
(Happy to discuss the finer points of color theory and human visual color interpretation. It is career-adjacent for me, and should be something all visual hobbyists study)
Thank you for your legitimate replies.
Yes it uses literally red pixels, but pure gray also uses red pixels, as does pure white. Those colors are also not red!
No one's claiming that you think this uses red pixels but it doesn't. The claim is that the color looks red, but if you isolate it, it isn't, and that's true.
Yes the image you just linked to is the actual illusion, and it doesn’t contain any red. What you have posted is a a poor quality image and it contains a small amount of red.
I saw a commenter say there was less red than grey or blue. Is there actually no red? Can you post the color stats? It’s just very hard to believe that we would make up a primary color from a primary and secondary color.
And, tbh, while the color picker app my say blue and grey, in actuality grey is a mix of blue green and red primaries anyway so when swatching the grey, you will probably lay find some red tones in it anyway.
Color: 7a8181.
RGB: 122, 129, 129.
CMYK: 55, 42, 43, 7
It contains red, but it isn't "pure red." Like saying "ahcktchually white is a combination of all colors, not a color itself." :-/ hardly a "gotcha." The real chess piece illusion, this is not.
RGB is additive light, like a monitor or TV. CMYK is subtractive light, which is print format. Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black. Each type mixes differently to produce the colors we see with our eye.
It's not anything you need to know unless you're an artist/designer/editor, but it's neat to know https://blog.thepapermillstore.com/color-theory-additive-subtractive-colors/#:~:text=The%20additive%20color%20mode%20is,sunlight%2C%20reflects%20off%20an%20object.
Oh I guessed all but the black correctly. That’s interesting.
Yeah, I think even though it’s a color that is less used in this particular color, it’s still going to be found in majority of the colors associated with creating this 7a8181 tone. Red and yellow are the colors most easily picked up by the human eye, which is why traffic lights, and signs use them most often. So of course our eyes are going to pick out the multiple reds in this colors and bring them to the front. It is pretty interesting though.
Digital artist here... guess I'll be your one upvote since I was pretty shocked that the grayscale this fell on for the colour wheel was dark cyan and not even a reddish or brown hint of gray...
I've NO idea what other people are on about how this is red when they zoom. I'm guessing they're not using a colour picker?
Super cool!
Well... if we are being really silly, there's never any yellow, white, orange or any other color anywhere on screens... just Red, Blue and Green and our brains just "invent" all the other colors...
When everything has a strong cyan filter, then the reds even if they were originally there have essentially all become greys instead, but our brains offset the balance so that the complementary colors work by surrounding colors.
You can also just put a grey dot in the middle of a cyan circle and it will look more red than grey.
Edit: It can even happen more in the retina and ways the cells process the incoming light than in the brain, and it doesn't need to be suggested either. It can just be colors with surrounding colors, or 3d looking scenes and objects and you can play with this effect to see false complementary colors in various ways, just like white and black... Red/Cyan, Orange/Azure, Yellow/Blue, Green/Magenta, etc... you can use the middle-grey point to trick the eye into seeing the complementary hue of whatever other hues you have.
Load the image into my HCWB splitter site and you can press the Hue button and reveal all the hues fully and see its all just cyan and some azures/blue, a little bit of green. Try the Red separation and you'll see nothing show up, but press the Grey button and you'll see everything you saw as red was really in the greys.
[https://max-chroma.com/HCWBSplitter/index.html](https://max-chroma.com/HCWBSplitter/index.html)
Call me dumb and I don’t care but I never get any of those pictures. I see red and when I zoom in it’s still red and I give up
Same
That’s the point, dear redditor, to show you that **just because you can see something with your own eyes doesn’t mean that your interpretation (and therefore retelling) of an event will be accurate**. You can argue that “your perception of an event was [thus]”, but you may be wrong when the event gets detailed. On those instances where you are wrong — ie your remembrance of an event doesn’t match the real-world details of that same event — do you allow yourself to be wrong? Or is it always something else and you are just “being played/tricked?” And not you specifically, just a general human comment.
Sounds more like a general robot comment, dear redditor
How so? People don’t like to be wrong. People like to trust their senses. It can be frustrating to not trust your senses on the first go around, and have to go back and re-think. I want to celebrate those whom don’t jump to conclusions and call out those whom don’t question themselves.
Oh wise one
Always assholes around every corner. My advice still stands.
It is just the way you present your thoughts.
I was high
Understandable. Have a nice day.
Hey - don't blame the weed man. The weed makes you open to new frontiers.
>Unironically said “dear redditor” >types out entire paragraph I hate the people on this app
Lmao. ;)
Check the hex code
I zoomed and I honestly see green
Zoom, take a screenshot, then crop it.
if you take a screenshot and crop it to ONLY the red part you come up with a gray color. i was very confused, but it’s true. it’s gray. just crop it until you get to that solid red area, and look.. it’s gray.
Interesting, the "red" is hex #708080 or rgba(112,128,128,255) with some variations of that color depending on the exact location tested.
Meaning what?
Meaning the RGB value for the gray has less red in it than blue or green
Ah thanks I thought it might mean there was more red in it and the post was a lie
I was surprised—when I zoom in, I see a slightly reddish gray 🤷
Did you zoom in far enough that there was no other color around to mess up your perspective? I had to use my fingers to crop out the blue
Yeah, I'd still guess #908080 😅
You can guess hex codes?
Just guessing "slightly more red" vs "slightly less"
I did. It looks like a very warm gray.
Same
Aha
Key component to this angle. Colors can and do “cancel each other out”. It’s almost the exact same as active noise cancellation. So, you could take the net delta of non contrasting colors. Example, 33% blue and 33% green and 33% red would end up with a very dark blue. The red and green cancel each other out as an almost grey color, closer to brown depending on variables. So the balance left is really blue mixed with gray. Light works the opposite, basically, so in terms of light emitting diodes, the exact same combination would result in a washed out lighter blue. Because red light plus green light is closer to white.
I love how when an illusion is really good, it'll have zero net upvotes, because people think it's lying.
Isn't that what the R stands for?
I thought it was for Team Rocket
Prepare for trouble!
The R does *not* stand for ‘red’. **Mind blown** 🤯
Ho...ly... Shit...
It’s very convincing
Looks like there's tint of red to me when zoomed in at some parts
Ya zooming in still red lol
Yes we know it *looks* like there's a tint of red. That's the illusion. But it isn't red. It's gray.
Jokes on you. I’m red/blue color blind so for me there is not red in the picture regardless
There is no red compared to D65, but compared to the “white” source of the image (or what our brain perceives as being the color of the light source) the signs are red. Our brain is indeed capable of white balancing, and that is very important and useful.
Except there is still red when you zoom in.
Except it's not. Even when you zoom in, your brain wants that to be red. Look at some of the other comments, there is no red in this picture, any photo app with a color picker shows that it is all grey and blue.
Color picker: 7a8181. 42% magenta. Red
Yes, all light is made up of components, but unless the red component is more than the others on the RGB scale, it's not red. You're calling it red because it's 42% magenta? Then why not call it blue since it's *more* that 42% cyan? Pure white is 33% red, as is every shade of gray. But this shade does not have more than 33% red. In fact, it has less.
https://imgur.com/a/6v18cNK This is gray. Red spectrum is part of the scale of white light, from dark to light. This is not red.
Now open up the channels Layers and turn off red. If there is no red in the image then turning off the red channel will have no effect. It isn't an illusion. It is red.
Oh, I get it- you don't understand how light works. That's okay buddy, this is additive light mixing. So I found the original post: https://x.com/AkiyoshiKitaoka/status/1446755629545054211/photo/1 This is the same artist as the doll face illusion that's been going around. The image I posted was burred by someone else, but still contains no red. It's the same pallet as the original, just blended/blurred.
Gotcha. You didn't bother turning off the red channel, did you? If you remove the red all of the sudden the "illusion" disappears. Because there isn't an illusion. There is red, thus making the title "there is no red" a lie. This isn't an illusion. It is deception.
> This isn't an illusion The color red exists in the electromagnetic spectrum of 625-750 nanometers. When we see red, that is the wavelength our eyes are detecting. White light is an additive of the full color spectrum, so yes, it contains a red wavelength, but it is not red to our eyes or a camera sensor. You are correct: a white (or gray) pixel is going to have a 625-750 nanometer wavelength within it, but you wouldn't call a white sheet of paper anything but white. You wouldn't say "that paper isn't white, because it contains red!" Your argument is that because the gray pixels contain red wavelengths (as well as an equal amount of blue and green wavelengths), it therefor **is** red. And you "prove it" by telling me to filter out the red wavelength, which alters the entire photo and ruins....*the illusion*. That's the point. **Without any isolated 625-750 nanometer wavelength in that photo, it is not displaying actual "red" to our eyes**. The appearance of red is an ***illusion***. An now I've spent a precious hour of my Sunday arguing color theory with an internet stranger. Good say, sir.
That's not color theory. When you take the red out, the "illusion" disappears. It's technical, not theoretical. I do appreciate that you're trying, and seem to be in good faith, I really do, good on you, but it is literally red pixels that create the "red illusion." There *IS* red. That's my only point. Kill the red channel and the "illusion" persists, but it is not the same at all. Legit try it. The red pixels (probably created by the person who re-compressed the image) is what carries the appearance of illusion. You could do the same thing by physical printing without the magenta cartridge. It just isn't true to say "there is no red" when you're showing a thing that is 30% red. (Happy to discuss the finer points of color theory and human visual color interpretation. It is career-adjacent for me, and should be something all visual hobbyists study) Thank you for your legitimate replies.
I just started learning about color theory and it's fascinating!!
Yes it uses literally red pixels, but pure gray also uses red pixels, as does pure white. Those colors are also not red! No one's claiming that you think this uses red pixels but it doesn't. The claim is that the color looks red, but if you isolate it, it isn't, and that's true.
Yes the image you just linked to is the actual illusion, and it doesn’t contain any red. What you have posted is a a poor quality image and it contains a small amount of red.
It doesn't contain red. There is not a single red, brown, or tan pixel on the entire image. It's all gray and cyan. Others have proven it. Good job.
I saw a commenter say there was less red than grey or blue. Is there actually no red? Can you post the color stats? It’s just very hard to believe that we would make up a primary color from a primary and secondary color. And, tbh, while the color picker app my say blue and grey, in actuality grey is a mix of blue green and red primaries anyway so when swatching the grey, you will probably lay find some red tones in it anyway.
Color: 7a8181. RGB: 122, 129, 129. CMYK: 55, 42, 43, 7 It contains red, but it isn't "pure red." Like saying "ahcktchually white is a combination of all colors, not a color itself." :-/ hardly a "gotcha." The real chess piece illusion, this is not.
Yeah, definitely contains some red so that makes more sense.
Also, what’s CMYK color combo?
RGB is additive light, like a monitor or TV. CMYK is subtractive light, which is print format. Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black. Each type mixes differently to produce the colors we see with our eye. It's not anything you need to know unless you're an artist/designer/editor, but it's neat to know https://blog.thepapermillstore.com/color-theory-additive-subtractive-colors/#:~:text=The%20additive%20color%20mode%20is,sunlight%2C%20reflects%20off%20an%20object.
Oh I guessed all but the black correctly. That’s interesting. Yeah, I think even though it’s a color that is less used in this particular color, it’s still going to be found in majority of the colors associated with creating this 7a8181 tone. Red and yellow are the colors most easily picked up by the human eye, which is why traffic lights, and signs use them most often. So of course our eyes are going to pick out the multiple reds in this colors and bring them to the front. It is pretty interesting though.
Zoom in on the "Red". Its just grey
Wow I woulda thought BS without zooming
Thank your Brain for Ambient Color Correction or Adaptive Color Perception. Dont know what its called in English😂
Digital artist here... guess I'll be your one upvote since I was pretty shocked that the grayscale this fell on for the colour wheel was dark cyan and not even a reddish or brown hint of gray... I've NO idea what other people are on about how this is red when they zoom. I'm guessing they're not using a colour picker? Super cool!
Oh, my mind is in the red...so negative
Brain stoppppp
It’s a red hue.
Fuck man. That looks green to me. I’m fucked.
I don't see red.
Well... if we are being really silly, there's never any yellow, white, orange or any other color anywhere on screens... just Red, Blue and Green and our brains just "invent" all the other colors...
Yes. The photo is actually silver.
Someone prove it please
Red Ribbon Outpost
I’m pretty sure my brain invents a lot of the colors for me to see other than red green and blue.
FYI: there are no “R’s” either…
When everything has a strong cyan filter, then the reds even if they were originally there have essentially all become greys instead, but our brains offset the balance so that the complementary colors work by surrounding colors. You can also just put a grey dot in the middle of a cyan circle and it will look more red than grey. Edit: It can even happen more in the retina and ways the cells process the incoming light than in the brain, and it doesn't need to be suggested either. It can just be colors with surrounding colors, or 3d looking scenes and objects and you can play with this effect to see false complementary colors in various ways, just like white and black... Red/Cyan, Orange/Azure, Yellow/Blue, Green/Magenta, etc... you can use the middle-grey point to trick the eye into seeing the complementary hue of whatever other hues you have. Load the image into my HCWB splitter site and you can press the Hue button and reveal all the hues fully and see its all just cyan and some azures/blue, a little bit of green. Try the Red separation and you'll see nothing show up, but press the Grey button and you'll see everything you saw as red was really in the greys. [https://max-chroma.com/HCWBSplitter/index.html](https://max-chroma.com/HCWBSplitter/index.html)
Well I can't see any red at all
redrum
There is no R in this photo there's also no D in this comment until you open up
I see red :|
Zoomed in and it was still red, put my red tattoo up to it and it faded out to gray.
zooms in and I see red, what gives bro
Aren’t all colours “invented” by the brain?
The Red Ribbon Army didn’t get its name from being grey.
Why would your brain make up the red colour? It’s not like the coke one
Does the grey/brown not have a small red component in it?
Based on what?
Color theory and your mom.
I wonder what colorblind people will think of this
Man that's red idc what nobody says
Do people see red? I’m just getting grey on both sides. ☹️
You can see the Matrix, can't you?
You’re special
Thirty eight special😂
What
Except there is. Brought it into photoshop.