Wednesday, September 7, 2022

Grid Illusion


The photo above is in black and white. But it looks like it's in color because there's a subtle grid laid over it. 

The phenomenon is called the 'color assimilation grid illusion'. [Source] Thanks, Massimo 

6 comments:

mdmattin said...

That is fascinating! The linked article left me wanting a bit more detail about how we actually perceive color this way - to say that our brain "averages" the grids with the achromatic background doesn't quite explain how we get to see different shades of gray as appropriate colors for faces, clothing, etc.

It's also interesting to compare it with techniques that have been known to artists for centuries - not just in Impressionism and Pointillism, but in ways that earlier painters were able compensate for the lack or high expense of many chromatic pigments by cleverly juxtaposing the colors they did have.

Matthew Mattingly
matthewmattingly.com

CerverGirl said...

I wonder if there were blonde-haired people in the photo what color grid might make their hair look the color. It appears the people in the image all have dark hair. Perhaps the blonde hair in B&W would look gray...

widdly said...

Seems like a neat way to save time and paint. Anyone know of any examples of this technique being used in paintings?

Vladimir Venkov said...

Wow! Very interesting and informative...

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Bob said...

This is essentially how the old (analog) color television worked. Engineers had to squeeze the color information into the existing black and white signal which still had to work on B&W sets. Fortunately, our eyes can interpret a fuzzy color image with sharp B&W detail as a sharp color image. Thus, the color portion, stripped of its detail, could fit into a subcarrier narrow enough for black and white TVs to ignore. Thanks for sharing these fascinating images!