Which Color Is Darker?

86 comments

This is so wonderfull illusion! It was sent to me by one of our fans called Mike. Believe it or not, the "white" letters are actually darker than the "black" letters. This effect becomes clear when the surroundings are removed. You can jump inside this article to see the proof! This is what Mike wrote: "Found this magazine, Scientific American Mind, which had a good article about visual perception. Lots more in the June/July issue."








86 Comments

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  1. Anonymous Steelcitykid 

    I disagree. I cutout the letters and pasted them over the other colors words using photoshop. The "white" word that is shown without the surrounding background color is shaded darker than what is on the original picture. Try it for yourself.

  2. Anonymous jacquie 

    This illusion absolutely blows my mind! I can't believe it, how doooo they do it??? I love illusions!!! and i love all of you!
    Love Always
    Jacquie

  3. Anonymous Broccoli 

    The Blackreally looks blacker then the white

  4. Anonymous Zak 

    Hmmmm

  5. Anonymous charlotte 

    I Simply don't believe it...

  6. Anonymous Jack The Lad 

    Wow!!!

  7. Anonymous EAG-X 

    now that's just weird...

  8. Anonymous Alex 

    that is so cool. my dad tryed to do it and said that you should ask which letters are darker because he thought the black side was it. well when I saw it without the backrownd it was amazing because it looks like the black is darker with everything, but when there is just the letters you can see the difference.

  9. Anonymous sbredflag 

    Yah! first comment! I find it hard to believe that the white is darker than the black. But I guess it must be true...

  10. Anonymous koolio 

    reely kool

  11. Anonymous K-9 

    Interesting! However, the white is not much darker than the black. Nonetheless, it is INTERESTING...

  12. Anonymous Jinesh Jain 

    This is not true. The word "white" in the two images are not of the same color. This has nothing to do with perception. I suggest you take this illusion [sic] out.

  13. Anonymous Mr. ML 

    Dark - (of a color or object) not reflecting much light; approaching black in shade.

    In your illusion the white letters along with the white background are both reflecting all colors of light making them appear white while the black letters are absorbing all colors makin it appear black. So by definition black is always darker than white. On top of the fact that if your foreground is the same color as your background, your foreground will appear invisable.

    So where is the illusion?

  14. Anonymous ... 

    cool...i guess. its been done before though...

  15. Anonymous Q 

    Just hard to believe my eyes failed me.....^^

    After used the paint to check, really disappointed with my eyes

  16. Anonymous Seba 719 

    1st comment!

  17. Anonymous Eshita 

    How is this possible?

  18. Anonymous Kyl3 

    Nice.. :)

  19. Anonymous niki 

    Wow, cool, it sure tricked me!

  20. Anonymous Lidia 

    I think that this has been one of the better illusions resently. pretty cool.

  21. Anonymous britt 

    um i have looked over this many a times and still cant see how that is

  22. Anonymous yemoja 

    wicked

  23. Anonymous billy 

    woah, cool! when i look at the picture, i can't even tell! i was so sure it was fake that i used the dropper tool in photoshop, but they actually are the same!

  24. Anonymous PietreWitobi 

    Wow. Just... freaking...WOW.

  25. Anonymous Pablo 

    :S.... hahahaha. thats not an illusion !! xD its dummy :)

  26. Anonymous Mariana 

    I have no idea what it is so byue!!

  27. Anonymous Lauren 

    My favorite illusion of all!

    This is better than the other checkerboard version.

    Great site!

  28. Anonymous Alan Arkin 

    first reply awesome :)

    ya this is koo, photoshop??

  29. Anonymous purple21 

    um,i dont get it.

  30. Anonymous josh 

    I see these illusions all the time, but never know if it's the colours are the same or the oposite to what you percived. This is one of the best though.

  31. Anonymous Ricky 

    Wow, this is very confusing, but amazing indeed! :D

  32. Anonymous lulu 

    sorry but i don't buy it!

  33. Anonymous max 

    no, thats wrong, i printed it out, cut the words out and the "black" word was darker than the "white" word. and the pic without the backround isnt the same as the original one. thats not an optical illusion at all.

  34. Anonymous Andrew-John Weir 

    Black,White are shade's not colours so neither!!!

  35. Anonymous Hayden 

    How does that work?

  36. Anonymous Miri 

    Wow. you're right! I took the picture to paintpad and removed all the surroundings cause i couldnt believe it. and the white is much darker than the black! Who would've known?

  37. Anonymous mojo 

    that's so cool! i've seen something similar with a chessboard or something.

  38. Anonymous whatever 

    one usual, bad ilusion.

    P.S; I dont like it.

  39. Anonymous kelly 

    Wow. i have a book with illusions like that, but they still always get me!

  40. Anonymous WEST INDIAN PRINCESS 

    i actually guessed right

    i thought that the white seemed darker to me than the black

    i dont know how i came up with that it was just natural instinct i guesss......

  41. Anonymous Eric T. 

    Wow! That is so cool. I have the widget and I just couldn't figure out the answer so I came here. Astounding.

  42. Anonymous no_name 

    wow thtas really cool!

  43. Anonymous ellie 

    wow

  44. Anonymous nat 

    wow.. that's pretty amazing

  45. Anonymous Teeklee 

    Not too shabby. Saw something like this at an art gallery...

  46. Anonymous sailor 

    you are full of crap!!!!!!

  47. Anonymous FBDESIGN 

    WOW
    THATS AMAZING !

  48. Anonymous Jazel 

    I am a bit puzzled by the picture...the white is on the dark side, but the lettering is lighter then the other!! Question aren't you supposed to see something else like a totally different picture!!??"

  49. Anonymous Postmaster 

    post another illusion or i will have to say that this site sucks

  50. Anonymous r_berto 

    the colors are the same in photoshop. the "top/side" color of the BLACK is the same as the "face" of the WHITE. The "face" of the BLACK is the same as "front/edge" of the WHITE. The illusion works because the Black is standing and the WHITE is on its back.

  51. Anonymous sciam 

    to all the people who don't believe the illusion... it was in scientific american mind, a peer-reviewed and intensely scrutinized scientific journal..pretty sure they'd have to check their sources before publishing this

  52. Anonymous chris 

    it really does work

    i opened it in photshop and paint and used the color tool that tells you the color of the pixel that you click

    white is a big difference from black

  53. Anonymous PowerChild 

    (I tried posting already, but don't know if it went through).
    They're actually both the same, if you take it from the perspective of shapes rather than words. The word "BLACK" is standing up, whereas "WHITE" is lying down. The top edge of "BLACK" matches the face of "WHITE", and likewise the face of "BLACK" matches the bottom edge of "WHITE", which corresponds to how they're laying against the background.

  54. Anonymous Tesserex 

    This is real. Even if the two images are slightly different, I've tested this illusion before with the photoshop eyedropper right on the original images.

  55. Anonymous Anthony.B 

    I have to disagree with steelcitykid, if you grab the original file and cut the words out and place them next to eachother you will see that the WHITE is Darker than the BLACK.Very Cooool Illusion.

  56. Anonymous BRIDGET 

    THIS IS COOL MY EYES WERE GOING ALL FUNNY

  57. Anonymous Alexis 

    Don't know how you lot are doing it, but the white letters are way darker than the black in Photoshop.

  58. Anonymous Sbredflag 

    I checked with photoshop and MS paint. In photoshop, I dragged the "white" without the background next to the other one. They are the same.

  59. Anonymous Dave 

    awesome - strange how your mind plays tricks on you

  60. Anonymous tiny 

    I think that it was obvious that the white was darker than black, if it wasn't, then it wouldn't be an optical illusion and wouldn't be on this great site.

  61. Anonymous [M]ilt 

    on photoshop, because of the pixels, we will get a different outcome compared to our eyes.. because white is lying back down, which makes it darker, doesnt mean it's really dark. ALONG with the dark shadow, made it look black, so in photoshop, it captures the 'dark' colors and display it out on a white canvas, showing 'white' to be darker than 'black'.... my opinion is they are the same :)

  62. Anonymous sentin3l 

    The illusion is based on the disparity between a 2-dimensional interpretation of the image and a 3-dimensional one. Your mind isn't really playing tricks on you. Your mind is inferring the "color" of the blocks through experience. You know that white things appear darker at night. Think of walking through your house in the dark. Your mind assumes that color is constant (your sofa didn't change colors when the lights went out). But the contrast changed because of the amount of light being reflected back to your eyes. But in your mind, you still "see" the original color of the objects.

  63. Anonymous Quantum 

    I can't believe that the white is darker. This is amazing!

  64. Anonymous Tiberius 

    The front of the white letters are indeed darker than the front of the black letters

  65. Anonymous Trinity 

    I still don't believe it! I will need to place the 2 text graphics in Photoshop and overlay them to prove it to myself.

  66. Anonymous Kei 

    You guys! This is NOT an illusion!

    Get photoshop, put the word WHITE without the background ON the word white WITH the background, it is darker! Meaning the image was altered.

  67. Anonymous joel 

    # Jinesh Jain on 8:30 AM

    This is not true. The word "white" in the two images are not of the same color. This has nothing to do with perception. I suggest you take this illusion [sic] out.



    ...word.

  68. Anonymous NeoDarwinian 

    "White" is indeed darker than "black"

    r_berto
    PowerChild
    [M]ilt
    sentin3l

    are right!

    Read there explanations or try it for yourselfs.

    Still don't believe it.. use your hand to hid the background over the monitor. ;)

    One of the best ones i saw.

  69. Anonymous patty wadd 

    100% true. save pic. open in paint. zoom to large size. slide the pieces around. i've seen this before.. with the green cylinder and the checker boards... that also, is 100% true.

  70. Anonymous ton 

    black and white are not colour dummies. neat illusion tho'.

  71. Anonymous chocoholic 

    Nice illusion.. but I liked the checkerboard version better..

  72. Anonymous Pandas 

    WTC? :(-

  73. Anonymous 9 years old 

    That is SO COOL! I've seen shirts like that.;)

  74. Anonymous meeow? 

    kOoL

  75. Anonymous llamallady 

    that really tricked my eyes

  76. Anonymous JJ 

    wow steelcitykid, you have a life

  77. Anonymous Andrew 

    You've done this one before :(.

  78. Anonymous =/ 

    lol i agree with JJ on this one.... steelcitykid thats pretty pathetic

  79. Anonymous Tiger 

    Very easy to tell that the white is darker because of the light that is shining on the black.

    Very Cool,
    Tony The Tiger

  80. Anonymous ***Zeina*** 

    Hey, "whatever", stop being so negative, this a great site! And its "illusion"

    Great illusion! :)

  81. Anonymous Anonymous 

    OMG i cnt belive that the white is actually darker!!!!!!!!!!!!!.........yea i can, get over it evry1 n get a life

  82. Anonymous Anonymous 

    if you have photoshop or even paint, use the turkey baster thing and white is darker than black and steelcitykid eventhough the two whites arnt the same the white is still darker.

  83. Anonymous Anonymous 

    i

  84. Blogger Mark 

    Hey Max and Steelcitykid,

    Sorry to say, you are mistaken. The picture is real.

    I checked the shading out with my SnagIt editor and I used the Freehand selection tool to cut a fragment out of the letters. When you select part the "E" form the "WHITE" letters and move it around you will see that (1) the "WHITE" letters are darker than the "BLACK" letters, and (2) the shading of the letters in the first and second picture is identical. Don't trust a printer for this kind of comparison.

  85. Anonymous Anonymous 

    I don't need photoshop to see that the color of the word 'white' is darker than the color of the word 'black'. It's pretty obvious.

  86. Blogger Cutie 

    zzzzzzzzzzzz...huh...oh...BORING!!!!!!!!!




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