It's easier if you just cover the middle with a finger or something. I noticed the same color as soon as i did that.

WOW, No Way. Thats un-belivable

Actually Vurdlak, I think the top one is lighter!

Makes you wonder how many times in a day your eyes deceive you.

I just checked in photoshop AND a few other rograms i got... this is a fake... its not the same colour at all... in photoshop one at the top is #6B7270... and the one on the bottom is #616866. as you might see they are not the same!

PS... wtf is it with all ppl that says "first post"?!? its not like your getting a price or something... so just shut up if you dont have anything better to say!

Actually they are not exactly the same shade, the bottom one is ever so slightly darker...

I checked.they are SIMILAR shades of grey, but they arent EXACTLY the same.

I checked in photoshop and its almost the same color... (look the same though...)

The bottom 1 is actually darker.

It is NOT the same color and you do not need photoshop to check it. Just:

- save the photo to your desktop
- Right-click it and open it with paint
- In paint you just use the stipped square function
- Cut out a piece of the top part an slide over the bottom part
--> it's not the same color

The bottom cube is definately darker, just copy and paste a patch from one to the other.

Well done everybody on refraining yourselves from the "First Post" rubbish.

Hey! I didn't bother to chect but I'll just go with everyone else and say the bottom is darker. wow! and it's the one that looks lighter. Anyways, I looked at your little counter thing and I saw the number and I hit "refresh" and in the time it refreshed (not more than 5 seconds) your counter jumped up 10 ppl! Thats crazy

Guys, Guys, Guys,

It may be true that it is technically a different colour, but that's not the point really when you put your finger across the middle (so you can't see the join) it 'looks' like they are the same colour and when you take your finger away it 'looks' like they are completly different colours. THAT is the illusion - technicallities and Photoshop reference numbers are not really relevent in this.

Hey! That's one million viewers in one day over a month! Wow. this site ROCKS

The bottom one is actually darker!

Digital color meter in mac reveals the bottom is lighter.

This is Dennis.....
Ohhh I hate my life I have to prove everyone wrong. Photoshop this different color that. Why don't you effin be happy and just appreciate the work of art.

Oh yah and genius you probably meant to say "getting a prize"!!!

Sincerely, Reality Check

It's interesting... but I also checked this in Photoshop and found that my numbers were exactly off by 1 from Dennis's numbers in the second place from the left. I got #6C7270 and #626866. However, either way they are different. FAKE! Attack the maker of this pic with pitchforks and torches in a mob!

Just looking by eye, and covering the parts of the squares that are obviously different (middle, the two sides), they do *finally* look the same.

Interesting! If they were the same grey, the illusion would still work.... What I find most interesting is that in 2D, surrounding the same grey with a darker color and a lighter color makes the one surrounded by the light color appear darker, but when the illusion of 3D is presented, you "see" the center of the white block as lighter.

any chance we can get the "recent illusions" link back?

wow! i always love these illusions...

cover with finger, uncover with finger, conver with finger...

argh! this is melting my brain!!

Yup, the bottom is actually very slightly DARKER! So while it is not the same shade, it is still an illusion! Cool one!

"It's easier if you just cover the middle with a finger or something. I noticed the same color as soon as i did that."
rob

Are you sure? The bottom one is darker than the top. Amazing!

I don't have photoshop but I used the color picker in paint and the bottom is actually darker, but only on average. Obviously some places on bottom are much lighter and much darker on top. I've never seen checkers like this either, we always used red and black round ones. Or do you mean this is for people who check colors?

they're not exactly the same, but if you just cover up in between the two things, then it does look they are the same

The top one is lighter i cut and pasted a part from each side and the top one is just a little bit lighter then the bottom but its still fabulious

xox -- Alana

Cool!

the bottom one is definately darker on photoshop

The top one is darker than the botton one, It is evident and I checked it in photoshop and yes, it is.

When you look at the full version of the image, you'll note two things: 1) it's a JPG and 2) Since it's a JPG, it's using Lossy compression (which is obvious if you look at the gradients on the 3D object and the horizon). With that and the fact that the two shades of grey are pretty close together, I'd bet using an uncompressed version, it would be the same color.

Just my two cents. :)

It's just amazing how the bottom one is darker, but it still looks whiter.

I checked it also in photoshop and I've compared the colours. Here are they:
Top = R:108, G:114, B:112
Bottom = R:98, G:104, B:102
So it's fake...

Indeed. I've copied a block from each to each so that you can see exactly but this form doesn't allow attachments so I've put it at
http://www.krishna-das.com/advanced+checkers.jpg
Perhaps our illusionmaster can copy it to the main site...

Using Photoshop

Top piece
R:108
G:114
B:112

Bottom piece
R:98
G:104
B:102

So it's not an illusion :(

I agree the bottom section is darker in colour, maybe that is the illusion, because it looks like it should be the other way around.

It's a fake, i confirm bottom is darker ...

Actually, as they said above, two colors are not the same, so this is not an illusion.

Then, even if the base colors were the same, because of different use of shading/bevel/emboss properties, you cannot call this optical illusion.

To keep honest your mission, trash it :D !

As others have said, not exactly the same. Close though

well, they probably were the same in the original 3d mockup... as any techie will tell you, taking a screen shot, then compressing it alters the colours, like bmp's or clipboard screenshots to jpg's (to save space, but keep the APPEARANCE)... it also depends what format it was saved in before it got here, and how many times was it converted and compressed? the only way to know for sure that they are the same colours is to have the original 3d visualisation... then you KNOW what the olours are!

Still, way cool site!

When I first check this I thought it was a con, as they weren't the same colour. But then I realised it was the bottom one that was darker, which actually makes the illusion even better, as the one that appears the lightest is actually the darkest. In most of these, they are just the same colour - this one goes further.

Yes, the top one il LIGHTER, really amazing.

Yeah i concure... photoshop says no! top is R108 G114 B112 bottom is R98 G104 B102! bad show....

It's even more amazing!... the one in the bottom is DARKER!

the color is different, but that makes the illusion cool, the top box is lighter then bottom one, while watching it u think the opposite, that's the illusion and its uber-cool

I think Dennis needs a hug

first post

wadya mean?

The bottom one is slightly darker according to Adobe.

Sure there are not the same.
Dark one : 108 114 112
Other one : 098 104 102

Where is the illusion?

I think the Colors for this Checkers should be reverse way, as the source of light is from the top and the bottom one should be the darker side; hence there may b scope for illusion

Either my Paint Shop Pro program is off, or the illusion is off. The dropper tool in PSP says that the middle of the top is R 108, G 114, and B 112 while the middle section of the bottom is R 98, G 104, and B 102. Am I looking at the wrong areas?

AWESOME First Post!! Yeah!!
Just kidding. Hey, dennis, get offa my cloud!

The colors are slightly different but it's cool anyway.

I also noticed that they aren't the same color I didn't have to open Photoshop, though. There's a Firefox Add-on called Colorzilla. It puts a little eyedropper in the lower left and you can click on it and hover over a color and it will give you the color info. Just thought I'd share.

Middle post!
;-)

Well, I photoshpically confirm that lower one is darker! I'm going right now to the shop and buy a new pair of eyes because my ones fail more than a "escopeta de feria", as we say in Spain.
Great illusions!

The truth is if you cover all the shadow effects--they are definitely the same color.

Its a Fake bottom one is darker maybe the illusion is the fact that the one that appears to be lighter is actually darker

They are definetly two different shades, not an illusion!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think that the illusion is: The botton one is darkness that the top one.
If you see both of them you think that the top is darkness and it isn't.

Following is a link to an updated version. I just changed the color of one of the blocks to match the other.
http://img519.imageshack.us/my.php?image=advanced2bcheckersltmj3.jpg

(I hope I don't infringe on anyone's copywrite)

For those using FireFox, check out the ColorZilla addon. It showed me the colors without having to use a third party program.

the left hand side of the background is the same colour as the right hand side.. does that help ?

Actually, since the bottom panel first appears as LIGHTER, when direct blend is compared and bottom is shown to be DARKER, that is a powerful illusion.

Its an OPTICAL illusion. One for your eyes. Not for photoshop

The top one looks darker than the bottom one, when in fact, the top one is lighter than the bottom one.

This means it IS an illusion.

It WOULDN'T be an illusion (or it would be a fake) if the bottom one was actually lighter. But it isn't, it's darker, which means our eyes are decieving us.

Who the heck are you people foolin! I've seen a lot of these but I never did see them match color. Or maybe i'm just color blind.

Even if the colors are not the same, this makes the illusion more STRONG, since it is the other way round.

For me, this illusion is even stronger than other illusions of the same type.

Please, next time if you post here, use your brain and not only Photoshop. Photoshop is c00l, as long as you know how to use tools like this (and what actually these numbers mean).

Tested and even without looking at the numbers I could tell the top one was lighter...

hi this is andreas,

hey Oran (#19), i've done it
http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/9074/advancedcheckers2nb4.png
^^ i've changed the image and adjust the colors with a little shade of gray.

and Ua(#30), my version is a png ;)

now you can appreciate my photoshop skills, and please, excuse my english! germans can't use a dictionary *lol*

i tested it and the bottom one is a little darker

Hey where's my comment..? Testing, testing, 1, 2...

People! Just click on the image and cover the middle section with your finger! thats the illusion. Vlurdak shouldnt have asked you to check in photoshop - This illusion is Phenom

This version it's not a fake but it seem however different shades of gray.

Right Image

The principle is correct and interesting... it has only been realized poorly.

Because of the commotion over whether this was an illusion--the middle of the checkers weren't exactly the same color, I decided to modify the image. I color-corrected the whole image so that the checkers are truly gray and the same shade on both sides.

Click HERE to see the color-corrected image.

I just tested it in Paint, and as other people said, the top one is actually lighter.

Cool!

so nice to see how people spend so much time on something so trivial! get a life

It isn't trivial. It is a very interesting problem and there has been a lot of research done into why this effect occurs (it's called color constancy). It's actually done in the eye, in the retina specifically. It's the result of of a network of neurons that act basically like a lossy data compression system that throws out regions of constant color and the average color of the scene and only passes on information about color changes (the same applies to brightness, as in this example). The border in the middle is as a very strong color transition, causing the color above and below to be perceived incorrectly when the brain fills in the solid colors later on.

Dennis is true, they are not same color. The upper one is lighter :D

For some reason i just tilted my head to the right and it just seemed they were the same colors

yeah the finger thing works..

by the way Dennis ... first post..

Do I win a price???

The Colors are NOT the same. See for your self, paste it into paint, use the color picker on the lighter looking side of the cube, then use the brush and paint on the darker looking side and see what happens. >:(

Actually... They are the same color. Its simple put your finger over the middle and you'll see they are the same color... Duh.. Because if it wasn't an illusion why put it on this site??????

I checked it. The bottom one is ever so slightly darker then the top one. ;P