Mighty Optical Illusions » Afterimages

Twilight Saga Illusion Collection

Vurdlak — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:58:54 +0000

I’ve been working on this website for the last few days, it’s just that the work being done was held on the back-end side. This is why there hasn’t been any updates for the last two days. My deepest apologies.

Anyhow, recently I’ve noticed hysteria among chicks over this vampire saga called Twilight. My girlfriend read them books couple of times, and even forced me to watch actual movie with her. I would be lying if I didn’t say I was bored at best. Don’t know, I simply see it as ordinary vampire move redefined to suit women, but then again – I could be wrong.

Still, if there are any fans of the movie out there, I’ve received these two optical illusions of main actor – Robert Pattinson, so hope you enjoy them!

First one on the right is simple afterimage (if you don’t know how afterimages work, read this first). It works best if you switch your view to blank white screen, after burning the negative image in your retina. Perpetual blinking helps additionally. This one worked great for me! Few more afterimage illusions can be found here.

The second illusion of Robert Pettinson (on your left), is a simple photograph caught in the right moment. When I first saw it, I got impression this dude is wearing some kind of tennis hat and has really alien-ish head anatomy. When you take a closer look, you’ll quickly realize there is actually another person standing behind him.

There, I believe these two illusions weren’t the best ones available, but still we can’t have Greatest Illusions each day. Can we? Btw. check this promotion of Fight Club, done for the 10th anniversary. It will show you the power of Facebook Connect!

Skull Chaser Optical Illusion

Vurdlak — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 18:08:57 +0000

Check the animation below, or simply click this image

Here’s an interesting approach to original Lilac Chaser illusion, invented many years ago… Wait for the animation to load, and concentrate on the center dot for a minute or so. Normally the skulls are disappearing in a clock-wise direction, but if you manage to stay still and concentrated, you will experience an afterimage of the rotating skull in places (where there shouldn’t be any). Hope you understood all this babling.

Originally I got this optical illusion from here, and have to admit: I was forced to crop the above and below embedded letters. Sorry dear fellow webmaster, hope you don’t take it against me – it’s just that the letters were too big and spammy for the illusion to be useful anywhere elsewhere than on its original website.

Three Barack Obama Afterimages

Vurdlak — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:49:10 +0000

Barack Obama Afterimage

When the ship starts sinking, all the rats leave it. Same thing happened to my country (Croatia) today. Economic crisis, politic affairs and all sort of bad things came upon us one after another. Recognizing he can’t handle the situation any more, our prime minister resigned. Our government has fallen today, and all this couldn’t happen in worse moment.

Motivated by all this breaking news I’ve been listening to all day, I decided to post something Obama related. At least to give myself a hope for better future. I realize Barack isn’t a Superman, nor anything near a heroic savior United States hoped for, but you have to admit his figure was represented as hope for US, like nothing else was.

I’ll keep monitoring how things evolve in the following days. In the mean time here are some afterimage optical illusions for you to play with. If you aren’t familiar with afterimage illusions, you should check this category first. Its very simple – all you have to do is stare at the center of these images (for a minute or so), and afterward switch your view to some blank, white surface. White wall, or piece of paper should be more than fine. After few seconds, negative image should appear, enabling you to see what was hidden inside those afterimages. If you can’t see it clearly, repeat the procedure, or simply blink repeatedly and the results should appear more sharply.

Another Barack Obama Afterimage Optical Illusion

..and another one

Flying Bird Afterimage

Vurdlak — Sat, 16 May 2009 13:34:00 +0000

Few days ago I showed you the winning optical illusion of the 2009 illusion contest. As I promised, here is another one that won the second place in the same contest. The illusion you see has some ghostly colors. When you stare at a waterfall for a few minutes, and look away, the still world around you appears to flow. The effect is called an “afterimage.”. Well, being aware of this phenomena, scientists in Israel created a drawing of a sky with clouds that flashes red for a split second. A white dove flying across the sky seems to turn red seconds after the flash, showing that an afterimage color can linger in our vision and bleed into empty spaces.

You are free to play with the color backgrounds, switching them when you wish. After the colored background disappears, our little birdie remains colored. I’d like to thank Jerry Carpenter for sending me this one.

Incredible Family Guy Illusion

Vurdlak — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 18:00:00 +0000

Hy guys! Just a quick update, I’m in a hurry for poker game back at my house, but also wanted to share this cool illusion with you, before I leave the office. But before we proceed, please reply if your Vista Gadget has been working normally today? I’m not sure if it’s only me getting some loading errors. In either case, get the new version (v7.0) just to make sure it works. In the picture below, watch how Peter from Family Guy as Incredible Hulk changes from black and white, to full-color. Here are the steps: Stare at the dot in the middle of the pic for 20 seconds or more. Continue to stare at the dot, without moving your eyes. The black and white image will seem to be in color now. Looks can be deceiving, right? More of these can be found inside the Afterimages category. Oh, I have received some complaints about “yourfilehost”, where we used to store our files, and have successfully fixed Audio illusions. If you find more outgoing links to “yourfilehost” on this site, please email me to remove them as well!

“See No Evil” Afterimage Billboards

Vurdlak — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 13:39:00 +0000

Amnesty International, whose clever ideas we’ve already posted on this site before (dozen of times), released another brave campaign under the title: “See no Evil”. Billboards they printed, show afterimage optical illusions. When you first look at the seemingly unrelated black shape, you probably won’t recognize anything interesting. But if you know how afterimages work, then you’ll immediately see some of the worlds most notorious villains. Concentrate at the red cross at the center of each image, and after a minute, move your eyes and look at some white surface (wall, paper, ceiling… ). After few seconds you’ll be able to see negative of the black shape, which will form face of the very familiar “celebrity”. There are 5 different posters inside this article, can you recognize all the villains they picture? This campaign greatly reminds me of Veja Magazine’s promotional posters (part I, part II, part III).

Ernesto “Che” Guevara Afterimage

Vurdlak — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 20:00:00 +0000

Che Guevara, El Che, or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, politician, guerrilla leader and whole bunch of other stuff hard to pronounce. After his death, his stylized image became an ubiquitous counter-cultural symbol worldwide, which you probably saw on some “rebellious” teenager’s T-shirt. There is a big chance you even have some sort of outwear with this symbol. I never had time to study Che Guevara’s background, but you may do so by visiting his biography on wikipedia. My opinion was that this young lad become famous mostly because of his looks and the famous stylized portrait. There is a chance if he hadn’t been executed as a young person, he would be nothing more than Fidel Castro’s partner in politics. Don’t take me for granted, it’s just my uneducated view. I’m really interested to hear your standings. Still, I have to admit that Alberto Korda’s photograph of him entitled “Guerrillero Heroico” (shown as inverted negative on the left), which was also declared “the most famous photograph in the world” is really awesome. I just don’t understand why many young people, punkers, rebels without the cause, emo’s etc. wear Che-badges. Isn’t this too stereotype? Oh, almost forgot: to see the illusion, stare at the center of the image for a minute or so, and then look away at the white surface. You should see the negative almost immediately. If you blink repeatedly, the effect should be even better. More afterimages can be found here. HASTA LA VICTORIA SIEMPRE!

P.S. If someone here is professional in Adobe Flash, and knows how to embed link inside a flash file (swf or flv), please email me, I have a small task for you. All help is highly appreciated! I have an interesting flash optical illusion, but need help implementing clickable moillusions.com link inside the animation.

“Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin – Afterimage Illusion

Vurdlak — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 19:29:00 +0000

One of the most popular Australians that ever lived – Steve Irwin, also known as “Crocodile Hunter” is main actor of today’s optical illusion. I have to admit, Irwin wasn’t my dearest documentary actor before the tragic event took place. Those of you who don’t know the story, Steve died in 2006 after his chest was fatally pierced by a stingray barb, while filming in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. When this happened, half of the planet was in sorrow. I too shared the compassion – even though I wasn’t a fan of Steve’s acting style. This is simply because he was obviously a very good man, and unspoilt by nature, at least this is my view of him. So in the tribute, I post this nice afterimage I found yesterday. You can see this black and white photo in color, if you simply stare at the white dot in the center. After a minute, the image will automatically change to colorful negative. Keep starring at the dot. Next time the image changes, it will switch back to black and white photo (again), but you’ll be able to see it in full color. This effect happened, because colorful negative has slightly “burnt” in your retina, and will stay like this for few seconds, which is enough for you to see the original b&w photo in color!

Rick Roll Afterimage Optical Illusion

Vurdlak — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 12:37:00 +0000

I found this top quality Afterimage illusion and started to write an article about it. The image was titled “rick roll illusion”, so I titled the article accordingly. The afterimage looked like the negative image of Bob Dylan, but Rick Roll is someone I never heard of. So I did a little research and was surprised by the results I received. Apparently, Rick-rolling is a prank and Internet meme involving the music video for the 1987 Rick Astley song “Never Gonna Give You Up” written and produced by Mike Stock, Matt Aitken, and Pete Waterman known as Stock Aitken Waterman.

The meme is a classic bait and switch: a person provides a link they claim is relevant to the topic at hand, but the link actually takes the user to the Astley video. The URL can be masked or obfuscated in some manner so that the user cannot determine the true source of the link without clicking (and thus satisfying their curiosity). A person who falls for the prank is said to be “rickrolled”. The practice began as a variant of an earlier prank called duckrolling, in which a link to a popular celebrity or news item would instead lead to a photoshopped picture of a duck with wheels.

Concerning the illusion, it works in the same way as Jesus Afterimage. You just have to stare at the little plus sign in the middle for about a minute, and then quickly look at the white surface. The effect will be stronger if you blink your eyes repeatedly.

Black and White Pyramid in Color!

Vurdlak — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 17:53:00 +0000

Stare at this animation for 40 seconds, and concentrate on the black spot. After some time, the image will switch automatically (since it’s 2 frame animation), and show you black and white photo of a Pyramid in Egypt. Because of the special effect, originally invented by John Shadowsky, you will see a full color photo of the Pyramid instead black and white one that shows up. Don’t believe me? See for your self! These kind of illusions became really popular in last few months. You can even find few of them in this site’s Archives. Check Rainbow Illusion, and Black and White Spanish Castle Illusion. Here’s what Felice Lungo, creator of this submission wrote in his email: “I made a “Black&White in Color Image” and I would be really glad if you can add it on your website! I don’t know if it’s possible!, but I hope! Hope you like it!”