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Has the world become less colourful?

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Re: Has the world become less colourful?

#21

Post by rocqua »

I would argue the graph looking at pixels in photographs is probably more affected by smartphones than any societal trend. Because so many more pictures are taken with smartphones now, the colors produced by smartphones have an impact here. But probably a greater impact is the number of throw-away pictures that are taken and published now as opposed to before.

(Not to say that smartphones pictures are bad pictures, but to say that ease of taking pictures, and ease of publishing pictures, removes bariers to 'bad' pictures. Smartphones are probably also responsible for an absolute increase in the total number of good pictures)

Re: Has the world become less colourful?

#22

Post by nonrandomstring »

An explanation might be LED lighting.

Sunlight, candle-light and resistive filament lights (incandescent) have a broadband spectrum. Through most of history we've viewed the world lit by these sources.

Moving to fluorescent lights causes spectral quantisation as the frequencies are due to electronic band transitions in the gas. The phosphor absorbs and re-emits energy in different bands that fills out the spectrum but it's still really strange, with missing bits. When fluorescent lights first became popular people complained of headaches from the strange spectrum. They are disfavoured in certain industrial applications because they make some colours harder to see.

Semiconductor lighting is even worse in this regard. Radiative re-emission in valance holes emits line spectrums. Only by combining these do we trick the eye into seeing "white light". Recently we've got good at blending doping agents to give mixed spectrums that approximate daylight.

If these forms of electronic lighting have holes in their spectra, perhaps that's why an analysis of a corpus of photos shows a change in spectrum over time?

Re: Has the world become less colourful?

#23

Post by Underphil »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #12

Maybe? The headline graphic is from https://lab.sciencemuseum.org.uk/colour-shape-using-computer... which really tells us about the colour of a subset of objects in the Science Museum's collection – so a bit of a biased sample, and I'd wager primarily due to changes in materials. There does seem to be maybe 20% more neutral-coloured cars since 1990, though. Interior design is probably the thing I'd most readily say h…

I can only speak anecdotally but I comment on the drabness of car colours every time I'm out driving with a passenger. It's extremely noticeable.

Re: Has the world become less colourful?

#24

Post by jan_Inkepa »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #22

An explanation might be LED lighting. Sunlight, candle-light and resistive filament lights (incandescent) have a broadband spectrum. Through most of history we've viewed the world lit by these sources. Moving to fluorescent lights causes spectral quantisation as the frequencies are due to electronic band transitions in the gas. The phosphor absorbs and re-emits energy in different bands that fills out the spectrum bu…

I have real problem with colour-perception in LED lighting - board game evenings are tricky when I can't tell the piece colours apart so well. Feels like it's just me though...

Re: Has the world become less colourful?

#25

Post by Karellen »

Barrin92 wrote: post #15

reminded me immediately of a tweet about the recent season of Dexter ( https://twitter.com/_katiestebbins_/status/14613483079013785... ). When new TV shows air I can't avoid paying attention to colors now, this kind of 'Scandi-Noir' look for a lack of a better term has become super common.

At least it's not orange-and-teal. Presumably scandi-noir will in turn give way to a different colour fashion in another few years (retro '80s neon?), and we'll be able to get nostalgic for subtle understated lighting and color grading.

Re: Has the world become less colourful?

#27

Post by stuartleigh »

ThePadawan wrote: post #19
cplli wrote: post #8

Car colours is something that sometimes worries me, brighter colours are sold as 'extra', while greys are default/cheaper. This leads to some cars basically camouflaging with the road, especially at times like dawn or dusk. There are other colours that make it harder to spot a car depending on location/time-of-day, but from my experience greys and grey-navy-ish are the worst.

It might be a self-perpetuating problem. Maybe people prefer (red, green, bright blue), but they fear that they won't be able to sell their car because of its color. So they buy white. (I read somewhere [so take this with a grain of salt] that this effect happens with marble kitchen countertops: not that many homeowners actually like them, but they believe that potential buyers might, so an overproportional amount of…

As somebody who has recently renovated their kitchen and bathroom, it's not that I thought potential buyers would prefer white over a colour, it's just that I thought they were less likely to NOT like white over my preference of colour, and then either be put off, or feel like "this house is perfect but we'd have to redo the bathroom right away because I can't stand the pink" and then offer less.

Re: Has the world become less colourful?

#28

Post by t_mann »

thoweriu34234 wrote: post #3

It's not just colours. The world rapidly turning into a real-life "borg-world": same kinds of buildings; same kinds of dresses; same kinds of "world models; same philosophies; and now the same language too. The world is for all real purposes has been gobbled up by the Anglosphere. It's all but dead; I'm sure many people realize how drab and low-entropy our world is today.

My impression is that architecture is becoming increasingly 'rectangular', with exteriors being basically a supremely boring assortment of different rectangular structures. Especially at the lower end, residential construction mainly meant to be sold to people who buy it as an investment rather than for personal use.

Re: Has the world become less colourful?

#29

Post by Broken_Hippo »

jan_Inkepa wrote: post #24
nonrandomstring wrote: post #22

An explanation might be LED lighting. Sunlight, candle-light and resistive filament lights (incandescent) have a broadband spectrum. Through most of history we've viewed the world lit by these sources. Moving to fluorescent lights causes spectral quantisation as the frequencies are due to electronic band transitions in the gas. The phosphor absorbs and re-emits energy in different bands that fills out the spectrum bu…

I have real problem with colour-perception in LED lighting - board game evenings are tricky when I can't tell the piece colours apart so well. Feels like it's just me though...

A couple weeks ago, I had the chance to play board games by candlelight. I was in a cabin in the woods.

And trust me, it would be much better with LEDs though obviously not perfect. Sometimes the colors just aren't different enough to easily tell apart. It seems like an issue that should be fixed.

Re: Has the world become less colourful?

#30

Post by matthewmacleod »

rocqua wrote: post #21

I would argue the graph looking at pixels in photographs is probably more affected by smartphones than any societal trend. Because so many more pictures are taken with smartphones now, the colors produced by smartphones have an impact here. But probably a greater impact is the number of throw-away pictures that are taken and published now as opposed to before. (Not to say that smartphones pictures are bad pictures, b…

The graph describes the colours in pictures taken of objects that are part a museum’s collection, not pictures taken with a variety of cameras over time. The behaviour of smartphone cameras would have no effect.
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