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Why we're blind to the color blue

calebkruse.com

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Re: Why we're blind to the color blue

#141

Post by GuB-42 »

crazygringo wrote: post #19

I don't believe the blurred images at the end have anything to do with eye focus, as the author suggests. After all, chromatic aberration is blurring of only a very, very small amount. The demonstrated seemingly negligible perceptual effect of blurring blue to a huge degree in a multicolor image doesn't seem to have anything to do with that, but rather the fact that we perceive primary blue as a much darker color tha…

Right, I picked the "blurred blue" and "blurred green" pictures, converted them to grayscale using luminance and "blurred blue" still looks sharp and "blurred green" still looks blurry.

If it really was the effect of blue light, the effect should have disappeared by converting to grayscale.

It is well known that luminance matters much more than color when it comes to perceived sharpness. Digital and analog video exploit that by encoding color at a lower resolution (chroma subsampling). And blue only accounts for less that 10% of luminance while green is around 70%. You may find different values because color spaces are a mess but that's the general idea.

Re: Why we're blind to the color blue

#142

Post by Wistar »

sgtnoodle wrote: post #133
crazygringo wrote: post #19

I don't believe the blurred images at the end have anything to do with eye focus, as the author suggests. After all, chromatic aberration is blurring of only a very, very small amount. The demonstrated seemingly negligible perceptual effect of blurring blue to a huge degree in a multicolor image doesn't seem to have anything to do with that, but rather the fact that we perceive primary blue as a much darker color tha…

I dunno, but when I look at glowing blue signs and blue Christmas lights at night, they look significantly more fuzzy than other color lights.

Yes! I have difficulty with some blue signage and especially with certain intense blue LED lights as they seem to vibrate to my eyes. I also find it hard for me to read the text in blue on the small, scrolling LED signs common in storefronts.

Re: Why we're blind to the color blue

#143

Post by the_af »

thom wrote: post #123
pier25 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great anecdote! Reminded me of the short story Zima Blue by Alastair Reynolds (which was adapted into an animation short on Netlifx's "Love, Death and Robots").

I found that episode very moving. It captured the feeling I suspect many of us experience, of having started out with simple, blissful naivety, before slowly accreting layers of grown up, professional bullshit until a craft loses its joy. The desire to strip it all away, not just the ways in which your work has changed over the years but also the ways in which it has changed you. I had no idea Alastair Reynolds was b…

Apparently more than one "Love, Death + Robots" episode was based on Alastair Reynolds' work. "Beyond the Aquila Rift", for example.

I also spotted references to other scifi authors. There's one episode from the first season that is almost 100% something Bradbury would have written (without me telling you which one, can you guess which episode I'm thinking of? Just to doublecheck my own perception), and of course "Pop Squad" from the second season is based on the short story of the same title by Paolo Bacigalupi (from "Pump Six and Other Stories").

And I'm sure I'm missing many more!

Re: Why we're blind to the color blue

#144

Post by gompertz »

floatrock wrote: post #26
aimor wrote: post #22

I'm tempted to experiment. If I take a blue LED and a green LED in the dark, when I focus on one the other should appear blurred.

Blue LED clocks (like on 'high end' microwaves or appliances) are one of my biggest pet peeve. I'm not an old fart by any stretch -- my eyes are fine -- but the blue blur when looking at the clock at night is a real thing. Fun fact: this phenomenon is similar to why older cars had yellow-tinged fog lights. It's partly light scattering in suspended water droplets (fog), it's partly the perception factors talked about…

Major pet peeve of mine too.... Blue leds on appliances are an instant deal breaker for me. Green looks cheap. Fortunately starting to see some white led displays on appliances, but hard to come across still.

Re: Why we're blind to the color blue

#145

Post by Retric »

GuB-42 wrote: post #141
crazygringo wrote: post #19

I don't believe the blurred images at the end have anything to do with eye focus, as the author suggests. After all, chromatic aberration is blurring of only a very, very small amount. The demonstrated seemingly negligible perceptual effect of blurring blue to a huge degree in a multicolor image doesn't seem to have anything to do with that, but rather the fact that we perceive primary blue as a much darker color tha…

Right, I picked the "blurred blue" and "blurred green" pictures, converted them to grayscale using luminance and "blurred blue" still looks sharp and "blurred green" still looks blurry. If it really was the effect of blue light, the effect should have disappeared by converting to grayscale. It is well known that luminance matters much more than color when it comes to perceived sharpness. Digital and analog video expl…

That’s not an apples to apples test because of how greyscale is computed. Try swapping the blue and green channels rather than converting to greyscale.

Re: Why we're blind to the color blue

#146

Post by bacan »

This article is false. Try this out Photoshop and not even close.

Here are my results, with a 22px Gaussian Blur on the Channels

https://imgur.com/a/AS0LAyk

IMO The only reason the blue appears a little less blurry is that most of that color is in the water & clouds.

Not in the land masses, with the sharp borders

Re: Why we're blind to the color blue

#147

Post by bacan »

crazygringo wrote: post #19

I don't believe the blurred images at the end have anything to do with eye focus, as the author suggests. After all, chromatic aberration is blurring of only a very, very small amount. The demonstrated seemingly negligible perceptual effect of blurring blue to a huge degree in a multicolor image doesn't seem to have anything to do with that, but rather the fact that we perceive primary blue as a much darker color tha…

This article is false. Tried this out Photoshop and not even close.

Here are my results, with a 22px Gaussian Blur on the Channels

https://imgur.com/a/AS0LAyk

IMO The only reason the blue appears a little less blurry is that most of that color is in the water & clouds.

Not in the land masses, with the sharp borders

Re: Why we're blind to the color blue

#148

Post by hnuser123456 »

jbluepolarbear wrote: post #102
techrat wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're precious. Why don't you tell me what else my eye doctor has never diagnosed me with?

9 in 10 people have some affliction of astigmatism. Astigmatism is just that your eye isn’t perfectly spherical. What does your eye prescription say in the cyl and axis fields, that’s your astigmatism correction.

20/10 and 20/13 means much better than average good vision. It would be bad if they were e.g. 20/30. Funny that you're LARPing an eye doctor without knowing this.

Re: Why we're blind to the color blue

#149

Post by herbstein »

drcongo wrote: post #50

One of my favourite series in art is Yves Klein's blue work. For anyone unfamiliar, he found a blue that he considered the bluest possible blue [1], and went on a journey painting everything in that blue. I loved that he did this, and then eventually managed to get to an exhibition of his work at the Tate Modern and was absolutely blown away by it - it really needs to be seen in the flesh to appreciate it. There's so…

I saw some of the same things you'd have seen in the MoMA (not actually called that) in Nice, France. Walking into the room of these insanely blue paintings and sculptures was almost a religious experience. It's the first time I experienced Stendhal Syndrome[0]. I just had to stand there and stare for a while.

Yves Klein's "Leap into the Void"[1] is another one of his works that really grabbed me when I first saw it. Can't quite explain it. Those are the best types of art experiences in my book.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stendhal_syndrome

[1]: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/266750

Re: Why we're blind to the color blue

#150

Post by wchar_t »

archduck wrote: post #120
drcongo wrote: post #50

One of my favourite series in art is Yves Klein's blue work. For anyone unfamiliar, he found a blue that he considered the bluest possible blue [1], and went on a journey painting everything in that blue. I loved that he did this, and then eventually managed to get to an exhibition of his work at the Tate Modern and was absolutely blown away by it - it really needs to be seen in the flesh to appreciate it. There's so…

Yes!! The lack of green-blue distinction is prevalent enough in linguistics that the term "grue" has entered the lexicon. Paul and Kay (1969) argue for a linguistic universal which posits that the set of which colors a language has is a function of how many colors it has. (Stealing from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity_and_the_... ): 1. All languages contain terms for black and white. 2. If a langu…

And I thought grues were the furry adventurer-eating dungeon-dwelling horrors!
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