really cool optical illusion (1 Viewer)

[Christ Reynolds]

make sure the mouse cursor is not over the image, stare at the dot for 10 seconds or so, and mouse over the image. the grayscale image will appear to be in color until you move your eyes away. very cool!

http://www.johnsadowski.com/big_spanish_castle.html

CJ

 

[Kyle McKnight]

Sweet! When I moved my mouse over the image I thought to myself, "wth, they just put a color picture up."

 

[Richard Travale]

That is really cool.
Of course I was waiting for a witch to appear and scream

 

[Ricardo C]

Edited because, why spoil it?

 

[Christ Reynolds]

me too! i had to look away and check, i thought i was mistaken about the grayscale picture being up. i thought "wait, was the original color or black and white?"

CJ

 

[MarkHastings]

LOL - Me too!

 

[Carlo_M]

Now that was frickin cool.

 

[Bill_D]

just plain freaky.

 

[Jimi C]

Its looks like there is a color picture of the castle that appears for a fraction of a second before the black and white photo apprears.

 

[Richard Travale]

No, try staring at the now colour photo for random amounts of time. You can't move your eyes though. Until you move your eyes it will stay in colour.

 

[Bryan X]

Right. As long as you don't move your eyes, the castle will stay in color indefinately (or atleast as long as I was willing to sit staring at the screen ). Very cool illusion.

 

[Mark Kalzer]

Okay...I've done it four times, and I remain convinced it is just really well timed to switch to B&W white the moment I move my eyes...THIS TIME, I'll wait ten seconds after...aw screw it.

It's actually further evidence of the infalibility of our eyes to process everything in front of us. At best, our brains are guessing at what is visible. I think because the blurry image is reverse colour, by focusing on the dot, our brains are guessing that as the image changes, the colours are reversing. I suppose, our colour processing is far weaker then our fine detail processing.

In the end, do not trust your eyes. They lie to you.

 

[PhillJones]

[smartarse]
Nearly. What happens is that the neurorecptors (rods) for the inverse colours become exhausted by being continuously fired. So, you can't see those colours as effectively.

BTW, you mean falibility not infalibility. Don't mean to pick fault but I thought you might want to know that.
[/smartarse]

 

[Jimi C]

I understand how to do it and I got the illusion to work, but, it seems like no matter where I look at the image, when I mouse over I can see the color image for a split second before I see the black and white image. I think the illusion is made up of 3 seperate pictures.

 

[Bryan X]

Jimi, what probably is happening is when you move your mouse over the color picture, you're eyes are diverted ever so slightly by the motion of mouse pointer. Your eyes move, you lose the color image.

Here, I can prove it's only two images. The negative image is:

http://www.johnsadowski.com/2006_stuffs/manzana1.jpg

The black and white image is:

http://www.johnsadowski.com/2006_stuffs/manzana2.jpg

Now, copy and paste each link into a separate browser window (or browser tab if you have tabbed browsing) so that when you switch between the browser windows the images are perfectly overlayed. Bring up the negative image and stare at it then ALT-TAB quickly to the black and white image. Instant color and no 3rd image... until you move your eyes.

NOTE: The ALT-TAB window displaying all your programs that briefly pops up can be distracting enough to divert your eyes, so it is better to use your mouse to click between the browsers at the bottom of the screen.

 

[MarkHastings]

I've also tried this illusion myself (using Photoshop and HTML editor) and it worked as well.

 

[MarkHastings]

Check out this illusion:

http://www.vespaclassics.com/illusionontheroad.htm

 

[Christ Reynolds]

pretty cool!

CJ

 

[Jude Faelnar]

Uhm... you must mean fallibility not falibility. Don't mean to...

 

[PhillJones]

Fine, I shan't tell him next time and i'll let him go through his entire life with people sniggering behind his back at his ineptitude with antonyms.

PS. I bet you went to dictionary.com to look that up.