How a colour blind person sees the world
I’ve heard a lot of talk recently about accessibility issues on the internet, and how that doesn’t mean catering for ‘just blind people’. That’s true, and I back what most people are saying wholeheartedly - but that’s not what this blog is about. Amidst the talk and chatter someone mentioned colour blindness, and it was only then that I realised - I’m one of these people who would benefit from Accessibility aware development.
I am red/green colour blind, the same as 8% of all white men. My colour blindness was picked up at primary school, where a frighteningly large person called small groups of children into the school office and we were given brief eye examinations. We were handed out small cards with a printed circle on, full of little random dots. We were asked to say what number was written in the circle and while my friends reeled off answers with confidence I said ‘mine doesn’t have a number’. My friends looked at me like I was playing some sort of joke. They were asked to leave, I stayed - thinking I was in trouble. For me, there was no number, because I’m colour blind. It’s something I never think about, except on the odd occasion when someone will remark about some colour and I’ll argue the colour. (Being colour blind doesn’t just mean I don’t see some colours, it also means my names for some colours are not the ones ‘full sighted’ people will use. I literally don’t see the same colour, so I name it differently).
We got to talking about it at work, and after a while trying to comprehend that I must be missing out on a whole spectrum of information and input I said to Tim - “I wish I could see the world like other people see it”. I don’t know what I’m missing, because I’ve got no grounds for comparison, and I never will know how other people see the world because colour blindness isn’t something that can be cured. What I can do however is show you how I see the world.
The following pictures use a little Photoshop plug-in to simulate my type of colour blindness. I’m not completely red/green colour blind so I’ve fiddled with the results a bit to try and get it more accurate. The pictures below are a very close simulation to how I see the world, all day, every day, everywhere. When I look at these pictures there is almost no difference at all - both the left and the right image look almost identical. If you were to cut them in half and show me one, then the other I would not be able to tell you which version you had shown me. Remember that 8% of all white men see the world like this, to a greater or lesser degree, and that in a room of 250 people (of mixed race/gender) at least 12 will be colour blind.
This is the best simulation - these are identical to me.
I picked this one because it has strong reds and greens. I can just about tell that these two are different - the red shirt Mike is wearing is very slightly duller and browner in the simulation than I see it in the ‘Full spectrum’ version, but that is the only difference I can see here, and it’s only noticeable to me when I compare these side-by-side.
I’m not singling out John Oxton’s site for any reason other than it’s the first one I thought of when I wanted to show people how I see a colourful website.
Hopefully this gives you a small peek into how I see things. It’s why I can’t see berries on holly bushes, why the orange/green safety reflectors on the backs of large lorries aren’t very noticeable to me, why I can never pilot a plane or be a police officer, and why Dad’s Technics DVD player annoys the hell out of me. The shade of green used for ‘on’ and red used for ‘off’ are close to indistinguishable for me. I hate that DVD player.
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- Thu, 30th Jun 2005 at 19:06 UTC
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skip to comment formColour blindness fascinates me. Thank you for sharing an approximation of what you see. I dated a boy (with whom I am still friends) for over two years who is red/green colour blind. He is a painter, and his art is fantastic. His names for colours are the same as mine - according to him, he sort of learned which shades he saw were called “red” and which were called “green” (the names on the tubes of paint helped :o)) I constantly questioned him about the way he saw things, trying to understand. I could go on about this, but I won’t take up your time. I just wanted to thank you and to let you know that you have inspired me to look further into this interesting subject.
Great entry, really interesting. I have a lecturer who is colour blind and he used to show us a lot of the cards you described being shown at primary school.
This is fascinating stuff. I barely mention colour-blindness in my Web accessibility training, beyond noting a few combinations known to be problematic: red/black, red/green, beige-orange-yellow/red-green. It’s fascinating to read about and see the issues you encounter everyday. We all know that we shouldn’t use colour alone to convey information, but it’s hard to account for sometimes.
Nice to meet you the other day, by the way.
I’m glad you are all finding it interesting.
People often assume that being red/green colour blind means I will not know the difference between what is red and what is green. People will immidiatly point to a bright red object and ask me the colour, then seem surprised when I always answer correctly. Colour blindness (for me) doesn’t work like that. I can tell most shades of red from most shades of green - the problem is the way my visual spectrum is ‘muted’, and so when the shades start getting closer together I lose the ability to distinguish between them. I have a very hard time distinguishing certain -shades- of colour (red, orange, brown, green) because they all start looking the same at certain points in the spectrum. A primary red and primary green are obviously different, but I’d class the two as being a lot more similar than primary blue and primary green.
Trying to imagine that red and green are in fact as contrasting as blue and green blows my mind - I can’t visualise it.
More information on colour blindness can be found on the Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_blind
Owen - it was nice to meet you too, it’s good to see people who’re genuinely interested in Accessibility.
Cool blog entry dude, iv just been sitting here for 10 mins trying to get my brain around it,lol. Fascinating stuff, its almost like looking at the world in sepia vision (that the right word?) ya know when ya can set digital camera to take old fashioned sepia photos, all the colours on Matt Vision look like that to me, very cool *starts reading wikipedia*
“Trying to imagine that red and green are in fact as contrasting as blue and green blows my mind - I can’t visualise it.”
-Obviously you can’t visualise it, silly. :o) (Although I know what you mean.) I’m sure you’ve heard this, but I’ll say it anyway. Red and green are actually opposite each other on the colour wheel, and, when put next to each other (especially involving text), to most non-colour blind people they will appear to vibrate at the edges, or have the illusion of raised text. This is true of other colour opposites as well (blue/orange, violet/yellow…), but since both orange and violet have red in them I wonder if this would be noticed by someone who is less sensitive to red? Maybe more of a blue-violet and a yellow would work? Not than any of this matters in the least to you, but now you’ve got me going. I will have to perform experiments on my friend. :o)
i’ve red/green colour deficient vision too - can’t even see a difference between the left and right images in the examples you show above - I sent around a bunch of similar images to the guys at work a while back (i work with designers at a agency) and they were all amazed at how different they were, but that I couldn’t see it.
i’ve been fascinated with colour vision since i found out i had problems (when i was a kid), although i’ve never really been that affected by it (although it did scupper my dreams of being a pilot
I am red/green colorblind.I was doubtful in my school days that wheather i was color blind or not as didnt had any test before.I became aware of it just a few days back when i cleared my interviews and everything for becoming an army officer in Indian army.In the last day of my medical i came to know that i m colorblind and was declared unfit for all armed forced Army ,Navy , Airforce,Police and some more.It is really breaking moment for me but cant help it friends as there is no cure for it .
Life never stops neither do I
Those of us who have this disease ,its just a hard luck
I'm sorry you can't do what you've been wanting to. Fortunately for myself I've no desire to be in the forces. It's interesting that colour blindness is one of the most common disabilities for men in the western world, but it's also one that most people completely dismiss and don't realise can be limiting on those that are colour blind.
As a side note, it's a genetic defect rather than a disease - which is why it's not curable.
Wow, what an amazing insight. I am a science tacher at a UK secondary school (is this site in the UK?) and stumbled upon your site while planning a lesson on light and colour. The examples you show on your site are amazing. I will let you know if the kids like them too.
David.
Hi David,
Yes indeed, this is a UK site; I'm English, but living in Wales.
Thanks, I hope the kids learn a little bit from this
I am absolutly blown away! I was diagnosed with CB at a young age, but i refused to belive it. I would not belive it because i took it for its litteral name. I belived that if i was colorblind i would only be able to see GRAY and i could see plenty of colors. I have told friends that i am color blind and like you say they point and say "Whel than what color is that?". Every time i could see the color. Needless to say that got old so i stopped telling people because then agai i really dident belive it myself>>> UNTILl today!!! I have looked at your pictures and done many tests online today and i cant figure out wheater you people are lying to me or if its really TRUE! I cannot see the numbers in these dotted circles nor the difference in your pictures. I am overwhelmed with the thought that there is a world of color that i am missing, but then again how would i know. I am happy to have found your site for now i will know how to explaine myself next time.
P.S. What is your favorite colour? Mine is what i tend to call BLUE. HA HA
I am amazed by this information. I would like the card for a friend. Thank You
I'm red/green CB as well. This sort of thing will be great to help my wife understand this better. I too have wished deeply to see what others see. There are advantages, however. For instance, we can spot artificial concealment like camo easily.
This has been found to be due to the fact that we can make much finer distinctions between shades of kaki. (I'm sure that I'm not the only one who has been told two shades of kaki are the same, when they aren't.) We can't easily use colors to navigate through life, so we become better at things like pattern recognition. It's not that we see the world differently, and so we're colorblind. It's that being colorblind forces you to see the world differently.
Thank You for posting this info. My son is color blind and so is my dad. I wish I cound identify what type of color blindness my son is so I could get a better idea of what he sees. I have seen some other sites with examples if this, and they lead me to your site. Your site and these other sites have assisted with giving me a general idea of how he may be seeing things.
I recognized my son was color blind at a young age, and was concerned whether I was teaching him the proper basic color identification. I did not want to confuse him, and get him frustrated, but wanted to teach him his basic colors, knowing that he’d have issues with certain shades. I’m sure it would get confusing as a young child trying to learn to identify colors when someone tells the child that a certain color that looks the same to them is for example green one time and then brown the next.
While I was growing up, I had a hard time imagining how someone could see any shades of Red and Green similar, when they look so different to me. Then when I found out my son was color blind and thought about it further. I realized that Red and Green are opposites on the color wheel, I forget the proper name for that. But when you combine the 2 colors together on the opposite side of the color wheel they make brown. So I thought they must be seeing different shades of brown for the most part.
I took my son to the eye doctor this week hoping to find out what type. They said he is fully color blind and would see different shades of Grey. I have a hard time believing that he’s seeing only shades of Grey. I think they gave me some bad info there. I think he’s closest to what you are showing in your pictures. I’m thinking about having him look at some of this and tell me if they look the same or similar to him. They said there is a more detailed test that can be done, but they would not recommend it until he’s about 10 years old. The doctor said they don’t really know much about it because there is no treatment for it. But, she said that she changed a bit on how she feels about it know that she’s gotten a better understanding of a parents concerns regarding it.
I like being able to read other peoples comment and experiences regarding this.
Hi Sandi,
I'm sorry to hear about your son. Indeed, there isn't a treatment for colour blindness, it's a genetic thing and if you lack the receptors in the eye there's no way to add them "back" so to speak. It would be like trying to "fix" being albino - you just can't.
If your son is red/green colour blind, please don't worry about it unduly. It's not a severe problem, in fact I know of a couple of colour blind people who are successful designers - Jon Hicks for example, who made the Firefox logo. While being colour blind is likely to seem like a "disability" to you, it's the only thing your son will know - he doesn't know what he's missing, and it's tough to miss things you have no experience of. Certainly it's not bothered anyone I know unduly, beyond being a bit of a curiosity, and with the exception of annoying technology designers using red and green lights on DVD players, it's never been a problem for me.
More can be found by reading through the Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colour_blind
Good luck with the next set of tests
I'm severely red/green colourblind so i do not have a clue abou the difference in these pictures! I'll show my friends though and see what they think. thank you Alex
Great website…I see things exactly the way you do..I do not see any differences in any of the pictures you showed! I have a question that I can't seem to find an answer for…
I snow ski, and without goggles, I can see the differences in the terrain, but with goggles on, the differences become muted, making it dangerous because I don't see the bumps or the ledges. This occurs with pinkish lenses, and do you have any idea what color lens might help the situation.
I've read that yellow acts a blue blocker, but would this help if one is color blind?
I also was diagnosed in the first grade, when I was drawing pictures and I made hair blue (at least I think it was blue…) and the teacher thought I was doing it because I was stupid and lazy!
Thanks for the website and for any information you might be able to share.
Mike in Manahawkin NJ
I am clour blind justlike you the only sligth diffrence i found was in the pic of the people walking the guy in a red shirt seemed a bit brigther then in the first I realy dont have any trouble in the world I wouldnt call this a disability the only problem is that i can get dark brown and red pencils mixed up
funny my fav colour is red
the only time i realised somthing is when i saw the dotty find the number thing
i dont know what its like to be colour blind but i feel sorry for everyone who is!:(
I have just been reading thru your site and as I am colour blind I see zero difference in the slides you have here and find it hard to explain to people myself. Although this never stopped me getting my Private Pilot Licence, although it was harder as I had to do a test specific to runway lights and not the coloured dots or ishihara test as it is called - passed that easy as it doesn't rely on me distinguishing multi colours and shades. Another imteresting thing about colour blindness (red/green) is that as such we see more shade difference and during WW2 colour blind spotters were used to identify camouflage from the air as we can see the shade difference which is obvious to us even though a full perception person can't see it. So there are benefits. Basically we see more difference in shade but less difference in colour and that varies deoending on the degree of colour blindness.
I'm RG colour blind, but I see a much greater range of colours when I'm about to go down with 'flu. Anyone else noticed this effect?
When i was a kid… My classmates used to make fun of me because i used to draw green dogs. Im a colorblind teen and tests like these fascinate me. It makes me think im in some way special. Though sad maybe because i'll never see the world the way it is for the others… nor the others will see the world as it is for me. Anyway i can go along with that.
I am red-green colorblind also. I am actually a rare case, because I am a girl
Its really hard for me not to think about what other people see…because my case is pretty severe. It's odd and confusing to have 5 or 6 names for one color….I wonder how people see christmas…how they see trees…everything. My friends have tried to explain it to me, but you can't describe colors to a person who can't see them. My good friend has concluded that red, green, pink, and anything inbetween becomes a "puke green" color. Orange looks different to me too…kinda like brown. I can still tell the difference though 
My little brother (Now an adorable 11 year old) is pretty severely color blind. People tell me all the time "color blind people can't see color" and i tell them that I'm afraid they are a bit off. They see color, they just see it differently and not as intensely as normal people. Your little info page helped me, along with my friends to better understand that. Thanks bunches! ^-^
Hi.. first of all, i am sorry, my English isn’t good enough..
i am Asian, living in Indonesia (and colorblind also^^)
it’s so fascinating to see many people feeling about being a diffable (i disagree that colorblind is a disease. In my opinion, though it’s simply disability to see the true image of color, it’s just a different ability)..
I also realised my colorblindness while was studying at primary school. At that time, we were asked to see numbers in our dotted card. Knowing that i couldn’t see my number, i asked what number that my next friend’s had. Silly, i told my teacher the same number (though we’re having different card).. My teacher checked it, and soon told my parents..
My mother was so upset and angry to me. Knowing both of her son were colorblind persons, she had to stop dreaming that one of her son would be a doctor. (yup with my father, and my brother, definitely all males in my family are colorblind). but what could i do? I was just angry at that moment. Why my mother so upset? weren’t me who has the best right to be upset?
but life must go on.. and i try so hard to show the best of me to my parents..
i keep that spirit, and forgive my parents..
because i know, every human life is a God’s handwritten tale..
who knows, somehow, it would bring some luck for me? heheh
That is amazing. Thank you for sharing that with us. It's kind of sad that you only get to see different variations of yellow. Again, that was really cool of you to share.
Hi Matt,
My 7 year old son was recently diagnosed with red/green colour-blindness on the severe end of the scale. (deutronope) I was not really surprised as I am a carrier, my dad also had this condition. It was good for me as his mother to see your images and get a better understanding of what he sees.
It is a shame that schools are not made more aware of colour issues, my son repeated his first year of school because he was 'distracted' and 'didnt concentrate' he did 'poorly' in art classes, and we were told he was a bit immature and should do another first year to mature more. After he was diagnosed (because I just wouldnt swallow this reasoning and knew deep down he wasnt immature) his world opened up. The teachers no longer restricted his colouring, painting or general 'flair' for using unusual tones together, and he has since become a more confident and eager student who is doing incredibly well. Thankyou Matt, for this site, your photos and words are a service to the world.
This is sooo interesting! I am not colorblind, but today I learned that someone I know is red/green colorblind. I honestly didn't even know that existed.. I was so freaked out. All I could think about was "Does that mean grass is GREY? and TREES, TOO?" Although the colorblind thing is still a bit confusing for me, this REALLY helped me understand! Thanks [:
I'm color blind too, and they all look exactly the same. This is the first time I have looked at the two pictures, and they are exactly the same. Some other web sights I have been to like this, the images were similar, but they always got the reds wrong.
Hi Matt,
I have a few questions about colour blindness that I would love your opinion/answers for if you don't mind? I have started dating someone with red green colour blindness and I am an arty person who is obsessed with rainbows, My boyfriend see's rainbows but of course not as I do, I would love it if you could please show me what you see a rainbow as!!! Does it frustrate you when you look at art and cannot see all the colours? or can you appreciate it in the shades you see it? If I wanted to paint a rainbow that was 'colourful' to a red green c'blind person what colours would be best to use? Are christmas decorations boring to you because they are mostly red and green?? LOL Do you ever get sick of people asking 'colour' questions? Thanx Matt for ur time I really love that you are so willing to discuss it so openly!!
Gab
This was really a great information on bling.
A+ grade for this post ..
This was really a great information on bling.
A+ grade for this post ..
Thank you for posting this. I am only partially color blind like you and have always wondered myself how much different my vision was from others. I asked my wife to look at these pictures and she immediately felt sorry for me. She said that my greens look brown to her. I'm glad that I could show somebody else what I see, but I wish there were some way to see what everyone else sees.
This was great. I am partly CB. I always thaught I saw all the colors but had dificulty seeing red inn with green, lik when picking strawberrys, I woulde see one berry and step om 4 to get to it. I am wondering what I miss in the green and red spektor. The pictuer are very close in color to me but not exact.
im red-green colorblind as well. for all of the pictures above the picture on the left looks just like the picture on the right. very interesting that normal vision sees 2 very different images
I have severe deuteranomaly CVD, so I struggle a lot with colors with similar hues/shades. Especially when it comes to bule and purple, those cause issues for me. And orange/green, white/light blue-green, red/brown, and so on. I'm glad when I meet others with color deficiency because then we can relate our stories and how it CAN be a handicap. I remember once a few ywars ago I was playing in a soccer game or scrimmage (can't remember), and of course the grass was green, but the lines on the grass were orange and I had to place the ball on the orange line (I had the soccer ball in my hands) but I just could not see the line at all. Someone finally came and pointed it out for me. But it was a little embarrasing for me. So CVD can and is a handicap in a lot of scenarios for people suffering from it.
i can not see any colors at all none since i wasborn
I'm colour blind, all ur pictures look the same as the other one
I can't see red, green, purple and blue colours
Hey Matt..
I've recently realized that I've been dealing with a "handicap" for all my life and your site helps me explain it to others. Our level of vision is very close.
I would like to somehow put together an effort to raise awareness, with the long term goal of changing how society uses color for public identification purposes. From the dangers involved with identifying street lights to the silly issue of finding the decaf because its green and the word decaf is small.
In my opinion this issue is an ADA issue in that it affects millions of people and for some it is a handicap that we learn to live with. I do not want special treatment, just a gradual shift away from the prejudice of color when it its use isn't Germain to the purpose.. IE it doesn't really matter what colors are used in street lights.. the function would be the same…
cheers
Jason
I am one of four girls my three sisters are all colour blind to various degrees, one is red/green. It took a long time for my mother to find out what was wrong with them, even when she told them our father was red/green colour blind she was told it wasn't a problem as it didn't occur in girls. It took a long time to convince someone to test them for colour blindness, they had to admit that they were wong 'IT DOSE OCCUR WITH GIRLS'.
I am the only one that is not colour blind which made me the carrier & yes I passed it on to my son (red/green). Having grown up with colour blindness I reconised it early and was surprised to find I had just as much trouble convincing people that he wasn't just being stubborn about learning his colours. Even with the proof of a letter from the optician I still had to argue with the teacher about writing homework instructions on the GREEN board with RED chalk.
The hardest thing I had to deal with was sayng; No you can't be a policeman, a fireman, a electrician, a air pilot the list just went on & on. I went into an imployment agancy and asked if they had a list of careers that a colour blind person could do other than baging croceries? The ansewer was a curt 'No?' I was tired of stomping on his career hopes and was just looking for a direction that I could encourage his studies towards.
On the good side of things, although the colours he may choose when dressing or painting are amazing & may not be what I would choose, they work and sometimes they work even better than mine would.
My friend chloee and i are doing and experiment on dogs being color blind and humans being color blind and we are comparing the differnces and we need pictures for that.
The difference is not as bad as i thought it would be! red is a bit less brighter!! green is a lot less!!! but i dont think you're missing out that much!!!!!!!!!!!
I doubt I'm missing out much, but I'll give you an example of where I definately am: I started climbing last week, at an indoor place. They have colour-coded routes, where each of the holds is a different colour, they're graded so that green is easy, orange is harder, yellow is harder again, and blue is hardest.
I can't tell the difference between three of those. I had to ask a friend to physically point out which ones were green as I was climbing.
I made a short film that shows what the world looks like to a color blind person. You can see it here: http://www.nosuchthingascolor.com
Thanks for this post and for keeping it active. My daughter has red-green color deficiency and this helped give me a peek into her world.
I am myself, also Red and Green colourblind. Your webpage has allowed me to discover that I am not the only person who views the world this way. I used to find it considerably annoying to search through countless other websites with comparison photos which claim they show how a R/G colourblind person perceives the world, when in fact they only vaguely depict how most people like us see it.
A few years ago when I was in the ninth grade I was given an assignment in science in which I was to do research on a genetic disability and its potential cures. Given a myriad of options, I promptly chose colourblindness and during the research I found an article which claims that scientists have conducted gene therapy experiments on colourblind monkeys and allegedly gave them vision in the full coloured spectrum of light. It appears the scientists did not have the technology (and probably the guts) to try it on humans. What do you think? Do you expect the ubiquitous studying in human genes today will allow that to happen in maybe 10 or 20 years?
Even if they do, I'm almost certain most colourblind people like us would not want our DNA to be modified and see an unknown colour. I have heard stories about blind people gaining eyesight for the first time and they swear it is the most excruciating event in their life since their brain has not "learned" a way to conceive shapes, perspective and colour.
Anyway, I would like to thank you for creating this amazing webpage
I am an artist and my partner is colour blind so have been interested in this for some time.
There is a filter on photoshop that shows what images look like for a colour blind person. It is under view - proof setup - colour blindness, then there are two options for two different types. Today I wondered if my partner sees photos of us the same or indeed people's skin colour the same as I do. I put a photo of us through the filter, he thought they both looked the same, the colour blind version to me looked like our skin was very grey/yellow, like we were really sick. I hadn't thought about that aspect of colour blindness before.
The real issues I notice at home for him is telling if fruit is ripe or if things are cooked such as meat or if greens are starting to turn brown. Buying tomoatoes is tricky, he usually gets them over ripe! I use colour a lot in my paintings, he really likes the blue ones, after putting them through the filter I can see why! The others all look shades of grey, with red being a lovley olive green and blue standing out as a lovely contrast to shades of grey.
Hi Matt,
I'm a buddy writer and recently i'd contemplated putting in a character with red/green colourblindess because i'm intrigued by people with disabilities, and your site was really helpful in developing my character. I don't know any one with CBness so i have no experience and really would like to raise awareness. I had no idea how different the world was to people with CBness and it was a real eye opener for me so thanks for the chance to see the world as you do. I'll be sure to include the irritating DVD player for you!
Thanks very much and I hope you approve of my plans
hey thx for posting this it helps people understand that we see color and not just black and white but i have tritanopia which scientists call more severe then red/green but idk for a fact anyways what i found funny was one day i went to school teacher says "we taking color test to see if anyone has any problems with colors" im like o no lol then it turns out i passed out of luck
hey thx for posting this it helps people understand that we see color and not just black and white but i have tritanopia which scientists call more severe then red/green but idk for a fact anyways what i found funny was one day i went to school teacher says "we taking color test to see if anyone has any problems with colors" im like o no lol then it turns out i passed out of luck
Hey Would you mind If I asked you a few questions about colorblindness? I'm a Gr12 student working on a science project and my little brother is colorblind too however, he is uncooperative and would much rather play videogames than help me with my project Y_Y, email me back if you have the time!
Hi , I'm red/green colour blind though not sure how bad , ive been reading the thoughts of others on the site and agree with people when they say that they are sick of the "what colour is that game " I don't see it as a disability though . I live a perfectly normal life . I drive a bus for a living and and don't have any problems at traffic signals ( I know the top light means go , the bottom light means stop ) but the red /green signs at road works are a bit of a pain . To the parents of children with colour blindness , I would just like to say don't worry or feel concerned for them , it's not like they are totally blind or have missing limbs , and to be honest if no one were to point it out they wouldn't even know that they had a "disability"
and they look the same to me o.o Today i learn i am colorblind lol
Matt,
I read your recent article on colour blindness and was intrigued- I am colour blind like you. All I was wondering was how you were able to convert the full spectrum profile to how someone with colour blindness sees it- only because i am interested in photography and would very much like to get a greater idea of how others see my work so I can tune it to suit them not me! Thank you for this fantastic article- a reply would me most appreciated.
Regards,
Charlie
Part of my work involves colour matching paint. As the two of the other people in the laboratory are R/G colour blind, the job often fell to me to do the visual part (anyone can do the instrumental part). What I found fascinating was that yes, whilst I could see subtle differences in the red/green axis that the two colour blind people couldn't, they could often spot metameric colours (thats when two colours look can look the same in say day light but look quite different in say neon) that I couldn't see. (the metamerism was confirmed by instrument). So its not always detrimental to have R/G colour blindness.
Thank you so much for explaining some of this stuff! I'm roughly the same degree of red / green colour-blind as you, and I've had a hard time explaining it to my friends! It's much appreciated that you could explain it so well, so my mates get what I'm trying to say now!
Hi! Very interesting stuff. I am one of the few women who are color blind…so is my sister. Talk about being singled out when people find out! I can't wait to show my husband the pictures above that look identical to me. He always wonders what I see! I'm at work right now so I couldn't take time to read all the comments so sorry if this has been addressed but I read an article about colorblindness when I was pregnant. It said that if the mother was colorblind, 100% of her sons and 50% of her daughters would be also. My son is…my daughter isn't. I can remember when they were little, we would have to ask my little daughter what colors were what & did we match! Crazy stuff.
i am 12
i was selected in my school to go to a story writing corse and one of my ideas that i have always wanted to touch paper was a story called "A Tale in Black & White" but now that title will change because its not black & white its just a different view
thancks for clearing that up
i see all these pix exactly the same as you, matt.
i guess this is the most common form of colorblindness.
i wish i could see the green leaves on trees. oak trees, especially, usually look what i call orange-ish. the green trees that i can see as green are the ones with a blue-ish tint. for example, i can see eastern white pine trees (i think they're called weymouth's pine in britain) as green. the bluish tint helps be distinguish them as green.
interestingly, i have great peripheral vision, always have. i wonder if that's the one plus side of being color-blind–having more rods (which pick up light and movement) than cones (which discern colors).
I think a good fix for color blindness would be to create a set of rules for color blindness accessible sites. Then use them as a guideline to create a color blind theme as an option for your site. I don't know how color blindness actually works, but maybe a quick fix would be using a 10-20% transparent layer in that one color so people could see some sort of outline for the text they can't see
Thank you!!!!! Me and my brother are really the only people I know that are red green color blind. I'm a graphic design student and it's the most frustrating thing to me. Ive never fully understood how I see things compared to other people but describing the color spectrums and saying that red and green are supposed to contrast the same as Blue and green. I feel a lot better now that I understand how I am seeing things…. I guess
Hi, I am writing this as I believe my 4 1/2 year old son has some form of Red/Green colour blindness.
He knows his colours very well and does not get any mixed up except when it comes to green and red, he is constantly saying something is green when it is red, however he does not do it the other way round, saying somthing is red when it is green.
From read through this site I am guessing it is because he sees green and red as the same colour and his brain has learnt the 2 colours as green.
Is it as simple as sitting him down and placing two toy cars in front of him one red and one green and asking him if they are the same colour, or is it a lot more complicated than that.
Also, should I correct him when he says something is green but it is red as I dont want to confuse him if it is a case that he sees them as the same colour.
Any advise would be greatly received.
JJ
Hi, I am writing this as I believe my 4 1/2 year old son has some form of Red/Green colour blindness.
He knows his colours very well and does not get any mixed up except when it comes to green and red, he is constantly saying something is green when it is red, however he does not do it the other way round, saying somthing is red when it is green.
From read through this site I am guessing it is because he sees green and red as the same colour and his brain has learnt the 2 colours as green.
Is it as simple as sitting him down and placing two toy cars in front of him one red and one green and asking him if they are the same colour, or is it a lot more complicated than that.
Also, should I correct him when he says something is green but it is red as I dont want to confuse him if it is a case that he sees them as the same colour.
Any advise would be greatly received.
JJ
Hi, I am writing this as I believe my 4 1/2 year old son has some form of Red/Green colour blindness.
He knows his colours very well and does not get any mixed up except when it comes to green and red, he is constantly saying something is green when it is red, however he does not do it the other way round, saying somthing is red when it is green.
From read through this site I am guessing it is because he sees green and red as the same colour and his brain has learnt the 2 colours as green.
Is it as simple as sitting him down and placing two toy cars in front of him one red and one green and asking him if they are the same colour, or is it a lot more complicated than that.
Also, should I correct him when he says something is green but it is red as I dont want to confuse him if it is a case that he sees them as the same colour.
Any advise would be greatly received.
JJ
Hi John
"From read through this site I am guessing it is because he sees green and red as the same colour and his brain has learnt the 2 colours as green."
That might well be the case. Do remember though that colours are an extremely hard thing to learn, far harder than most people (especially parents) imagine, there's a really interesting study about it here: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-johnny-name-colors
So, it might not be that your son has any colour blindness, it might be simply that he's still learning colours. That said, if he is red/green colour-blind I'd expect a mix up like you explain. It depends on the shades of red and green too, and the degree of colour blindness - I have no problem distinguishing red from green the vast majority of the time, but certain shades I do. There are certain reds, oranges, browns, and greens all of which become identical. And even though I can see red berries on green holly bushes up close, and see the colours as obviously different, I can not see the red berries from a distance. They simply vanish into the green bush. Autumn is one of the dullest seasons to me, the tones in autumn are the exact ones that are easiest to mistake or simply not notice. It all becomes a brown splodge.
"Is it as simple as sitting him down and placing two toy cars in front of him one red and one green and asking him if they are the same colour, or is it a lot more complicated than that."
Nope, it's not that simple - you'll need to see an optician who can test this properly. My condition was picked up at school through an eye exam, I don't think anyone (including myself) would have picked it up for quite a while if it hadn't been for that. As long as he can recognise and name numbers accurately then the colour blindness tests should be ok for him to take and you'll know for sure.
"Also, should I correct him when he says something is green but it is red as I dont want to confuse him if it is a case that he sees them as the same colour."
I'd say yes you should, but don't get hung up about it, and state corrections as a matter of fact - try not to put any kind of stress or pressure on the correction. If he can't see the colours properly then he'll be confused, which is fine - kids are often confused, they're busy learning all the time - but no one wants to feel like they're under pressure or that they might be stupid or something. Kids pick up on that sort of stuff, expectations and worry. He'll be absolutely fine even if he is colour blind. It doesn't make much difference to everyday life - I'm a web designer now, and rarely have problems with it - but it's something worth being aware of
I hope that helps
Hi Matt!
Thanks for sharing this, it is very helpful! My 8 year old son is R/G CB as well and I was searching around to see if I could find something that would help me understands what he sees. When he was in kindergarten they thought he was just defiant /lazy when putting toys away in the color sorted bins. I suspected that he was CB, as my father is (which on a side note, my dad bought a BRIGHT yellow van when I was a teenager which he loved cause it was one of the only colors he could see & I hated cause it was soooo embarrassing!) Obviously since then, my son has been diagnosed; he is unfazed by it, as it is his normal. His favorite color is red & he loves to fight with his sister over the color of stuff because it drives her crazy
Thanks Again,
Crystal
What I see when I compare the photos is that you see red a little duller than it shoud be but the red shows up just fine. The problem is the absence of green. The green looks like a goldish yellow more than a shade of red. When people say the leaves change color in the fall they misunderstand the science. Leaves don't change color, they just loose the chlorophyl so what is seen is actually the color of the leaf without the green. That is also how the pictures of what you see looks like. The plants are just lacking the green.
I just gave my twenty three year old boyfriend a colorblind for the first time and he failed it. he was really upset. He had no idea. It's crazy to me how often people don't find out until they're an adult. He even wears glasses and makes regular trips to the eye doctor.
My husband never knew he's color blind until he had an Ishihara test as necessity for pre-employment. He said he didn't see the numbers on the plates! At home, my husband and I tried checking some test plates available on the net and I was able to figure out all the plates correctly while he had a hard time and all his answers were wrong! From that moment on, he felt frustrated- it means that he might not be able to get hired by the company he's applying. I feel so sad and sorry for him not only because of the possibility for job rejection but most importantly because he can't see the world colorfully like me who has a normal vision… I had no idea how my husband sees things until i saw this site, and it made me understand that color blind people see the world on the same perspective but on a lighter hue. My husband, like all other color blinds wish they could see things like us, what's even more frustrating is that it has no cure.
Thank you so much for a very informative webpage. I am currently researching about colour blindness after my son was sent home from school when he said that all he could see is green everywhere. I thought he was just making excuses to be away from school but when my husband picked him up to go home, my son said "Dad, I wanted to stay in school as I dont want to miss my class". My son is in year 1. I had a chat with him after dinner and he said to me that he is seeing things mostly in green. This really concerns me and we took him to the local GP. The GP said, there is nothing wrong with him but being a mother I know my son was serious about what he said about his vision. I then decided to start researching and come across your webpage. Thank you to you and to all who posted in this page. I have learned lots from the postings and will be able to deal with my son's concern effectively.
There actually seems to be a cure for colour blindness in development:
http://www.genevolve.com/genetic-treatment.html
Unfortunately, it looks like the company could not raise enough funds to start human trials.
This sounds really stupid, but I've got this game on my phone where you have to put the coloured blocks together to dissolve them, and clear the screen. And there's different skins, one is 'colour blind', and since then I've been fascinated by colour blindness and how you guys see the world. Thanks for sharing those pictures and your story, it's really interesting to get an idea of what colour blind people see, as it's more or less a new found fascination to me! I'd never thought about it before that game.
Hi Matt, I'm a 9 year old and was told by the Optometrist at the start of the year that I'm colour deficient. I'm making up a presentation to show my class, so they can understand about being colour deficient. The photo's that you have here, are very good examples (Well, Mum says they are - I can't see any difference lol), and I was hoping I could copy and paste your pictures for my presentation? - I will be noting all the sites and references I'm using for the presentation for credit purposes. Many thanks, Dylan