What color is this stupid dress

If you look at it as if it's in a shadow, it's easier to see it as white.

XKCD made a picture explaining it pretty well.

Are the two drawings really the same one but with a diiferent background? It looks recolored to me. The middle bit of the dress is the first image of it that I saw where I actually saw it being a little blue.

The dress colors are exactly the same. It's the same principle spriters use to make it look like there are more colors in a sprite than there actually are.
For example, most of the streetfighter characters with blond hair reuse their skin colors.


You should look up some articles on color theory. It's really fascinating stuff.

For example, most of the streetfighter characters with blond hair reuse their skin colors.

My whole life is a lie...

back in the good ol' days of color limitation ;]

I do a lot of Fire Emblem 7 ROM modding, and creating characters is a pain in the buttocks because of the color limits. You have 16 colors, not including the one that gets changed to be transparent in game. So really, you have 15 colors to make and shade your characters. o.o