Colour Science & Perception
what the eye settles, and what it cannot
Generator

five greens, no neutral, under D65 — four guesses at the illuminant

The scene's surfaces as they reach the eye, and each estimator's angular error in degrees against the illuminant that actually lit them. Grey-world 43.1°, Max-RGB 27.7°, Shades-of-grey (p = 6) 31.4°, Grey-edge 34.4°. The best here is Max-RGB, which is best because this scene happens to satisfy its assumption — something reflects fully in every band — and not because it is the better algorithm. Any hatched patch is a surface this display cannot show under this light.
five greens, no neutral, under D65 — four guesses at the illuminantThe scene's surfaces as they reach the eye, and each estimator's angular error in degrees against the illuminant that actually lit them. Grey-world 43.1°, Max-RGB 27.7°, Shades-of-grey (p = 6) 31.4°, Grey-edge 34.4°. The best here is Max-RGB, which is best because this scene happens to satisfy its assumption — something reflects fully in every band — and not because it is the better algorithm. Any hatched patch is a surface this display cannot show under this light.Grey-world43.1°Max-RGB27.7°Shades-of-grey (p = 6)31.4°Grey-edge34.4°five greens, no neutral, lit by D65CIE 1931 2° observer

Drawn at its defaults, in constancy and the estimated illuminant. It takes no options at all, so every essay calling it gets this exact drawing.

Called by 1 essay

the blast radius of changing it

What the brain does

The algorithms that guess the light

What reaches a sensor is an illuminant multiplied by a reflectance, and no arithmetic separates a product into its factors. Every white-balance algorithm therefore works by assuming something about the world — and the interesting content of each is not its formula but the assumption, because a scene can violate it.

All 155 generators · what each essay asks for instead