I don't understand why it's presented as such a mystery? The average color obviously exists, and if I had guessed it would be a reddish/yellowish gray (due to the ubiquity of incandescent lighting, the non-UV-reflecting properties of surfaces etc).
I was hoping to also see a covariance matrix, or maybe even a 3d histogram of pixel colors on the web -- that would be interesting. This person is clearly not a data scientist :)
There's definitely some interesting things going on with human reasoning in the way different people interpret the result. I originally assumed the images would average to gray, but when I think about it logically, that would be kind of miraculous. We wouldn't expect a bunch of photos taken on Mars to average to gray (to be perfectly balanced in R, G and B), so why did I expect photos taken on Earth to? It would mean all the colors are in a very precise balance, which would be kind of odd.
With random images which include a few outdoor photos, there is a noticeable effect from the sky, but not as dramatic as I might expect - it tends to produce a whitening, rather than a visible blue.
Hmm, are you really sure that, had you been asked without reading the article, you'd think the average colour to be reddish/yellowish gray due to lighting and ... etc? Really really?
If I'd been asked, I'd perhaps have tried to be clever and said that the top half of the image would be blue as the sky is blue and indoor walls are usually white which won't hurt the blue so much, and that the bottom half would be a browny green due to grass and carpet etc.
This is not to toot my own horn here (I would of expected graduations as well due to the sky and the ground), but I think I would of said It would of tended to orange, on the grounds that (and this is just my suspicion) people find a more orange hue a more pleasing whitebalance. What is online is what has been shared, and what is been shared will invariably be pleasing to the people that shared it.
Obviously, this is just another explanation.
Actually I would of liked to of seen some of those aggregate photos. Maybe there WERE graduations!
some of his sample sets did produce graduations, in particular vignettes and lighter at the top darker at the bottom themes.
in defence of my statement is figure 10
Figure 10. Averages of four different pools of digital
abstract art found on Flickr. Pools used: Processing,
CGArt, Computer Art Creations, Generative and
Evolutioanry Art
for some reason he produces a surprisingly orange result, and still believes that the overall orange hue may be due to:
4) It’s caused by chemistry & physics. The amalgam photos
are functioning as a kind of mass spectrometer,
reflecting the average chemical composition of the
subjects being photographed.
[...]
I find #4 the most convincing. It is not necessarily
mutually exclusive with some of the others (e.g. the
chemistry of the earth/sun affects human choices and
camera design).
I don't disagree with you, I think. I think the human-generated art result is interesting, but may simply indicate that humans are mirroring (or even accentuating) what they see in the natural world. In other words, the physical composites may be orange because of chemistry and physics, and the synthetic averages may be orange because our perceptions are shaped in a world of chemistry and physics.
Comments
I don't understand why it's presented as such a mystery? The average color obviously exists, and if I had guessed it would be a reddish/yellowish gray (due to the ubiquity of incandescent lighting, the non-UV-reflecting properties of surfaces etc).
I was hoping to also see a covariance matrix, or maybe even a 3d histogram of pixel colors on the web -- that would be interesting. This person is clearly not a data scientist :)
There's definitely some interesting things going on with human reasoning in the way different people interpret the result. I originally assumed the images would average to gray, but when I think about it logically, that would be kind of miraculous. We wouldn't expect a bunch of photos taken on Mars to average to gray (to be perfectly balanced in R, G and B), so why did I expect photos taken on Earth to? It would mean all the colors are in a very precise balance, which would be kind of odd.
With random images which include a few outdoor photos, there is a noticeable effect from the sky, but not as dramatic as I might expect - it tends to produce a whitening, rather than a visible blue.
The color is normalized. Before normalization, it is gray :)
Hmm, are you really sure that, had you been asked without reading the article, you'd think the average colour to be reddish/yellowish gray due to lighting and ... etc? Really really?
If I'd been asked, I'd perhaps have tried to be clever and said that the top half of the image would be blue as the sky is blue and indoor walls are usually white which won't hurt the blue so much, and that the bottom half would be a browny green due to grass and carpet etc.
This is not to toot my own horn here (I would of expected graduations as well due to the sky and the ground), but I think I would of said It would of tended to orange, on the grounds that (and this is just my suspicion) people find a more orange hue a more pleasing whitebalance. What is online is what has been shared, and what is been shared will invariably be pleasing to the people that shared it.
Obviously, this is just another explanation.
Actually I would of liked to of seen some of those aggregate photos. Maybe there WERE graduations!
edit: wish granted!: http://jbum.com/papers/EmergentOrange_paper.pdf
some of his sample sets did produce graduations, in particular vignettes and lighter at the top darker at the bottom themes.
in defence of my statement is figure 10
for some reason he produces a surprisingly orange result, and still believes that the overall orange hue may be due to: Meh.I don't disagree with you, I think. I think the human-generated art result is interesting, but may simply indicate that humans are mirroring (or even accentuating) what they see in the natural world. In other words, the physical composites may be orange because of chemistry and physics, and the synthetic averages may be orange because our perceptions are shaped in a world of chemistry and physics.