Color Blind: Which Are Your Blind Colors?

Here is an interesting definition of blind colors: “Colors that are not or not completely recognized by a gray-level scanner.” When I look at my personal color blindness this fits quite well. Compared to people with normal vision I sometimes really think that my eyes are some type of advanced gray-level scanners—but not more.

What I am looking for are the colors we colorblind people have problems to see or distinguish.

color confusion protan deutan tritan
red/orange/yellow/green X X  
brown/green X X  
Threshold green to white X X  
Threshold red to white X X  
blue-green/grey/red-purple X    
green/grey/blue-purple   X  
red/black X    
green/black   X  
violet/yellow-green     X
red/red-purple     X
dark blue/black     X
yellow/white     X

This first list of colors which are confused by color deficient people is taken from the book Diagnosis of Defective Colour Vision by Jennifer Birch. It is important to know, that these colors are only mixed if there exists no luminance contrast.

From my perspective as a strongly red-blind (protanopia) guy I would say the above list is a quite good image of my color perception. They do also fit with the colors along the so called confusion lines of the corresponding type of color blindness.

I would like to add my personal list of color blind colors which I often can not distinguish. And I also would like to add some examples to them, so somebody with normal vision might be able to imagine a little bit how it feels to be colorblind.

Protan Confusion Colors

dark red/black: If I get an email with words highlighted in red, I can’t see them.
grass green/orange: I couldn’t spot an orange laying in my lawn.
leaf green/red: No red blossoms in trees and no red apples in trees.
bright green/yellow: I can’t see if a banana is ripe or not.
indian summer colors: It’s colorful, but I have no chance to name the colors.
dark blue/violet: I’ll never know what the difference is.
cyan/gray: All shades of blue-green look truly colorless to me.
brown/green/red: Please, don’t talk about red animals in the forest.

I suppose there are many more shades and colors I can’t really see. But this is a list of colors which I often come across and have big problems to identify and classify.

So what are your colors of confusion, problem colors, color blind colors? It would be very interesting to hear also from you which colors cause you the biggest problems.


5 Responses to “Color Blind: Which Are Your Blind Colors?”

  1. Martin Says:
    March 16th, 2009 at 3:36

    I have the same problems as you. Youyr list could be my life!!!

    When somebody ask me “what color is this? ” mome of my favorite true answers are : “pink/grey/light green” or “blue/violet/mauve” or “Forest green/Brown/Red”.

    The example of the orange in the grass was one of my favorite example to try to explain how I see before finding your colorblindness simulator.

    I now have way to name color, so I can fool people trying to “mock” me (in a friendly way). If somebody has “blue” pants or shirt. The pants can’t be brown, so they must be green. Men with “pink/gray/green” shirt are wearing green shirt most of the time. ect.

    At work I told everybody to stop using red to highlight changes. They are now using blue and Yellow (kind of them).

    While driving, I have trouble seeing red sign but my worst thing is single round flashing red/yellow light. The yellow sould be a lozange and the red a square (At least here in Province of quebec), but some city don’t respect that. So comming to a flshing light I put my emergency flasher and slow downs until I can see both light (The red one is darker)

  2. Richard Healy Says:
    March 16th, 2009 at 23:49

    Dark red/black:
    ————–
    When I was training for my teaching certificate, I told the lecturers I was colourblind could they please not highlight the text of slides with red, if they wanted me to see them. In common with every teachers I’ve ever had, they promptly forgot and the red highlights continued. I tended to do better if the slides were coloured: the drop in contrast made it easier to spot the difference (but still not the colour) Black text on a white background with red highlights is impossible.

    Beetroot, which allegedly is a purple red I’m pretty sure is dipped in jet black squid ink.

    Grass green/orange:
    —————–
    I’ll ‘loose’ orange things in grass. Frisbees, balls etc. It’s not like it’s the same colour I just can’t tell them apart.
    Snooker is another one. Green felt tables with red, brown and green balls. They are identical. I frequently play fouls when I play snooker.
    http://tinyurl.com/snookballs

    I asked someone: the brown is at the top 3rd row in. Green is bottom right. One above the green is Pink. Which is as close to Grey as makes no odds.

    leaf green/red:
    ————
    I once shared a conversation with my (now ex) fiancée about this when we were in a garden centre just before Christmas.

    Her: ‘look at the red on those Poinsettias over there.’

    Me: ‘where?’

    Her: ‘There!’

    Me: ‘hmm?’

    Her: ‘over THERE.’ (pointing)

    Me: ‘which one?’

    Her: ‘the red and green ones’

    Me: ‘oh is that red?’

    etc…

    http://tinyurl.com/pointsettias

    bright green/yellow:
    —————–
    I used to draw cartoons on my computer. The colour I thought was sand was yellow, the vast desert vistas and dunes I thought I was drawing to everyone else looked like electric emerald hills of Oz.

    Indian summer colours / Autumn:
    ——————
    “It’s colourful, but I have no chance to name the colours.”
    To which I want to add nothing. I think rainbows and autumn and art is wonderful, but just don’t ask me to name the colours. I’ll be guessing. (and I’m pretty good at guessing, but it is never anything other than a guess.)

    Dark blue/violet
    —————–
    Indistinguishable. I also want to add….

    Light blue and Purple.
    ——————–
    I always get blues and purples (and some pinks) mixed up. The red element just confounds me utterly.

    Grey/ Blue-Green/ Pink.
    ——————–
    These three can be interchangeable. (see the ‘pink’ in snooker) I usually rely on context.

    Brown / Green / Red:
    —————-
    Food and cooking: I sometimes worry that my tomato soup is green. I know it isn’t and it tastes of tomato. But it helps sometimes if I close my eyes. I know tea is supposed to be brown but sometimes it too seems green. I’ll put in extra milk to dilute the colour. I tend to over-cook (read: carbonise) meat especially mince beef or sausages when I’m cooking. I can’t spot the transition from raw to cooked, so just keep going till I’m sure.

    I’m pretty sure I bleed brown and not red.

    And the filter-tips on cigarettes are green. I don’t smoke but when I was at school we did a lot of ’smoking is bad for your posters’, it was at some point in my early teens when it was pointed out to me that of the two colours required to colour in a cigarette (the other being white) that I was doing it wrong.

    Green and white
    ————–
    One and only one instance: traffic lights.
    It’s like someone replaced the go signal with normal light bulb. (a slightly grubby one, mind, but green it is not.)

    For that matter the other two traffic signals red and amber are distinct but by brightness not colour, they are incidentally the same colour as sodium street lights and brake lights on cars a sort of mid-orange yellow.

    http://tinyurl.com/dgvsc6

  3. Charlotte Williams Says:
    March 18th, 2009 at 4:45

    I am mildly tritan color blind. I can not see some yellows and greens, and I get confused at violet/yellow/green. I like to paint and draw, and use colors that I can see. I used to think orange was yellow, but one of my art teachers patiently helped me to see some yellows. I am almost 60, but my colorblind problem was discovered in high school drivers ed when waiting for the light to change, it never turned “green”.

  4. Jim Hart Says:
    September 26th, 2009 at 22:47

    Finally! A site I can relate to. When girls used to ask me what color their eyes were (to see if I was paying attention), I always guessed wrong. Now, I just say “dark”.

    My color-blindness has been described to me as “red-blue” and “green-yellow”. It is also different in each eye. The left eye has more green-yellow.

  5. Guy Says:
    October 22nd, 2009 at 10:44

    Daniel fluck,

    This is an awsome test!! Thanks for putting it up. This is the first time I have taken such a test and really appreciate it.

    I however *REALLY* wanted to suggest that in the instructions you also add the comments that for one to take the test, for each step one should attempt to MOVE the *SLIDER* and try to update the color of left box until it matches exactly with the color of the right box and then once a match is found, click on match found button. If even after moving the slider, the color of left box never matches the color of the right box, then select No match found button. Continue doing this until the test ends.

    I have to state the instructions were a bit vague, you simply state ‘try to match the color’ without stating exactly how and the important slider is not even mentioned in the instructions. Many people (like myself) would have simply clicked no matches found without even using the slider on first try and that maybe the reason for some of the incorrect result.

    Thanks

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