RGB Anomaloscope — Color Blindness Test
The following tool is a very simple red-green color blindness test. Just try to match the two colors you see in the boxes below. You can get a match while using the slider below the left box. If you get a match, press Match OK and if you can’t match them use the No Match possible! button. That’s all.
The first anomaloscope was developed in the 20th century and since then it is the most accurate color blindness test instrument used by eye specialists all around the world.
An anomaloscope is based on a color match. Two different light sources have to be matched to the same color. On one side you have a yellow color which can be adjusted in brightness. The other side consists of a red and a green light whereas the proportion of mixture is variable.
As every color on a computer display is made up from the three base colors red, green, and blue, an anomaloscope can’t really be reproduced online. So this red-green color blindness test is just a simple reproduction with room for improvement.
Related articles:
◊ RGB Anomaloscope Color Blindness Test
◊ New Release of the RGB Anomaloscope Color Blindness Test
◊ RGB Anomaloscope Color Blindness Test: Severity Upgrade
◊ Online Anomaloscope doesn’t Differentiate Red-Green Color Blindness
February 29th, 2008 at 11:50
Interesting test. Thanks.
I can’t get the ‘green-blind’ example chart to work though. Also, is there an example chart for normal colour vision?
February 29th, 2008 at 11:54
The chart for ‘green-blind’ is still missing. I’ll add it in the next days. – Normal color vision means, you can’t make any match at all. Or at most two matches in the center of the diagram but nothing else.
February 29th, 2008 at 23:56
Very interesting,I had 2 matches in the centre of the diagram,so did my wife,and she is “Color Normal”.
March 1st, 2008 at 0:05
Need to correct my last statement,my wife Made 3 Matches!!,I only made two?very very interesting,as she is “color normal”.
March 6th, 2008 at 15:54
I had about 5, or thereabouts. I lost track.
I really want to take an actual anomaloscope test conducted by an optometrist. That would be pretty interesting, especially for comparison purposes. Has anyone here actually done that?
Here’s an interesting link to a training lecture on how to administer an anomaloscope test geared towards aspiring optometrists that I found too.
http://arapaho.nsuok.edu/~salmonto/VSII/Lecture34.pdf
March 13th, 2008 at 4:51
Hi
I am from europe and I wanted to avoid compulsory military service so I took an anomaloscope test (I already knew I was red-blind from taking Ishihara tests at school but the military only accepts anomaloscope results).
The results I got from this web based test pretty much match what I got from the real anomaloscope. Almost complete lack of red cones.
So your test is accurate. I use an LCD monitor at neutral colour temperature and 0.8 gamma. (At proper gamma settings I was unable to tell red from green so that’s why it is set so low.)
March 16th, 2008 at 12:36
When I moved the top bar to the right to get a yellow colour in the left box I got two matches, but when I kept the top bar in its original position and to keep the left box green or red I got no matches. Either way the test said I have no, or little red-green colour blindness. And it didn’t matter what settings I had my monitor on. Though I found it strange I did so well on this anamaloscope, even though I already knew I was mildly colour blind, when I had such trouble with some of the Ishihara Plates.
March 16th, 2008 at 13:56
David, you have to move the slider each time to try to get a match. And if you can only match it a few times it really is just a mild form of red-green color blindness. See some other test results at RGB Anomaloscope Color Blindness Test.
March 17th, 2008 at 20:39
I had like 6 match. I guess I am in that percentage of woman that are color deficient. Oh well… : )
March 19th, 2008 at 21:03
I had at least 4, I guess I am in that percentage too :o)
March 20th, 2008 at 15:27
Nice test.Quick and acurate..I knew have a mild to moderate red-green colur deficiency,but never felt embarassed or deficient.You feel it only when you are subjected to a colour vision test,otherwise in normal life ITS ALL ABSOLUTELY NORMAL .Yuo dont feel it at all
April 15th, 2008 at 22:46
I’m female and colour normal but I got two matches and the results claim I’m therefore moderate-strong red-green colour blind. This test says that shouldn’t be possible.
There is a lot of inherited colour-blindness among the men in my family but I’ve always passed tests and been classified as colour normal. Admittedly, I have no trouble seeing the numbers colourblind people are supposed to see, but I’ve never had trouble seeing the numbers normal-sighted people are supposed to see either.
I do argue with people a lot about shades, however, rather than the actual colours, and I noticed the two matches I got here were on yellow boxes. I wonder if I just missed shading subtlety?
April 16th, 2008 at 7:28
Louise, if you had only two matches it should state, that you are either not colorblind or have only a very mild form of it. Some people with normal vision can match the bright yellow with some light shades of green or red – and some can’t.
April 19th, 2008 at 19:22
It’s a fascinating site. I’ve been taking some of the tests here because my partner and I disagree over some shades of blue/green – whether they’re blue or green. Anyway, I match three of the colors on this test but on all the other tests I come out as color ‘normal’. I’m a bit like Louise maybe.
May 16th, 2008 at 7:28
moderate to strong red-green color blindness…and the second time strong red-green…don’t think so! The test is flawed somehow, or my screen is not set right. I see all colors perfectly…or so I think…I can see all the red links on this page, and the maroon “leave a comment”
May 27th, 2008 at 19:49
This should be used as well as ishihra, I can see red/green this test shows that I have normal colour vision. What is normal?? I know that some people see green/red as brown. The trouble is if you cannot do the ishira test you fail medicals as it does not indicate the level of colour blindness.On taking this test it indicates that I am normal??. This sort of test is more scientic and should be used as well as isharia. I can see red/green railway signals as well as a normal colour vision person. I have been told that I have better colour vision that someone who can pass the ishria test. I was a colour printer for 5 years and matched colours perfectly…
June 6th, 2008 at 12:23
Thanks, not seen a test like this before. Still uncertain about my type of colour blindness. I have trouble right across the spectrum – I honestly thought turquoise and purple were made up words/colours as a young child. My granddad was apparently completely colour blind and only saw in black and white (so at least I know where I get it from).
Are there any tests like this for the shorter wavelengths?
June 7th, 2008 at 20:14
Matt, there are some real Anomaloscopes for all types of color blindness. Talking about online ones, I don’t know of any other and specially no one testing Tritanopia.
June 13th, 2008 at 15:21
I have known I was color-deficient since I was two or three (well my mother knew) because my mother was looking out for it since her father is also. First grade I painted a Christmas tree brown because (when I was asked why I made it that colour) “that is the color of trees”. Traffic “green” lights are white. The yellow and red on a traffic light are barely distinguishable but for a slight brightness with the yellow opposed to the red. I do not trust colors enough to glance. I concentrate on them to make sure I am not making a mistake. My job opportunities in military went from 200 to four after the tests. So I would definitely say that it has affected my life sufficiently. I also rarely know a color is purple as opposed to blue. From my understanding, my “symptoms” are both deuteranomalous and protanomalous. I do not see how that can be. My result of this test stated a moderate to strong red-green color blindness. Please explain if anybody has any sufficient information for me. Thank you.
June 13th, 2008 at 21:49
John, deuteranopia and protanopia are two types of red-green color blindness. And it is often quite difficult to discover which type it really is.
Try out the following online D-15 color blindness test. You might get a better feeling of which type you are suffering from.
June 17th, 2008 at 12:50
[...] teste achei no ColorBlindor, achei muito interessante e resolvi postar aqui. Para quem ainda não sabe, sou [...]
June 27th, 2008 at 0:14
Got about two matches,never had a problem with lights of vessels at sea (i skipper fishing vessels) but i cant pass the isihara plate test.Have great vision and never have i thought of myself as being disabled visualy, but now after 30 years at sea my inability to pass the isihara plates ,looks like putting an end to my sea going working life!Is that fair?
June 29th, 2008 at 21:27
Not sure if I’ve done the test correctly as I had no matches but can never see any numbers in the Ishihara tests. Why is that?
July 1st, 2008 at 15:11
Quite interesting! I got one match at center and declared mild colorblind or not colorblind at all. Thanks!
July 1st, 2008 at 19:49
Sue, did you use the sliders to find a match of the two colors? – Otherwise I can’t think of an explanation why you couldn’t make a match and on the other side never can see ishihara numbers.
July 2nd, 2008 at 3:11
[...] she doesn’t want to take the time out to sit still to even try to learn too. Here is the link RGB Anomaloscope — Color Blindness Test Here were my results Thank you for taking the test. You matched one or two values which means [...]
July 4th, 2008 at 20:24
>>12
Louise, perhaps you are a tetrachromat?
Look at the article “Some women may see 100 million colors, thanks to their genes”
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06256/721190-114.stm
July 7th, 2008 at 18:03
Well… IF we (supposed red/green deficit people) see things right and the others see wrong? The colors I see are always harmonized! Thanx
July 11th, 2008 at 8:17
Now I’m really confused, not just colour confused! The test concluded because I could not make any match, it looks like I am not suffering from red-green colour blindness! But I routinely fail the Ishihara test, and know I have difficulty identifying colours. Strangely enough, when I tested for the computer colour progression, for the Colorview lenses, I got a perfect score! The optician even questioned whether I was colourblind! Again the Ishihara test indicated that there was a deficiency. Obviously colour perception is an extremely complex subject. Congratulations on shedding some light on it!
July 19th, 2008 at 0:27
I went to an eye specialist and did the Ishihara test there, he said that I performed very poorly on it. He directed towards another doctor to make further tests to check my type and severity of my deficiency. This test says that I have no colourblindness at all. This test should be seriously reviewed.
July 25th, 2008 at 12:23
I’m confused… I was only able to make a couple of matches (the yellow) but it said that I had moderate to strong red-green deficiency. I am female and got similar results to Louise.
July 25th, 2008 at 12:27
By the way, if it makes any difference the reason I had trouble making matches were because some of the yellows on the right were too dark (like a yellow ochre) or they looked brown.
August 2nd, 2008 at 8:17
Here one must strongly consider equal brightness too for a match or one will get a few matches ! If one has a few matches here, its IMO not severe if they cluster in a very small area in the very center of the result plot.
August 5th, 2008 at 16:15
Urgh. I’m red-green colorblind, but I have an additional complication of having migraines triggered by certain color combos (don’t ask which because, you know, I’M COLORBLIND!) and certain saturations of certain colors. I don’t know what they are either, but I do know that I had to quit the test at the second item because of this.
I’ve decided to “join the club” and have recently color-coded the fall lab/work schedules for our Computer Science Labs.
http://aginghippie.emich.edu/next_term_cc/508D_521.html
BWAH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH!
August 6th, 2008 at 16:21
aginghippie, using the color combo:
- body bgcolor=”#191970″
- td bgcolor=”#00008b”
- font color=”#000080″
doesn’t give much contrast. One must select the text to invert it to be able to read it even with normal vision.
August 12th, 2008 at 3:40
Hi,
The test says that i have a moderate to strong red-green color blindness. Is that a problem if i want to start a piloting course?.
cheers
clifford
August 14th, 2008 at 13:10
Clifford, usually perfect color vision is required for getting a pilots license. Read the following article to learn more about your possibilities: Unreliable Secondary Color Vision Tests for Pilot Candidates
August 14th, 2008 at 14:35
Wolfgang,
Yes, but that was a deliberate choice on my part to have some people where I work “walk a mile in my shoes” so to speak.
I find it interesting that I don’t have the problems discerning text that people with standard color vision seem to have. I wonder if, because my color palette is “smaller”, I can discern better within the colors I can handle.
BTW, I have added an option to that page…
August 17th, 2008 at 14:44
realy it is better
August 21st, 2008 at 12:39
Apparently I have a ‘moderate to strong red-green color blindness’. I found this site when I was trying to studying for my color vision orals (I’m a final year optometry student). I am sure I do not have a color vision defect as I’ve done Ishiharas, Medmont C’s, D15’s, 100 Hue’s and I’ve passed. Do screen settings have much affect on the result?
September 9th, 2008 at 17:35
That’s strange. From the test I learn that I am not colorblind or suffering just a very mild form of it. But from the Ishihara’s test, I am totally colour blind! And I know I AM colour blind. Where does the problem comes from?
September 9th, 2008 at 19:42
Echa and Vic, thanks for your inputs. It’s strange that some people or more and some are less colorblind with the RGB Anomaloscope. I suppose it strongly depends on (1) the monitor settings and (2) your personal judgment if colors look the same or not.
There are many people taking the test and the range goes from matching all colors to matching only the center (where everyone should match).
I’ll keep you posted if I can find out some more information about this interesting behavior.
September 14th, 2008 at 6:18
I did a Ishihara test yesterday. Doctor assumed that i am color blind. But when i did this test all the results were great. No matches were there. So whats the bottom line?? Am i color blind or not??
September 14th, 2008 at 11:11
I tried this test four times, changing my perception of my level of CVD at each occasion. The performance was consistent with a very small (2mm) line in the centre on each occasion.
I can pass Ishihara (just) in natural daylight but perform much worse under artifical lighting, even the so-called Daylight Lamp.
I also passed the Holmes-Wright Lantern in 1977, 1981 and 1992 but now fail it because my visual acuity has worsened and I struggle to even see the very blurred pinpoint lights, let alone tell you what colour they are!
September 25th, 2008 at 16:40
my brother is color blind,he want to be a seaman,for he was graduate as bachelor of marine transportation or a nautical grad. is it true that is incurable?
September 29th, 2008 at 15:06
finaly i have passed the ishi harra test after trying the new colour vision specs why is it then the marine board in australia will not accept them to gain my master 5 skippers ticket they accept those with optical lenses what is the differance. Is this a case for discrimination?
September 30th, 2008 at 3:40
Hello, i am from Brazil so my english mighty be not that fluently… i am a litle confused about beening color blind… i notest that i had problens with it when i was 17 years old i i wanna know more about beeing a Red-Green Color Mixture
October 1st, 2008 at 1:28
[...] daltonismo Para saber se você é daltônico, o Colblindor tem um teste de Ishihara bem completo e um teste RGB em que você tem que igualar as [...]
October 21st, 2008 at 10:49
Chris The test concluded because I could not make any match,
I had the same thing too — the slider didn’t show up easily on my computer. I had to click the button inside of it to make the sliding portion of it show up.
Or maybe the rail part of it was in green on a red background. *shakes fist*
October 27th, 2008 at 20:24
They all matched to my eyes. I think you guys are coloblind !
October 27th, 2008 at 20:25
the screen is gray.. with some white !
November 7th, 2008 at 7:15
I found it very irritating when i could not do advanced biology diagram colorings right, according to the teacher, it was very frustrating. Went to the doctors and found out i am color blind and this test proves the same.
December 11th, 2008 at 20:04
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,802584,00.html
possible cure to the color blind :)
December 27th, 2008 at 21:54
i want to be a fighter poilt for usmc
how bad does colorblindness have to be for me to get disqualified?
January 1st, 2009 at 18:39
I think I am like Chris.
I’m a diagnosed protanope but I cannot match any of the colours in the anomaloscope – and at the end I get no report (at least I can’t see a line on the graph) what am I doing wrong?
January 1st, 2009 at 20:10
Clive, you’re nothing doing wrong. If you can’t make any match this means that you’re most probably not colorblind or just very slightly, according to this test. In this case you won’t see any line, as you couldn’t make matches.
January 1st, 2009 at 22:33
I just figured it out! I did not realise you had to drag the slider to alter the comparison colour. That’s why I got the false reading before!
I’ve taken the test again and got a graph which trends left to right starting high and moving downward.
January 15th, 2009 at 21:36
Do you think you could make one for bluee-green color blindness or tritanpia? I would like to try something like that.
January 18th, 2009 at 21:12
Josh, for checking blue-yellow color blindness you would need the so called Moreland equation, in
which an observer is asked to match a mixture of lights at 436 nm (indigo) and 490nm (green) to a cyan standard (fixed ratio of 480 and 580 nm) light.
Maybe I will implement it someday.
February 3rd, 2009 at 11:55
Nice work Daniel. I am very interested in colour naming constancy between people with colour deficiencies and typical colour vision. If you wish, you can participate in my online experiment.
February 26th, 2009 at 22:06
Hej Daniel,
I wonder, you have an anomaloscope RGB test, but are there also that kind of anomaloscope tests for other colours?
I wonder becouse I get confused between different types of pink and with some Ishihara plates -and your test- in RGB.
I find that wired, becouse I am an woman and I have never realy had trouble with it, if I don’t count my discussions over which colour something is with other people -and I think than only of the times that a lot of people have said the same.
February 26th, 2009 at 23:49
I don’t understand the results. It says “the line” starts growing from the center. I don’t see any line. I see a thin pale fuzzy strip in the middle with some image like a magnifier in it, then 2 pairs of wider purple strips and then a pair of very thin dark purple strips at edges of my results. What does this mean?
February 27th, 2009 at 21:02
Shanna, there is also an anomaloscope for blue-yellow color blindness, but not online available (yet?). You might have only a very mild form and yes, women can also be colorblind.
Rich, if you don’t see a line in the diagram you didn’t match any colors which means you are not colorblind.
March 17th, 2009 at 14:59
how on earth could i pass this!
i mean i have passed it.
According to me there was a huge hue and difference most of the time.
I dreaded that the next color will have the same brightness and hue but it never happened.Sometimes the brightness was too different.
So i have a few questions.Please answer
Am i supposed to match the hue only and not the brightness??
Since i fail the ishihara test all the time, i suspect there is something fishy about this, maybe with the monitor settings and stuff. Where could i get an actual test done??
March 17th, 2009 at 21:12
Chetan, I hope you could see the slider, as you need this to get the matches. If yes, you actually only have to match the hue. Because people with normal color vision will always but once see a hue difference.
To do a real anomaloscope test you have to find your a local eye specialist who has this tool available.
March 23rd, 2009 at 19:03
Hiya,
I’m a sixteen year old girl and recently found out i’m colourblind. Deuteranoptic.
The optician did those Ishihara, she said because i’m a girl my clourblindness is slightly stronger. I just done this wee test and it said ‘moderate’. The line goes all the way to ’strong’ on the left hand side, what does this mean?
You’re websites really interesting & thanks for putting this up =)
March 31st, 2009 at 15:29
In fact, there is only one matching color. I’ve prove that with capture the screen, and see the exact color by photoshop color-picker.
On the left, the color is going through #636300-#FFFF00 , which mean they contains exact same level of Red and Green, results in yellow.
Only one color chip was matching during the whole test
April 6th, 2009 at 21:15
i started reading a lot on colourblindness after i recently found out i’m deuteranomalous. sometimes i love the fact that i have my unique perception of colours that other can’t see or imagine but then i’m bummed about the fact that i can’t see green as well as most because it’s my favourite colour by far. this anomaloscope is alright but yeah it’s not 100% accurate, it says i have normal vision but i’m sure i don’t because i fail miserably on some ishihara plates and pass with flying colours (no pun intended) on the colourblind plates. thanks a lot for putting this test up. it makes me feel a bit better knowing that it thinks i have full colour vision :P
April 13th, 2009 at 7:20
i am applying for my sea capt. license and failed farnsworth and ishihara. but this test tells me i’m not colorblind at all. i honestly cannot get any colors to mach! what does it all mean? i never had trouble telling the diff between any colors until eye docs started giving me these tests. i read so much about the subject all written by none colorblind people. sometimes the sound ignorant about it! i think there is so much involved with it that nobody should claim to know. colorblindness is like fingerprints, every case is different. i think the minor cases boil down to perception. what do you think
May 10th, 2009 at 6:09
Fred, make sure you use the slider to try to match the colors before you press the match/no-match buttons. The first time through, I had no matches, either, but that’s because I didn’t use the slider to try to create matches.
June 4th, 2009 at 0:28
man i think i am color blind
June 4th, 2009 at 0:34
i deffinatly cant be a locomotive engineer now i am 3 quarters through my railway course and i think i am color blind i failed all the tests on those plate things but i past this thing maybe i should go to an eyespecialist and see if i am accually red and green color blind because i have had no problems with colors until i tried those plates and i cant find the number in any of them
June 22nd, 2009 at 0:40
Neat test, love this stuff. I worry about seeing yellow. Is there a test to take for that?
June 28th, 2009 at 18:01
I have same results on the sliding test as “normal”, yet fail the ishihara red-green. Can’t see most of the numbers. In messing around in photo shop with the number test, if I change the color setting to monochrome, the numbers jump right out. I couldn’t stop laughing when I saw this. I was shocked.
July 6th, 2009 at 15:40
This test is good too, mucho passoso!
Damn those ishiara tests, being able to see slight shifts in colour is a clear indication of lack of colour blindness.
July 16th, 2009 at 5:26
Great site and i loved to find info on the different tests!
On a note aside, ive known im colourblind since i was a kid (my father also is) and have always wondered something: i know there are colours i cant diferentiate (like in the ishihara test, i can barely see some numbers) but in general i can tell that a color is different from another, sometimes doing a big effort. The real problem comes when telling what colour is that, is it possible that i also dont know the “names” of the colours? Has anyone else thought this?
Thanks for any answers and once again great work with the site.
Fed
August 11th, 2009 at 12:05
I dont have a problem being colour blind. Bloody employment has a problem. I wanna be a fire fighter and i most likely cant because i’m colour blind! what the hell!? Oh that fire is green instead of red…it cant be a fire. -_-
the crap they come up with these days
September 12th, 2009 at 20:56
I had no match’s (?)
September 18th, 2009 at 21:47
hello there,
I just wanted to say thank you for making this website. not that you only offer a lot of information and interesting tests, but you’ve also made it in getting together people with same ‘issues’. now that i see how many of ‘us’ is out there, i feel much better:) (this medium ‘protan color vision defect’ of mine, i’m gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine:)
best regards,
robin
September 23rd, 2009 at 21:13
Daniel,
I am a commercial lauanch skipper, on the ishihara plates I can hardly get any. I tied your analmoscope test and percieved a match with a result of 8% what does this mean to me in laymans terms.
Steve
October 27th, 2009 at 16:45
The test was interesting… was able to get 2 matches… But the results don’t work, they look the same no matter what and don’t indicate anything interesting at all.. Just 5 bars with vertical hard-to-read text. No matter if I just hit ‘match ok’ over and over, the image at the end is the same.
November 2nd, 2009 at 18:51
hi, greetings from sweden. dont know about the rest of the world, but here you need to have good or perfect colour- vision if you want to be a police. damn it. i cant be a cop, electrician, pilot or anything else it seems, becouse of this. dont care if it means cheating my way throu – is there any way for me to pass theese tests?
thx!
November 15th, 2009 at 14:18
Ishihara says I am red-green defficient.. Another test says I am protanopic (more precise).. But I passed this test!! what’s going on?? I also passed the color arrangement test!!
I guess experience have some factors here because I play with paints as a hobby.. while those without experience with mixing paints, even those with normal color vision may fail this test..
December 13th, 2009 at 23:03
Oh my… I fail all those dot tests when you are meant to see a number and despite being told that I have red/green colour blindness (moderate according to the other test on this site), I pass this test with flying colours, excuse the pun. How odd!
December 17th, 2009 at 1:18
[...] see the numbers in the dots (more interesting tests and information on color blindness here: Colblindor. I will post more on this later (when I actually go through the various tests), but long story [...]
January 30th, 2010 at 12:01
Thank you for taking the test. — The matching line starts growing from the center to the left and right. The longer the matching line, the stronger your color blindness is.
January 30th, 2010 at 19:25
great test Daniel, well Done….once more im normal ;)
February 1st, 2010 at 3:05
I will to some
February 3rd, 2010 at 18:59
The problem with this test as opposed to the Ishihara test is that with many shades of color, I can tell the difference when they are side by side, but if you ask me to identify them just by themselves, I can’t tell the real color because I have nothing to reference. My biggest problem is with pastel colors. They are so much lighter that I have less color to see to match up. My problem is with LED’s on PC’s and servers. I can’t tell if the light is green or yellow as they all look yellow to me.
February 7th, 2010 at 4:36
I am going to assume that it is not a good thing when you are able to match every single color.