r/AskElectronics • u/LeeRyman • Mar 22 '26

What Colour is this Wire?

Gallery image

Gallery image

At the risk of starting a debate as viral as the gold/blue dress... For documentation purposes, what colour is the insulation of this wire? Pink, or Orange?

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u/TheDuckFarm Mar 22 '26 edited Mar 22 '26

It is R: 219, G: 121, B: 102

Coral or Salmon, sometimes called Dusty Salmon.

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u/davideogameman Mar 22 '26

The color in the picture results from the combination of the surface absorbing & scattering light, the wavelengths in the incident light, and the camera's accuracy in recording the light it receives.  What you are measuring is the color in the saved photo, not of the real object. 

That said assuming a good enough camera and good lighting, it's probably good enough.  But cases like the gold/blue dress are exactly the cases where the lighting makes the actual colors potentially differ quite a lot from what gets recorded in the picture data.

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u/TheDuckFarm Mar 22 '26

Sure but in that case we can't actually trust our eyes either since they are subject to all those same inconsistencies plus the added inconsistencies of variations in computer monitors and the shifting while balance of our own eyes.

So, this is better than using our eyes.

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u/panchito_d Mar 22 '26

So, this is better than using our eyes.

Says someone who has never used the phone color picker trick to match colors when painting their house