Cloud rendering and the relativity of whiteness

Here are some philo­soph­i­cal and ren­der­ing-relat­ed ques­tions that I took home from the last vaca­tion. What’s the col­or of clouds? The stan­dard answer would be, white. What’s the col­or of snow? Again, white. Ok, then look at the fol­low­ing pic­ture, where the snow seems con­sid­er­ably whiter. This is the case in almost all pho­tos that I took.

There is an image on Wikipedia from the same gen­er­al area on which the bright­ness dif­fer­ence between clouds vs snow is even more pro­nounced. If you look at the direct­ly lit parts of the snow and con­sid­er it white (#ffffff), then the direct­ly lit parts of the clouds are at most 50% grey (#bbbbbb). Is that an evi­dence of air pol­lu­tion? Unlike­ly! (At least not in Tyrol).

Weit­er­lesen