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Comment by Naac | Hacker News Reader

>> more often wrong than not

By the website's definition, which is right on the main page, it is not wrong. The website uses the "average color across the approximately 25 image results".

And for that purpose this site works fantastically, and I would say it's a pretty hilarious idea.

For example searching for Dolphin doesn't return grey but instead a shade of blue, because most dolphin pictures are dolphins in water.

I think the website takes our expectations and instead shows us the reality. And I think it does a fantastic job.

What I would like to see is an option to maybe increase the number of images to average from, maybe to 50, 100, etc. I would also love to see the source released so I can this instance locally.

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I agree. The problem has to do with not recognizing the background of the image. That'd explain why ketchup and solo cup are pink -- the first 25 pictures all have white backgrounds.

https://alexbeals.com/projects/colorize/search.php?q=ketchup https://alexbeals.com/projects/colorize/search.php?q=solo+cu...

The results would definitely be closer to human expectations if run through something like https://www.remove.bg/ first.

I feel like it would only be right for this kind of project to not "stoop" to background-removal, but instead do something more ridiclous by throwing even more ML at the problem:

1. classify the image

2. use word-net to figure out what "container" word is most closely associated with the image's classification

3. search the container word, and pull out its dominant colors

4. return the colors that are in the image but not in its classificatory container. Unless that set is empty (e.g. a polar bear in snow), in which case return the colors you'd have given without all these extra steps ;)

I agree. Otherwise it would try to strip the background from an ocean or sky image.

I (and probably a few others) searched for "Hacker News" and it comes up with a really nice colour that is probably a cross between the top bar and the background, but not a colour I'd associate with the site in general.

> because most dolphin pictures are dolphins in water

that is one possible reason, but it's a guess.

it could also be that it's weighted by the extremely high incidence of the miami dolphin team colors.

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