#TheDress splits the Internet in half

WASHINGTON, Feb. 27 (UPI) -- A dress picture posted to Tumblr has torn the Internet in twain, with warring factions describing the color scheme as either white and gold or blue and black.

"Guys please help me -- is this dress white and gold, or blue and black?" Tumblr user swiked asked in the post that quickly spread across the Internet, leading #TheDress debaters on both sides to blame the photo's problematic lighting for the other side seeing the colors incorrectly.

A post-production specialist consulted by Buzzfeed pulled the blue-toned light out of the picture, resulting in a clearly white-and-gold dress.

However, Neil Harris, senior photo editor for Wired, said the picture popped blue and black when he balanced it to the darkest pixel. His analysis was backed up by Twitter users who lowered the picture's exposure and boosted saturation.

@xfloormattx lowered the exposure and boosted saturation. What color is it? pic.twitter.com/MflleMNzKE

— Dion Degennaro (@DionDege) February 27, 2015

Adobe, the maker of Photoshop, put its endorsement behind a Twitter user who used the software's color tools to determine the dress was blue and black.

For those seeing #WhiteandGold in #TheDress (http://t.co/pNG9tXu5pU), @HopeTaylorPhoto ends the debate. pic.twitter.com/W7TwQJy13m

— Adobe (@Adobe) February 27, 2015

The final word appeared to come when swiked posted a second photo showing the dress as clearly blue and black.

A notably similar dress, which appears identical save for the lack of a jacket, was found by Internet users for sale by Amazon seller Roman Originals. The dress on the website is blue and black, but a white version is available -- albeit without any gold in the design.

Neuroscientist Bevil Conway explained the controversy to Wired.

"What's happening here is your visual system is looking at this thing, and you're trying to discount the chromatic bias of the daylight axis," he said. "So people either discount the blue side, in which case they end up seeing white and gold, or discount the gold side, in which case they end up with blue and black."