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Colour Blindness Test

Dot plates with a number hidden in a contrasting hue. A screening aid — genuinely useful as a first check, and not a diagnosis.

Press F for fullscreen, Esc to exit.

What the colour blindness test shows

The plates are generated rather than reproduced. The classic Ishihara plates are under copyright, so nothing here is scanned or traced: dots are packed procedurally and the ones falling inside a digit are tinted from a different palette. Same principle, different artwork.

Start with the control plate. It uses light and dark rather than hue, so everybody should read it. If you cannot, the problem is the screen or the viewing conditions rather than your colour vision, and the other plates will not tell you anything.

How to use these plates

View them at full screen, at arm’s length, under normal indoor lighting rather than in a dark room. Look for a second or two and move on — deliberate staring lets you pick out the digit by subtle brightness differences rather than by colour, which defeats the point.

The red-green plates screen for the common protan and deutan types, which affect roughly one man in twelve. The blue-yellow plate screens for tritan, which is far rarer.

What this test cannot tell you

This is a screening aid, not a diagnosis. A real test uses calibrated printed plates under controlled lighting, and a web page can control neither your display nor your room. If a plate is hard to read, that is a reason to see an optometrist, not a conclusion.

Questions

Is this an official Ishihara test?

No. The Ishihara plates are copyrighted, so these are generated using the same principle — dots of one hue family forming a digit within dots of another. It works as screening; it is not the clinical test.

I cannot see the number. Am I colour blind?

Possibly, but this cannot tell you. Your display’s colour accuracy, its brightness and the light in your room all affect what you see. Check the control plate first, and see an optometrist if you want an actual answer.

Why does the control plate matter?

Because it distinguishes light from dark rather than one hue from another, so everybody should be able to read it. If you cannot, something about the screen or the lighting is wrong and none of the other plates mean anything.

Is the colour blindness test free?

Yes — free, with no account, no download and no limit. It is a web page, so it runs on any device with a modern browser.

Do I need to be fullscreen?

For anything involving the whole panel, yes. Press F, or the fullscreen button. On a desktop browser F11 also hides the browser toolbars, which matters for the tests where a bright strip at the top of the screen would affect what you are looking at.