How much oranger do red orange bags make oranges look?

Look at this orange: Now look at this orange: It’s the same orange. But, look how much more orange it looks with the red mesh on top of it: If you buy bags of oranges (at least at many places in the US), they frequently come in this red mesh bag. This bag makes the oranges look more orange. Oranger. Here’s what that looks like at a local grocery store: Ripe oranges are usually oranger, so this bag makes the oranges look better than they may actually be. Maybe the secret is to never buy bagged fruit, since it’s harder to evaluate the quality of each orange. This made me wonder — how does the bag change how we perceive the color? I thought this difference would be visible if we did some quick and tricky digital math: what if we had a picture of the orange with and without the bag under the same light and camera conditions, then checked the average pixel? Here are the results from 11 different orange photos, with and without the mesh: Orange Without bag With bag Avg. color witho ... Read full article.