How much oranger do red orange bags make oranges look?

Perceived Color Change & Image Quality

• Many commenters say the oranges in the experiment don’t look more orange; some see them as browner or oddly dark, and prefer the unbagged images.
• Several note the first orange already looks unusually red, making the “bag effect” hard to judge.
• People suspect camera auto-settings (exposure, HDR, auto–white balance) and the ring light’s spectrum are distorting colors; suggestions include manual white balance, higher-CRI lighting, and including a control orange in each shot.
• Some argue that using very ripe, deeply orange fruit minimizes the apparent effect; they expect a bigger difference with pale or greenish citrus.

Color Perception vs Pixel Math

• Strong pushback on using average pixel color to measure “how orange” something looks; human color perception is contextual and non-linear.
• References to classic illusions (checker shadow, identical colors in different contexts, the dress) illustrate that identical pixel values can look different to us.
• Several explain that brown is essentially dark orange and not a “spectral” color; others say the naming is arbitrary even if underlying color theory is not.
• Technical discussion covers sRGB vs linear RGB, proper downscaling, color spaces like HSL, CIELAB, YCbCr, and additive vs subtractive mixing.

Programmer Mindset vs Human Perception

• One thread criticizes the experiment as a “programmer” approach that ignores perceptual science.
• Others defend the author’s curiosity and informal experimentation, arguing it’s a fun, valid way to explore questions even if not rigorous.

Marketing, Packaging, and Store Tricks

• Several see red mesh as a deliberate tactic to make oranges look riper and hide blemishes, with parallels to green nets for avocados, opaque corn wrap, and red-biased lighting in produce and meat sections.
• Some wonder about an “anti-marketing” bias: unbagged fruit might feel more honest and therefore more appealing.

Fruit Varieties, Price, and Ripeness

• The featured fruit are identified as specialty Dekopon/Sumo citrus, explaining the high per-fruit price.
• Side discussion on how green-skinned citrus can be fully ripe in warm climates, and how supermarket aesthetics (uniform orange color) often diverge from best flavor.