WHILE NOT BLIND TO COLOR, I'M STILL COLORBLIND...

     I'm not sure what the point of these tests are except to embarrass me but the following panels (left to right) are tests for three types of colorblindness called protanopia, deuteranopia, and tritanopia respectively.
     Protanopia means the subject has difficulty distinguishing colors in the green-yellow-red end of the spectrum. "For a protanope, the brightness of red, orange, and yellow are much reduced compared to normal." It can be so bad for some people that colors like red appear black or dark gray. It also states that "[v]iolet, lavender, and purple are indistinguishable from various shades of blue because their reddish components are so dimmed as to be invisible."
     Deuteranopia sufferers also have difficulty distinguishing in the green-yellow-red end of the spectrum. "A deuteranope suffers the same hue discrimination problems as protanopes, but without the abnormal dimming."
     Tritanopia is the opposite of protanopia in which its sufferers have difficulty distinguishing the short wavelength colors of blue, indigo, and violet. They, like the protanope example, appear dimmed allowing blues to appear black or as dark gray. This is the rarest of the types.

     That's just the simplified version. There's way more to it than what I've just written. There's also protanomaly, deuteranomaly, and tritanomaly whereby the subjects possess all three cone cell types but with one of the types defective rather than absent like with the above examples.

     Okay, for the example test below, the top row of images is how they appeared on the Wikipedia page I'm getting my information from for this post.

     All I got from this test was just how poorly I perceive colors. Even knowing the answers ahead of time, I could only easily see the 56 on the right panel. The left panel is completely blank and the middle one shows hints of color on it. Now even though I said I see the 56 easily, it's still faint. If your color vision is normal you'll have to tell me if the numbers all appear ghostly or if they're so obviously plain that the test itself seems insulting.
     As you can see, I copied the three panels and I traced around what I could see. If my life depended on seeing the 37, I would be so dead. So very dead...

     But then, in an attempt to make me feel better, I wondered what would happen if I put the original panels into a photo editor and supersaturated the color.
     I've always said that I can see all the colors, just not well. I often need bright light to distinguish them. I've noticed this at work when red and green labelled things are next to each other in shaded areas, I cannot distinguish them even though I know which is which from reading them. But put them in the light and the red and green pops right out.
      I also think of this when looking at the stars. Three stars and the planet Mars are supposed to be noticeably red to the naked eye. Antares (the bright star of Scorpius), Aldeberan (the bright star of Taurus), and Betelgeuse (the topmost bright star of Orion) are all supposed to be ruddy-colored to the eye. They're just bright stars to me. However, if I look at them through binoculars or a telescope, their color becomes apparent.
      I remember the last time Mars became bright in the evening sky, I asked my Best Friend what color that bright "star" was and she replied that it was red thus letting me know that I was missing out on something. I pointed out Betelgeuse and got the same response. I wonder what this colorful world looks like? It's impossible for me to ever know. Do they look like supersaturated color photos? It makes me wonder when I gently uptick the color in some of my photos if to non-colorblind individuals those photos look ridiculously overcolored whereas to me they look simply "enhanced".

Enhanced color or ridiculously overcolored?

Do you see the rainbow's colors as easily on the left image as I can now see them on the right?

      Anyways, I supersaturated the test boxes and much to my joy, the numbers in all the boxes became quite plain to me. I see a red 37, a pale green 49, and a very blue 56. However I will admit that the 49 doesn't stand out, stand out...and the 9 looks like it's missing its top making it look like a crude 4. I see the 49 more as an absence of the darker, reddish looking dots whereas both the 37 and 56 look as though they had been spray-painted on.

     I again traced out the numbers albeit less carefully this time but as you can see (and likely saw all along), I can perceive the numbers now. If I would have to self-diagnose, I would say I am deuteranomalous. I found an anomaloscope online. According to the site, it's not possible to properly emulate the test using a monitor but the results are still useful and mine? My results are bad :-)
      It makes me wish I had money to waste. I would like to be properly diagnosed and alongside a non-colorblind friend because I would want to see just how off my vision is. Using the anomaloscope, where you see yellow, would I see greener light or redder light?

Well... Shit...