How cats see the world

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I've done a little Photoshop experiment to see what the world might look like through the eyes of a cat. From what I read, cats can distinguish more shades of grey, especially dark shades, but the world looks unnaturally bright to them during the day. Colors are far less saturated and vibrant, and cats can't see the red part of the spectrum. Their eyes can only perceive desaturated purple, blue, green and yellow tones.

I found this image on a website and used it as a template for a Photoshop action:



Here are the results. The top half is the original image, the bottom half is probably what a cat sees on a sunny day:





And this is how cats see their fellow felines:



At night time, a cat's vision should be vastly superior to that of a human. Probably like this:



It could be that cats see red tones as grey or blueish rather than yellowish-green, but the other colors should come pretty close. A cat's view of the world is like being on another planet

(I wish I could do the same for a bird's view. The color perception of birds is as superior to that of a human as a human's color vision is to a cat's. For birds, the world probably looks as vibrant and colorful as an LSD trip).

Edited to add: I guess the thread is pointless without a question. Would you give up your human eyesight for the eyesight of a cat and trade vibrant, intense color perception for superior night vision?

Give me my pretty colours. I'll use a flashlight.

so heres a question:

how do people know what colours a cat can see if they have never been a cat?

^You know I've often wondered the same thing. My granny said that back in her days they use to believe that all cats and dogs saw was black and white. Not that I disagree with CrazyCatLord. The pics are fabulous and probably as close as we'll get to what a cat see. I was wondering if anyone here had cats that were attracted to bright colors? All 3 of my cats will usually go after a cat toy thats red or sparkly but hardly one that's mute unless it moves. Maybe it's just the way they are.


As for if I had a choice, I've always wondered what goes on in the dark. In the day time I only see about 2 of the same cats, one who has had a previous but healed injury to the eye. But at night I'll get my flashlight and shine it outside and see a bunch of flashing eyes staring at me and hear lot's of howling and cat ranting going on. It's getting louder now that the weather's warming up.

This is just too much cute for one jpeg

Well, we don't even know what other people see.

What we do know is that light of a particular colour has wave characteristics, and we know that certain cells in the retina respond to certain wave characteristics. We also know that different species' possess these cells in different proportion--cells responsive to some colours are absent in some species, whereas other species have cells responsive to certain colours that are absent in our retinas. What this tells us is the relative strength of the neural signals that are going to the optic centres of the brain. We can then infer, if our retinas were structured in this way, what kind of signals would be sent to our brains?

On a secondary level, we also know the relative size of an animal's eye, the density of light sensitive cells (which has an impact on visual acuity), and the size of the pupil relative to the size of the eye--which tells us how much light is getting in, (which has an impact on low light vision).

Does that help?

Same.

That would make orange easier to look at.

Being a lover of art I couldn't bare to give up the ability to see colours D:

Like your work, but I'll keep my eyes