Ishihara Plates Color Blindness Test in a Leaflet

Unfortunately those leaflets are not available anymore. But you can find the whole set of 38 Ishihara plates in my article: Ishihara’s Test for Colour Deficiency: 38 Plates Edition.


Just recently I found this new Web 2.0 application where you can produce your own leaflets. A leaflet is a miniature web site which can be created online and distributed through an URL or an embedding link.

I thought this could be a great way to show the 35 Ishihara plates to test your color blindness. All plates show a big circle consisting of many little colorful circles. Because the circles differ in color and brightness it can get really tough for a colorblind person to see the shown numbers or traces.

If you take the following color blindness test be aware that those pictures were scanned and are now reproduced by your display. This can alter the colors. Because a color blindness test relies solely on correct color reproduction you shouldn’t take the results for granted. If you really want to check your color blindness you should see your local doctor.

Could you perform as you expected? Or did the plates show that you really are red-green colorblind? I hope you could spot at least the number in the first and the trace in the last plate, otherwise you may have a real severe color vision problem…

109 responses on “Ishihara Plates Color Blindness Test in a Leaflet

  1. Daniel Flueck Post author

    Good question.

    High myopia is never the reason for color blindness. But there can effectively be a relation between the two.

    Stay tuned. I hope to cover it soon in a special article on Colblindor.

  2. vanja

    can you give me a link to the test with a circle which color blind people see but normal color vision people dont. i saw it once and cant find it anymore. thank you.

  3. Trevor

    Im trevor johnson I am slightly color blind and wanting to become a commercial pilot can u become a pilot w/ this delema

  4. Daniel Flueck Post author

    Arran, it’s not easy at all to create your own test. To create your own plates, which are not readable for certain colorblind people, you will need a lot of time to paint them, or write a computer program which does it for you.

    Or otherwise you find your own type of color blindness test. Would be interesting to see your results.

  5. Doug

    This test is the biggest load of BS ever. Where would you ever come across something like this in the real world? I can’t be a cop because of this test…and I don’t understand why. People don’t wear clothing that looks like this…cars aren’t painted up like this…there are many more ways outside of color that can be used to describe people and objects. All this test proves is that I can’t see numbers in a circle…nothing more.

  6. Ariel TM

    Hi
    Wanted to ask you whether you know of any Ishihara test generator applet/program.
    I’m almost sure I saw it somewhere but I didn’t manage to find it again

    Thanks
    Ariel TM

  7. Daniel Flueck Post author

    Ariel TM, unfortunately I’ve never heard and never found such a generator. It would be great to have one. Maybe I’ll release one in the future (when I find the time). And whenever you find one I would be very happy to learn about it.

  8. Jon Raj

    I find out that I am very slightly Red-Green deficient…..

    Is it possible for me to To get a job as Airline Pilot…. ???

    Please tell me in detail…I am very worried about this…& in what extent i can be qualified to become an Airline Pilot??

    Thanks..

  9. Max

    hey, i missed #’s 11, 12, 22-29, 36, and 37, on a scale from 1 to 10, how bad is my deuteranomaly colorblindness?

  10. Daniel Flueck Post author

    Max, it’s always hard to give a measurement of ones color blindness, because of different perceptions and different display settings.

    Compared to me, you are performing way better. So I would say you either have a mild or moderate form of deuteranomaly.

  11. Gavin

    I am entering the military, I was wondering what edition of the isihara do they use? How many plates are on the test?

  12. Daniel Flueck Post author

    Gavin, I have no clue, which type of pseudoisochromatic test they are using. There are a lot of them available. The Ishihara plates are just the best known one besides HRR and others.

    Talk to them about your color vision deficieny and don’t try to find a solution to just manage the test.

  13. david elliott

    Daniel I just did the Les Daltoniens test. I got 24 out of 25 with the numbers in the circle. I had no problem seeing the numbers yet the test i did today was so old and faded i could not see the numbers clear yet i know i am colorblind but not much yet i still did not get the job. Someone should take this to court. If i could do something to fix the problem i would I shoudn,t be screwed over because of a genentic defect.And the sorry i don,t make the rules is getting old fast.

  14. david elliott

    Gavin you wont have a problem getting into the milatry as long as you dont want the navey the pipes on the ships are color coded] and the airforce too many different color light in the plane on the ground. Good luck Dave

  15. bostongeorge

    um wtf? purple line in 36 and 37? i only see redline. What blindness i have? i saw the other just fine

  16. bizzle

    I seem to be a very very slight deutan. In all of these plates i see that different colors exist but occasionally it takes a few seconds to pin down the exact number. The ishihara is the only test where I have any problems, however it is also the most commonly used. So, It really bothers me that this test is so much harder for me than any other.

  17. Potemkin

    Yeh same here bizzle, from a distance i can make out the number, but one enlarged i can kinda of see it, but kinda of cant. I can make out the basic shape and outline. And yeah i havnt had too many problems with other color blindness test but no fear, going to optimist on Thursday to see if i can still apply for the police

  18. mert

    i can see all numbers and follow traces but i know that i am color blind.
    how can i see all of them?

  19. Eric

    azmanlaservision.com this is a doctor who specializes in clor deficiency i got contacts and glasses.. hes in baltimore and did oer 8 hours of testing on my eyes.. i was freaking out cause i lost a job at a hospital as an er tech cause of this and i wanted to become a firefighter i got the glasses and contacts and passed the test it can be done check out his site. I agree this should be taken to court it really is a load of crap.. But do whatever u have to to pass this test to get hired with police, fire, pilot find out the numbers b4 know the physical b4 u go in call ask questions ask people b4 to get the numbers in order and get the contacts us color blind people need to band together and get this test taken out its downright descrimination

  20. Casper

    I usually get interesting results on the ishihara test and I did on this test as well.

    The thing is I see numbers that I shouldn’t see according to the test. Ususally I see 8s where I should a 5 or a 2. Somehow I see both what the colorblind sees and what the normal person sees at the same time, causing the 5 to be superimposed on the 2 and I see a distorted 8. This once gave me the verdict of “color vision: indeterminable” on the ishihara test. =)

  21. Mike

    This is for GAVIN or anyone going into the MILITARY. The military uses the 14 Plate Ishihara test for color vision but supposedly it has NO tracing lines. I am not aware of an edition that is 14 plates but has no lines. According to the military though, the editions with lines are prohibited.
    If you dont pass the Ishihara test, they will administer the Farnsworth Test. 9 sets of lights shown in pairs, either RED, GREEN, or WHITE shown in any combination. There is Dark green, dark red, light green/red (almost pink), or white. If you fail that there are probably only 12-20 jobs that will be available to you. NO COMBAT ARMS. B.S. because being in the military over 4 years, I have yet to see ANYTHING in a combat arms job that relied on colors to ANY degree. GOOD LUCK!

  22. Matt

    Do the above comment… Color perception plays a big part in combat rules due to the fact that each bullet has a different color around the just below the tip. Also studies have found that people that have red/green color problems have difficulty using night vision, not that they cant use it just that the people with bad perception cant see as clearly or as far.

    This is why direct combat roles plus a few other reasons i don’t know about don’t allow low class entrants.

  23. bert

    i found it intersting to read others comments, but regards to my problem, is there any solution for color defective? Is there any form of exercises to improve at least a little bit of color defective?… this is my BIG question.. hope someone will take time to answer this.. thanks. bert@philippines

  24. Daniel Flück Post author

    Bert, color blindness is nothing which gets worse during your lifetime. And therefore there are also no exercises to make it less worse. – There is also no cure for it. You just have to live with it the way it is.

  25. Leonora

    You have a great, resourceful blog – I’ve really enjoyed browsing. I find colour blindness fascinating, partly because I’m fascinated by genetics and X-linked traits, and partly because of what it tells us about the subjectivitiy of perception etc.

    My grandfather was extremely colour blind (couldn’t see red at all), and my mother, to her own surprise, just found out she apparently has a very slight red/green-weakness. Until recently, I hadn’t realized how common it is. I remember jokingly asking a guy who was about to buy a really ugly scarf, whether he was colour blind – turned out he was, and he was *really* embarrassed …

  26. Rob

    I have the actual sheet the doctor has to fill out for my color vision test. 14 plate Ishihara. I dont have the plates but I have the order they are in and the number I am supposed to see. Is it common for the doctor to apply the test in a mixed order?

  27. Daniel Flück Post author

    Katie, those images are made for print and scanned from there. So they will never ever be quite correct, even if your display is set the best it can be.

  28. Alexander Hyth

    Ishihara plates is not an Accurate color vision test becaus many people who cannot pass the ishihara test can see and identify colors like anybody else . i heard that they will have a new test for the color blindness .

  29. Chris

    I attempted to join the Navy with the intention of serveing my country as a nuclear engineer.I aced the ASVAB and auto-qualified for my dream job, took the survey for my clearance and all that remained was my polygraph (no worries there), then 20 minutes later they tell me i am colorblind and that out of the 180+ jobs in the Navy i qualified for 4 which were just rediculous, i want to serve my country, but i want to do it to the capacity i know my intelligence facilitates…. and maybe i dont like this country so much anymore now that I am being discriminated against on the basis of a genetic condition that I have no control over and know way to treat/fix.

    I am otherwise in perfect health and of sound mind (im 17).

    What i am asking of you is if there could be any way to find out exactly which 14 plates the military uses, as i should have no problem memorizing the patterns.

    I hope one day to become a doctor and would love to have that i served for 8 years as a nuclear engineer on an aircraft carrier/submarine rather than that i stacked boxes for the Navy…(seriously you could get $%!#ing Albert Einstein into the Navy and hed be stacking boxes or cooking meat-loaf….

  30. bala

    its not the end of the world if you cant join the navy, there are many other, maybe better ways you can serve your country

  31. Steve Collins

    I am hooked on this thread because I too have what I refer to as mild red green deficiency but what doctors call colour blind!! and yes that really pi**es me off. I lost out on the police in the UK because of it, I did serve in the RAF for 7 years with no problems at all, even though I was identified by the farnsworth test as being red green colour blind. I am in New Zealand now and although I did not join in the end I was cleared here for the NZ Police, they used multi stranded thin coloured wires? then I passed another test and worked airside at an international airport!! again no problems with identifying small colored runway lamps. Now I want to join NZ customs and have passed an intensive medical with flying colours……oh wait I failed the Ishihara test!! now I am waiting on a decision as to whether I can still join them. Man I am so goddamn angry about this. I would be treated better if I were a leper. The powers taht be should classify us as invalids at least then we could take employers to task when they tell us we are not employable.

  32. Steve

    Ok it is the next day now and I am over my rant. I did not know that the Honourable Ishihara’s eye test was around 96 yrs old! I read in one thread a suggestion that a new test should be devised, sounds like a good idea to me. It seems that a lot of us do have one thing in common, and that is that we can pass some tests but fail on others. I wonder if Ishihara ever had any idea of the amount of potentially successful careers that were crushed before they even got started over the last century, all because of his test. Why couldn’t he just have opened a sushi restaurant.

  33. Caroline D.

    On numbers 36 and 37,
    I only see an orange-pink trace, but it says a purple one is there also… is this an error or does it mean I am color blind?

  34. Alex

    Iv found out that if you can see the colors like everyone else but cant pass the ishihara test you are superior because your brain sees all of the dots as different color therefore we “colorblind people” see more colors than everyone else. Our brain cant make a picture because the colors are all diferent. hope this help

  35. Shawn

    Ok…
    I think I have a weird case, but i’m not sure.

    I’m a 20 year old male, and I can see everything that i’m supposed to see…
    But I can also see everything i’m “NOT” supposed to see too!! They’re both very clear. The only ones I have slight problems with, are 10, 11, 12, and 13; but I can still very easily make them out. The only slight problem is the focus, I think. It’s harder to make it out alittle bit.. but I can still do it with ease. Another example is the Ishihara plate that appears to be a 5 in most colorblind, or “dalton” cases, and no number to people with normal colorvision. I can see the 5!
    So i’m very confused. I’ve been taking tests online for weeks now and i’m seeing the same thing.
    This ishihara test is the easiest one for me. Other websites or webpages often have ishihara plates that appear extremely blurry and harder to draw out the numbers; but I can still make it out.
    I’ve been to Yahoo questions/answers and I got no reply.
    What in the world would my case be?
    Could this be a gift; or is this something to worry about?

    Another thing that I might add, is that i’m going for the Navy SEALs in a few months (just discharged from the US Army as an Airborne Ranger). I was selected to go to sniper school and be a platoon sniper because I can see through enemy camoflauge very easily.

    Again, I don’t know if this is going to be a problem or not.. Can someone give me an accurate answer?

  36. Shawn

    I was selected to go to sniper school while I was in the US Army*

    I don’t know if i’ll pass the test at MEPS because I can see both, and I don’t know which one of them to say that I see! I may just go with the dominant color, which will most likely be some shade of red.
    I don’t know. Am I like.. a mutant or something?

  37. Clive

    I scored on this test for atypical protanopia as I usually do for Ishihara tests.

    I did however have a few an anomalous results.

    Plate 5; I could make out the correct number.

    Plate 8; I could one digit of the two-digit number correct but miss-identified the other.

    Plate 9; was very unclear. I could make out something was there but couldn’t identify either number.

    Plates 22 – 28. This was very odd. I tested for deuturanopia. Which I have *never* done. I’ve taken protanopia discriminating plates before and see only one half of the two-digit number that I ought to. When I take similar plates on the geosities site they confirm protanopic vision. This is the first and only time I’ve ever had the effect reversed, seeing the deuteranic number and not the protanopic number. Since this is *very* anomalous with other tests I have taken I am not quite sure what to make of it. I wonder if this may be down to screen settings or just the scan on the plates?

    Plates 33-36.
    Red green colourblindess should identify one of two paths. I found it hard to make out any path on plates 33 and 34. I could make out a trace on plates 35 and 36 but red-green colourblindess should follow the blue-green purple path.
    According to the shortening of the spectrum blue-greens and purples can appear grey. I thought the trace was ‘pinkish’ and indistinct.

    Conclusion: I am colour blind. The dueturanic results is just weird. I can’t make sense of that and I was surprised at the lack of clarity I experienced on the later trace plates.

  38. Daniel Flück Post author

    Shawn and Clive, there is absolutely nothing strange about your test results. Two different factors can be the cause of it (either a single one or combined):

    1. Online Ishihara plates are always scanned and therefore the colors can’t be produced correctly. Because of that you might get different results or can see things you wouldn’t normally. Only an eye specialist has the right color blindness tests which can give you best results.

    2. There are many different types of color blindness. As there are different parts of your genetic structure involved in color vision, this can cause very different color vision effects. There is not only a green-blindness and a red-blindness but many different combination possibilities. So this can also be the source of your personal special color vision.

  39. Clive

    Thanks for replying Daniel. I think after those some more that I’m usually good at picking up light green. When the plates obscure nubmers with a mixture includign lght greens I’m tending to see both or pick up the highlights. I’ve noticed this now in both number plates and the trace plates.

    I’ve been very interested Daniel in the confusion line tests you have on Colblindor. I’ve never seen those types of test before, and they are better than the Ishihara tests. Which for all these reasons seem to me now to not be as as effective in diagnosing colour vision deficiency as I had previously believed.

  40. Jesse

    I was diagnosed with re-green deficency at 8 years old (33 now). I wanted to be a pilot in my youth and never pursued it after I was told you couldn’t be colorblind. These days a have a USCG issued licence to operate towboats on the Mississippi River System. I was able to get approved for my original licence with the help of a family doctor even though I only see the first plate of Isihara. When I was up for renewal I went to an collage in Memphis that teaches optomitry and took every test the CG approves with the exclusion of Farnsworth (they didn’t have that one). I failied miseriably.I ended up memorizing the plate order and passing after going to 5 different eye doctors. The first three had differnt versions of book and the fourth had taken their book apart and mixing it up. You should have seen their faces when I called out the numbers with confidence (ha ha). I contacted Dr. Azman. Boy, is he proud of his work. Before I spend that kind of money I would like to know if anyone has heard anything negative about him? If his method is so good why is it not national? I agree that inherited color blindness should be recocnized by the government as a genuine handicap. Anyone who is willing to wear X-chrome lenses for work shouldn’t be discriminated against.

  41. Mikey

    Wow i missed about 6 i don’t see how dots like these would affect any law enforcement job so i don’t know why they require you to pass a even harder test than this one anyhow my frien failed to get in the border patrol because of an ishihara test and he says its harder than this one what do yall think about law enforcement testin on this?

  42. diki

    hii daniel

    bro i wanted to ask u that i performed the online test given by you here http://daltonien.free.fr/daltonien/article.php3?id_article=6

    except two (the plates with purple) i ws able to answer all but i had to tilt my laptop’s screen to answer within 3 seconds. I could not check my status as i ws unable to understand the language of the website so cn u please tell me wat’s my status in colorblindness and also what is CP 3 for color vision.

  43. Mike

    SO can anyone please post the Ishihara Color Blindness Test 14 plate test i need to to stay at my academy

  44. mt

    In WW2 the British used paintings with hidden details that only color blind could see. Banning c/b people from jobs is rediculous and discriminatory. Someone take them to court!

  45. tilly

    mt you can’t even spell the word ridiculous and people could get hurt if they are colour blind in some jobs. Would you like a colour blind person to diffuse a bomb for you?????

  46. alex

    This is an extract from a post i found elsewhere, thought i’d share it..

    “The Ishihara test consists of 35 ‘plates’ arranged in a booklet. They all tend to come in the same order – 12, 8, 6, 29, 57, 5, 3, 15, 74, 2, 6, 97, 45, 5, 7, 16, 73, no number, no number, no number, no number, 26, 42, 35, 96, no number, no number, no number, no number, no number, no number, no number, no number.

    The first four “no number” plates can actually only show numbers to colourblind people – obviously, you’ll want to say you don’t see anything to these.

    The last eight don’t have numbers either, but actually have a swirly line across the plate. This part is harder to cheat on, as you’d be asked to trace along the line with your finger.”

    Someone try it and see if it works!

  47. shannon

    Can’t believe their are so many people with this defect. I got diagnosed 7 years ago but all the tests that i have done lately i have been ok. I’m hoping for a job on the railways and this defect will probably hold me back. I hope not but i’ll see how i go… If i can’t work the railways cause of the signals how is it possible that i can have have a drivers license??

  48. Henry

    It seems to me that this online test is much easier than the test done by looking at such plates in a real book.

  49. Hoffmannius Maximus

    The ishihara test does not seem to translate well to a computer screen. I took the above test and passed it like a person without color-deficiency, however when I went to the optometrist a few years ago and couldn’t see past the first plate!

  50. adie

    Hi there, can I just ask how accurate these tests are. I’m talking about the reproduction quality of each plate as I suspect I’m slightly colour blind yet I can see every single plate here. Are these plates the same quality as seen in a Ishihara test book? The other tests on your site are easy to complete successfully. I guess I have been worrying about nothing. Its a great site though, and its a great test to see if we can distingush all the different colours. Thanks

  51. JOHN

    I have a colour anomaly and so was very amused to be able to read all numbers and follow most lines when testing myself on computer by tilting the screen to almost horizontal which seems to turn most numbers/lines black .I suppose this acts as some sort of filter. Anyway try it for yourself and see the numbers/lines maximumnatural production line coloureds see.

  52. Stephen

    I know it has been asked before, but does anyone know the exact plate test the military uses? We all know it’s 15 plates, but is it from the original 38 Ishihara, or is it from the AOC 15 from 1965, or are they the Dvorine 15 plate, or do they just have their own 15 plate version? Because they are different. Some are easier to see than others. Thanks.

  53. Jeff

    It’s weird. On plates 22 – 25, I could see the first number (for Deutan color blindness) just fine. But I could also, just barely, see the second number (for Protan color blindness). I was also able to see a lot of the ones that told me that I shouldn’t be able to. I guess my color blindness isn’t as severe as I thought it was.

  54. Marcelito Abris

    Presently i am also patient 2 weeks ago for colorblindness test. i’ll see all numbers and swingrly colorline but how this are stable to read correct color to use apply job? Is there anyone/doctor to give me good advise and medication to fix my big problem.

  55. Mari

    I was curious if there was anything in this test, or in any tests, that specify “blue-yellow” blindness rather than red-green? I have a hard time figuring out which one I am, the eye doctor says “blue-yellow”. Just wondering, Could a person be both or multiple “kinds” or however you would categorize this? Also, say I am blue yellow blind…and the person next to me also is…do we see the same colors? I don’t actually have any colorblind friends, seeing that most of my friends are girls, as am I.
    Thanks!

  56. Jon

    Failing this test in NOT an auto-DQ for much of anything anymore.

    The Farnsworth D-15 has pretty much become the standard in US Law Enforcement agencies; while the Farnsworth Lantern test is used by the FAA for pilot certification.

    These newer (1940s era) tests were designed to show the severity of color-blindness, while the Ishihara test only shows the presence, however slight.

    I fail the Ishihara plates miserably, yet pass the D-15 with flying colors.

    So.. fail these plates; don’t sweat it. Most “color blind” people don’t have a serious enough deficiency to fail a D-15.

  57. Eric

    For the Military guys: I read that the Military uses plates 2 through 15 of the 24 plate edition. I am trying to retest for the Warrant Officer Program and plan on memorizing the ones I can’t see. Good luck.

  58. Jimmy T

    Daniel, great work putting the leaflet together. Two comments, though:
    1) On plates 34 and 35, the bottom line of the information panel is cut off – it doesn’t tell what r-g colorblind people see on these. I think this is because the first line is too long and gets wrapped over to the 2nd line. This is using Adobe Flash Player 10 in Firefox.

    2) Not your fault, as you got your plates from the “Les daltoniens” webpage, but it appears that the colors are not accurate, by a bunch. They are darker and more saturated than, for example, the PNG files found on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishihara_color_test) or the colors I’ve seen on printed plates. But the Wikimedia site only has five of the plates (1, 9, 11, 19, and 23), so using those is not an option.

    A long time ago, when I joined the US Air Force, I missed three of the 17 plates they were using at the time, but I pass the Ishihara with your leaflet, the D-15 Farnsworth and your anomaloscope with perfect scores, as well as a different test on another website (by Jean Jouannic). Looking at the PNG plates on Wikimedia, I do see the ‘2’ on plate 19, which I THINK is caused by a slight green deficiency, which is probably one of the plates I missed on the Air Force test.

    Anyway, I would suggest trying to find a more accurate set of scans.

    I agree with many others who have commented here, that the Ishihara test is not a good indicator of being able to discriminate real-world colors. Really, these tests indicate whether luminance or hue dominates your perception when there are changes in both. On the other hand, how would I know? I can only see what I can see! Fortunately for me, missing 3/17 on the entrance physical did not limit my career options.

    Thanks for putting together a great set of tools here.

  59. Michael

    Just a note to the people seeing both sets of numbers. It’s possible to only be colour blind in one eye due to eye/nerve damage.

  60. Donald

    Hi people..I’m from Philippines, I’m a 4th year student..Last moth,I took a test to get a scholarship in my college..A maritime courses were only offered which are the following: BS Marine Transportation and BS Marine Engineering.. I’ve passed the exam and initial interview and after that they required us for a many medical exams..one of those is Ishihara..
    Unfortunately, I didn’t pass the examination for color vision test..
    Now, I’m so hopeless that I think I won’t be a scholar anymore and I can’t study college because of poverty…
    (T_T)

  61. Karen

    I have knew I’m colorblind.
    And I have checked me by Ishihara test, I found out something interesting for me. I did it in my note book.
    These numbers in test, that I wasn’t able to see, I was able to see these, after turning monitor in ?orner of 80-90 degrees
    So how can we explain it?

  62. Bean

    Does anyone have a concrete answer on what color vision test the air force uses for flight physicals? I hear it is the Ishihara 14 plate test but I have also seen that they test you with 14 plates but could be out of a 24 plate book. Has anyone recently done a flight physical to give incite into this?

    Thanks

  63. Stephen

    Bean, I’ve been trying to figure out the same thing for some time. I’ve asked on here before, but nobody seems to know the exact answer. I had a friend who recently went through it and told me a little about the test (which is a 14 or 15 PIP plate test) but since he doesn’t have much knowledge about the tests he wasn’t able to clue me into the exact test. He mentioned the test might have had a 16 or 18 and 76 and 38, but that didn’t seem to match up with some tests I have taken. I too was under the impression it might be some of the plates from the 24 plate test, but I can’t say for sure since it seems the test only has 14/15 plates total. I think the first one is an example to make it 15. I’ll let you know if I find anything else out, and if you wouldn’t mind please do the same. Thanks.

  64. selim aloyol

    thanks for the website of les daltoniens, i needed it for our medical examination in the marine

  65. Brad

    I am a peace officer in Texas, with moderate color red/green problems. I want to start that I am not a success story.

    For those who desperately want to know, in Texas the state itself only requires on the medical screening (L2) that a doctor state you are free of defects that would prohibit you from the duties of office. Thats the good part. The bad part is that most agencies have stricter hiring practices… I have been forced to work at second class cities, for less than 50% of the average pay, lacking benefits, because I cannot pass these insane tests. I am here to tell everyone, that I was just as good a cop as the “normal” guys. I had the scores to be a nuclear engineer in the navy, but guess what happened when I got to MEPS.

    I am about to finish my bachelors degree, would be a shoe in for federal agent spots, but wait… Color vision.

    I started to change careers, wanted to be a commercial pilot, then….

    I tried filing a Americans with Disabilities Claim for retraining funds, so I could get a job in a field that I could actually be allowed to have, but according to the ADA a disability has to affect more than two areas of life, and since it only affected my employment opportunities, no aid, or help whatsoever.

    This is a genetic disorder, so at this point I know I cannot bring a child into the world with the same discrimination.

    For those who say take them to court, the fact is that the body of precedent is behind the discrimination.

    It’s just not right. I really wish I had lived back in the days of Sparta, when if you were born screwed they did you a favor and just threw you off the cliff. Better to have died than being punished for something you cant get help with and did nothing to deserve.

  66. Ryan Heath

    lol.
    i can’t see it close up but when i see it very, very far away (like when you’re choosing which plate to look at) i can see it. what does that mean?

  67. Jessica

    On Plates 34 and 35 the trace looks nothing like yellow-green and blue-green to me, but instead olive-green, dark green, and a paleish-green.
    On Plates 36 and 37 I only see the one trace as orange.
    Can somebody tell me what this means? Thanks.

  68. Bean

    Does anyone know what plates test/ color vision test they give at Brooks for flying class I physicals?

  69. iggy

    Hi Does anyone know which test is used by NATS to pass the Air Traffic Controller Medical please?

  70. Tedd barnett

    As far as an ADA claim. If you’ve been discriminated against because of color deficiancy for employment and the ADA act requires your disability to affect 2 areas of your life for a claim. Could’t you file for a gen aviation license, be denied, and then it affects your employment and your mobility/hobby/recreation? We need to work together on this and get color deficiancy recognized as a legitimate disability, or remove the artificial discriminatory barriers which have no bearing on most of the jobs that require the testing.

  71. Donald H Locker

    I sure don’t want anyone who cheated on a colour blindness test (memorising the order or any other method) working in a situation where quick colour discrimination is necessary. And there are a surprising number of cases where this is necessary! (I am quite colour blind – definitely protanopia; mild deuteranopia, for those who care.)

    Advocate for changing the colour coding system that is used for everything to include shapes and blinks and orientation so that the discrimination ends! The discrimination is not in disallowing colour blind people to perform certain tasks, it is in designing the environment such that colour blind people can’t perform the tasks. Don’t be distressed because you can’t perform the job because of your disability. Learn to cope, Learn other skills.

    Ever had to make a snap decision about whether a light was orange or red? And be absolutely certain, knowing that one aircraft would strike another if you were wrong? And the spots on the screen were about one millimeter in diameter and everything else was uncoloured? I wouldn’t want someone with even a slight colour blindness to make that decision.

  72. Jake M Anderson

    Hi.
    I’m a tritanope. I find this website a real help and I’d just like to thank the creator of this site..
    Thanks.

  73. fiona

    i am an optometrist,..i just want to know how many plates should be read incorrectly to be considered as deficient and can i use this to diagnose patients as red or green deficient patients?…what should be the recording?..thanks!

  74. Clayton

    Wow, out of those 38, I probably only got 5 right, maybe not even that. I’m a severe deutan. I only saw the red numbers in the protan/deutan specific test plates. And today I wore a brown shirt thinking it was green. I actually couldn’t tell if it was brown or green so I just guessed green and went with that :P but green is not my favorite color anyway, luckily haha.

  75. sophie van hecke

    haai im sophie and im 13
    im doing a presentation for school
    about color blindness and i need somme tips aboud it so cane you help me

    ps. im not a inglisch girl so they are mistaks in the text

  76. Ron

    I would say that message #12, from Doug, is highly indicative of exactly why he SHOULDN’T become a police officer, and a good example of the mentality of many who do.

  77. dusty

    where do employers use ishihara plates on a job site, when you show me that proof then use the test, other than that use the actual situation of color for example a computer monitor with colors that are used eveyday not some b.s. test some guy created decades ago, talk about out dated information for use to determine employment. Ishihara is discrimination, and a lack of useful time and information.