Perception of lightness

It is not often that you find the most simple and lighter illusions described as actively than on the web site for the MIT (Massachussets Institute of Technology).

Lightness Perception and Lightness Illusions
interactive movies based on a paper by Edward H. Adelson

Anamorphosis

Anamorphosis is a technique to hide images in another image. It has long been used by painters. And some of them are quite well known like the The Ambassadors (Hans Holbein the Younger, 1533) below.

<em>The Ambassadors</em> (Hans Holbein the Younger, 1533)
The Ambassadors (Hans Holbein the Younger, 1533)

In this painting, there is a highly deformed skull appearing like a whitish blade at the bottom of the painting.

Learn everything about anamorphosis from Jessica Palmer in ScienceBlogs.