How do common forms of colorblindness affect the number of distinguishable colors?

As a person with a red-green color defect, it’s a big pain. As i have said in previous answers on the topic, i don’t even know what red and green look like. i only know what they look like to me. And based on vivid blue and yellow are to me, i think i am missing out on a lot of beauty. Some reds and greens look “very” red and green to me (the way i see them anyway) but others are just odd. especially when the colors are mixed with other colors (as in, oh there’s green mixed with that yellow??) Overall i would say red and green just look more dull. like something that has seen many cycles in the washing machine. I think the best way i can explain my dilemma is that violet, which is a combo of red and blue, looks mostly blue to me. and usually a dark blue. laying the colors side by side i can often tell the difference but not always. and on the color vision tests, i can generally only get about the first two; after that i’m screwed. About 7 percent of males suffer this problem, but only .7 percent of females do, so it is 100x more common in males. As a side note, do not invest in tinted glasses that “fix” color vision. they do not work.

Are individuals with color blindness eligible to join the military if they are interested in working with electronics?

Electronics is a very broad area. I took “electronics’ in high school (1977) where it meant knowing about power, resistance, capacitors, etc. I also attempted a few DIY car stereos back when AM was all that was available out of one horribly sounding speaker in the middle of the dash. In both of those instances i had a horrible time distinguishing the colors on the bands of resistors and the colored wires of the car stereos, especially when you’re under the dash with poor lighting. browns and reds, reds and greens, reds and gray, gray and greeen – hoo-boy, what’s a deutan to do? Now, if you are working in other areas of ‘electronics’ that may not be as bad, but consider even computer screen colors or meters that use colors to depict a certain function. I would certainly think twice about this choice. Again, there may be areas that are less color dependent. My color deficient bro is a pharmacist and i am an eye doctor – we do pretty well, despite the unlikeliness of us choosing those professions! Good luck and don’t give up! But also do not think that a special tint on glasses or contact lenses will fix you, because it will not.

Are glasses for color blindness effective?

Short answer: no. There are many degrees of color vision deficiency. As an optometrist who has tried the glasses, they did me no good whatsoever (I have a red-green color defect). Save your money

Is it possible for two people to have the same type of colour blindness and see colours differently?

Yes, it is. Color perception is very subjective, even in people who have no color vision defects. Some people are called ‘poor discriminators’ which simply means they have difficulty with subtle changes in colors. People who have color vision defects don’t all see the same. Like nearly all disorders, there are orders of magnitude where some may be much for deficient than others. And others may have developed memory techniques or learned to discriminate more efficiently based on shading or brightness, etc. My brother and I both have red-green issues and I feel we probably see mostly the same.