This puzzle consists of a colorful image, similar to the images generated by Rainbow Smoke.
By performing a frequency count of the colors used in the image, and analyzing the results, the solver might notice the following things:
Generating the missing colors, and sorting them by their red components, yields the following RGB values (with the upper five bits of the green and blue components converted to letters, and the lower three bits ignored, as they are always zero):
Red | Green | Blue |
---|---|---|
8 | N | O |
16 | W | X |
24 | O | R |
32 | R | G |
40 | B | A |
48 | N | D |
56 | S | O |
64 | R | T |
72 | B | Y |
80 | D | I |
88 | S | T |
96 | A | N |
104 | C | E |
Reading across and then down, this spells out the instruction NOW XOR RGB AND SORT BY DISTANCE.
Isolating only the colors that are used twice in the original image results in an image similar to the following (the image included in this solution has had its non-black pixels expanded to 3 × 3 boxes centered on the original pixels, for ease of viewing):
XORing the red, green, and blue components of each unique color together, converting the upper 5 bits of this value to a letter, and ordering by the pixel distances between the two (x, y) coordinates for each color (which are all integers, and multiples of 25) yields the following values:
Distance | Red | Green | Blue | XORed |
---|---|---|---|---|
150 | 112 | 224 | 136 | C |
175 | 32 | 88 | 56 | H |
200 | 32 | 160 | 168 | E |
225 | 224 | 24 | 104 | R |
250 | 40 | 72 | 240 | R |
275 | 16 | 144 | 72 | Y |
300 | 24 | 208 | 216 | B |
325 | 80 | 232 | 216 | L |
350 | 200 | 48 | 128 | O |
375 | 80 | 192 | 8 | S |
400 | 8 | 40 | 184 | S |
425 | 152 | 64 | 160 | O |
450 | 232 | 144 | 16 | M |
This spells the answer to the puzzle, CHERRY BLOSSOM.