I don't think so. This is just a rather bad scan and thus most likely a copyright violation! Source self-made shows a misunderstanding of licensing policies. --Dschwen14:37, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Aside from the terrible quality, the thumb marks and light along the side indicate scan of an ad in a periodical and likely copyright infringement. Poor quality, breach of copyright, poor composition (likely due to the cropping of information around the border revealing where it came from). Capital photographer (talk) 14:43, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The clearly visible Moiré pattern in combination with the photo itself indeed indicate a scan of a professional halftone print. Support speedy deletion as copyvio. Dorftrottel (criticise) 18:41, April 30, 2008
This image is too small to be considered for FPC. Please read the "criteria" linked at the top of the page. — BRIAN0918 • 2008-05-01 20:14Z
Speedy close as brian0918 noted it is way too small, and certainly not special enough to overrule that guideline.D-rew (talk) 20:47, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Concur with speedy close way to small, many technical issues and not unique or special enough to warrant bending the resolution requirements. Not at all great quality. Capital photographer (talk) 00:13, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This picture is a beautiful depiction of "Deepavali" The festival of lights. It is celebrated by Hindus, Sikhs and Jains the world over. It also serves as a reminder that Deepavali is a festival of lights not crackers, which is what it has deteriorated into today.
Oppose - too tight crop from the top, plus nothing special or really appealing - just a regular candle from what I can tell. Does not illustrate the festival. Sorry, Renata (talk) 21:16, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original - Cyrus Cylinder; the world’s first charter of human rights in the British Museum in London.Observer Edit (Example only, do not vote for) - The focus is unmistakably on the document and it actually fills the frame. Not much can be done about technical quality due to heavy crop.
Reason
It is the first known declaration of the HUMAN RIGHTS, issued by the emperor Cyrus II of Persia. In the 1970s, the Cyrus Cylinder has been described as the world’s first charter of human rights. The Cyrus cylinder is now being kept in the British Museum in London.
oppose - technical quality: composition, jpeg artifacts, lack of focus at full rez, and lack of detail in actual subject. deBivort09:56, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I unstruck the votes because I don't think it is fair unless they were confirmed to be sockpuppets or anonymous voters (one user has been here since 2004, not sure about the others), and nothing in the FP criteria actually requires users to provide a reason to vote or not, and while someone suggested canvassing was going on, no actual evidence was provided. Thisglad (talk) 09:12, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly oppose, I do not believe this meets any of the FP criteria. The object is to small, reflections which are easily removed with a circular polariser are in the way, there is ISO noise, lots of distracting content, is not unique, would not enhance the article. The edit shows what it should be more like, though the edit certainly isn't FP material either.Capital photographer (talk) 10:38, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, a much better photo could be easily taken of the subject. Cluttered background, subject is a small section of the entire picture, noise, artifacting, poor lighting for the angle, glass in the way, camera shake, can barely see the subject at all. Get closer to the subject (i.e. about a foot lower and right up against the glass, straight on to it, use a tripod and zoom in, about 800 film speed and a diffuse flash if possible. Alternatively, get someone with a good camera to take it. Possibly compromised nom too. E4T3A2 —Vanderdecken∴ ∫ξφ10:43, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If I get a chance, I'll have a go at this one. Its not usually easy to get a good shot through a reflective glass box though, particularly as they would likely ban tripod use. I'm not sure it would be FP material. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)11:52, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose It's a snapshot with no value in either technical or subject quality. Besides, looking at the first several votes this nomination is a very clear troll. Lipton sale (talk) 14:25, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original - Lithograph of Louis Agassiz, a 19th century Swiss-American zoologist and geologist, and one of the most noted scientists of the dayAlternative - Louis Agassiz
Reason
Scientists are pathetically unrepresented in our FPs, with a total of approximately zero, unless you take a long shot and count Edison and/or Thomson, or the group shot from the Solvay Conference. While going through the delist for the low EV Agassiz statue below, I found a couple of decent shots of him in the article. I prefer the first one, it falls just short of the 1000px, but near enough for me. The second one is good too if people want to be really anal about the size requirements, but I prefer the first.
I realise you're new to FPC so are still learning the ropes, but if you change your vote for some reason you're meant to strike the original and replace it with your new vote, not just overwrite the vote (and generally give a reason for changing, even if it is that I commented on your Trevi Fountain edit). --jjron (talk) 05:50, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose original Does not meet size requirements. Oppose alternate Nothing really stands out. Just a slightly sub-par picture. crassic![talk]14:46, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree we should have an FP of Agassiz, and that these are decent scans of what are, presumably, fairly small originals (You can tell if you know a bit about Victorian engravings). That said, though, they aren't partiicularly great illustrations. Perhaps the one at t he LoC would do, if substantially cleaned up. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 16:37, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support original. It feels like a very accurate portrait. It would be easy to sneak in another 55px without anyone complaining that it needs a tighter crop, so I don't see the problem. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 19:37, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original - "The Immortal Bridge," a rock formation on Mt. Tai, one of the Five Great Mountains of China.Observer Edit - Some minor adjustments bring out some of the potential of this image, still has issues such as motion blur due to camera shake but a step in the right direction
Reason
The focus of this picture is stunning, as the odds of it even existing are quite low.
Not necessarily. You could illustrate disneyland by showing just the disney castle after all. As long as this illustrates a notable part of the mountain or is typical of the mountain, it has EV (I suspect the former). deBivort12:54, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose But first, it is actually put into the article very appropriately illustrating a section of the article - it does not try to demonstrate the whole mountain. The subject could however do with better treatment - the faded distance weakens it, the matt colouring dullens it and for an illustration of angularity, it lacks sharpness. Motmit (talk) 20:38, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original - A Marine, Aaron Davies, re-enlisting in the Marine Corps for a third time. His wife is awarded a certificate of appreciation, and then he takes the Oath of enlistment.
Reason
Demonstrates the simple cermony surrounding the enlistment of a US Marine within acceptable FPC criteria.
Vehement oppose Shaky camera, bad exposure, terrible sound, easy to recreate. Beware us from "moving snapshots"! (This was "Media of the day" at Commons?!?! 24 days too late...) --Janke | Talk08:05, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose due to all of the civilians walking around. If demonstrating this, I just believe it should be between the two Marines – not them and family. crassic![talk]11:48, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sometimes, I'm afraid I don't understand your reasons Crassic. In this case, if families are typically part of these ceremonies, they should be included. deBivort12:57, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think he means that the civilians, as positioned here, detract focus from the two marines that are the main subject of the picture. If they were off to the sides, that'd be one thing, but as it is, they're "jostling for position" as main elements and are thus distracting. Of course, it's an encyclopaedic picture, but it's not "the best" of Wikipedia's image work. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 18:00, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Yeah, this doesn't seem to be particuarly professional at all. Low quality, all sorts of irrelevent people hanging around... J Milburn (talk) 19:48, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose just on the sound alone. If you listen to the first 4 seconds theres some sort of distracting background noise. And I think I heard a kid screaming or something like that. -- Coasttocoast (talk) 17:26, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original - A female Goldenrod Crad Spider (Misumena vatia) capturing a couple of mating flies. This species is an example of superb camouflage as they have the capacity of changing their colour depending on the flower they are hunting in. In the picture the venom is still being inoculated at the back of the fly's head trough the spider's hollow fangs.Alternative - Another view of the action
Reason
A high quality action shot showing the exact moment when the venom is being inoculated into the fly
Info - A mistery remains to be explained. When the shot was made the fly was still struggling. During the whole process, and even after the spider stopped inoculating the venom and hide under the flower, the male fly didn't move from its mating position. Was it too busy with the intercourse or, somehow, was also affected by the venom? I don't know. - Alvesgaspar (talk) 15:22, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Reluctant weak oppose It's really a nice photo, but I think the encyclopedic value is reduced because there are two flies, which I'm sure is quite a rare occurrence. Having two flies instead of one also makes it a bit confusing visually on first glance. Mangostar (talk) 00:28, 21 April 2008 (UTC) Striking my hesitation, decided I really don't like the second fly. Mangostar (talk) 21:38, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support both Strong Support 2nd Excellent quality pictures. I don't really find them confusing. Particuraly the second one. I actually think that showing the flies mating adds to the enclycopedic value of the pictures and am unable to see them as confusing.--St.danielTalk01:37, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Adding an extra fly hasn't increased the enc (IMO) nor has it addressed the more pressing issue of sharpness which is still below macro FP standards IMO --Fir000209:08, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose The subject is indeed very interesting, but the technical quality, along with the composition could have been executed better. Lipton sale (talk) 14:34, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral The quality of the reproduction is good. I am concerned with the accuracy of the sketch though. My searches found this sketch of him to be different from 5 other ones I found. Each of thsse 5 was slightly different but generally similar to each other, this one shows a far less rounded face and larger lips. As an example of Charles Aston's work, I support. As a representation of a person, I am less certain. I suppose it's no different to crude paintings of 16th century monarchs which are not very accurate but all that exists. Capital photographer (talk) 00:51, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Nothing remarkable here. This is not to say it's not nice, useful, and interesting, just that it's not FP material. Madman (talk) 01:51, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support as I said when this went through PPR a few months back; was wondering if/when this would get nominated. --jjron (talk) 13:04, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Sorry, but I just don't see the significance of this particular cartoon. It just seems like any other educational drawing from a children's book published from the 1940s through the 1960s. It's not particularly interesting or eye catching. -- Grandpafootsoldier (talk) 17:47, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The cartoon mischaracterizes Banneker's achievements and overstates their importance. Banneker was not an "city planner". He assisted in a survey of the boundaries of the future District of Columbia for about three months, but did not participate in the layout of the City of Washington, D.C. Further, he did not construct the "first clock in America". The first known American clock was constructed 100 years before his.Corker1 7 August 2008.
Original - A huge, billowing pair of gas and dust clouds are captured in this NASA Hubble Space Telescope image of the supermassive star Eta Carinae. Eta Carinae was observed by Hubble in September 1995 with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2). Images taken through red and near-ultraviolet filters were subsequently combined to produce the color image shown. A sequence of eight exposures was necessary to cover the object's huge dynamic range: the outer ejecta blobs are 100,000 times fainter than the brilliant central star. Eta Carinae suffered a giant outburst about 160 years ago, when it became one of the brightest stars in the southern sky. Though the star released as much visible light as a supernova explosion, it survived the outburst. The explosion produced two lobes and a large, thin equatorial disk, all moving outward at about 1.5 million miles per hour.
Reason
This is a high resolution image of one of the most massive star. Has been a featured picture at Spanish Wikipedia.
I think we're actually agreeing with each other. I was unclear in my earlier comment-- I meant to say that we already have a featured picutre where this star can be seen. (It's a spectacular object, and certainly worthy of being featured more than once). Spikebrennan (talk) 12:48, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support if i can't call it stunning then i shall have to call it magnificent. as for the other featured picture mentioned previously, it looks a bit, dare i say, messy in comparison to this picture. this is certainly the better of the two pictures by a long way. Pm504 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 01:26, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This image is not an artist's conception. The NASA image was cropped from this original to emphasize Eta Carinae and its ejecta, the Homunculus Nebula, in visible spectrum. The red aura is a near IR image of the surrounding mater interacting with the radiation from Eta Carinae.Sumanch (talk) 17:10, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original - El Castillo is the largest and most well known of the structures at Chichen Itza and, indeed, the Mayan civilization.Version #2Edit of Version #2 by Capital photographer - The image has better exposure, the shadows are less pronounced so viewers can see more detail of the building and it is cropped to a better ratio, removing a lot of "dead space" at the top and bottom. Ten minutes in Photoshop can go some way to remedying bland and flat exposures.Version #3 which is really Version 2 but with the tourists left in. See if you can spot the cloning.
Reason
I've been meaning to stitch this for some time, and now that I got around to it I think it came out pretty well. Its been downsampled heavily but there is still some apparent softness in a few places on the monument. I'm not totally sure what is causing those, but as far as I know, they are accurate resizings. The light is good in this image and I took advantage of it with the composition. I would have liked to get a late evening or early night shot but they close the park at 6:00 so I couldn't stick around that long. I cloned out a few tourists, including some people having a picnic in the LRHS of the image. The guy with the white shirt I left in for scale and the people on the left would have been problematic to remove.
Comment I think you may have a few stitching errors. Check the wire rope: it disappears near the man in the white shirt, and there's a misalignment at the bottom-right corner and below the bottom-left corner of the pyramid. Also, check the clump of grass ~4155 px from left, ~2305 from top. It's repeated three times with softness in between; it might be a stitch problem. Other than that, it looks excellent. Thegreenj19:47, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Good spotting. The repeated grass would be a cloning mistake (that I will fix) The disappearing rope is strange and I will see what I can do to correct it. you'll have to point out to me where those mis-alignments are though. The uplift in the curb below the left corner is in the original segment and on the right I see a blend line if I look hard but there isn't much I can do about it. The rope got erased there as well so I'll add it back in. I'll also correct the stitch error in the first post to the the right of the man in the white shirt, that I didn't catch on my first run through. -Fcb981(talk:contribs) 23:13, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - A quite competent stitching job and a good quality image. Nothing extraordinary though. I don't like the angle (the camera is too close to the building) and the tourists disturb. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 23:13, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Tired, annoyed, Comment Well its an awfully good thing I anticipated all these wonderful objections. I figured (Like the rest of you): Chichen Itza, theres no reason there should be tourists, its only the best known Mayan ruin in the world and I'm only there during spring break!!! But to my surprise, there were tourists. It was a good thing I had 5000 pasos to bribe a few mexican cops to close off the area for my picture taking!!! it'dbedamnawful if we had other FPs with tourists in them. Its also a good thing I decided to take this shot from further back. Oh and in terms of lighting... Maybe I should have waited for a dull, thin, grey, overcast, at dawn so that the saturation and contrast would not exist until digitally pushed into the realm of fantasy. Harsh light serves this stone monument well. What important detail is in the deep shadows?????!!!!! Nada. I agree that harsh shadows are bad in some situations... Situations where they obscure important parts of the composition. I just spent 2 hours hunched over my monitor removing tourists from a tourist trap! My contact lens prescription just got a diopter worse and I didn't do four homework assignments due tomorrow. I'm really sorry but the rope becomes obscured in places in the edit... I bet that requires an oppose. Yes also, this is really nothing special. with all respect... A 5000px reduced from 12000px wide stitched panorama at nearly sunset of one of the most impressive monuments in the world is nothing special when a toyota in some fog is!... are you high?! Alvagaspar: How can you possibly pretend to be able to objectively review my nomination literally a week since you called me a troll without provocation. I'm still waiting on that apology BTW. -Fcb981(talk:contribs) 06:18, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Quite a measured and dignified response. Regarding your comment "...panorama at nearly sunset of one of the most impressive monuments in the world is nothing special when a toyota in some fog is!" This is a silly comparison given they belong to entirely different categories. I believe that for an image of a vehicle on Wikipedia, it (Toyota Aurion) is unique... special even. I stand by my comment that your Edit 1 and Original are nothing special, however, I am not making that judgment as a comparison to mine, only the merits of the images you have submitted. I am also not seeking to say the subject of your image is less important than a vehicle in mist, I judge the image as per FP criteria, not the subject of the image. Allow me to reply to those parts of your comment that are relevant to my previously posted critique. "Oh and in terms of lighting... Maybe I should have waited for a dull, thin, grey, overcast, at dawn so that the saturation and contrast would not exist until digitally pushed into the realm of fantasy. Harsh light serves this stone monument well. What important detail is in the deep shadows?????!!!!! Nada. I agree that harsh shadows are bad in some situations... Situations where they obscure important parts of the composition." This is just a weak excuse for poor exposure/post processing. Looking at the histogram and adjusting contrast and brightness yields a more lifelike exposure. Edit1 has flat exposure with poor contrast that one might expect of mobile phone camera. The colours are indeed vivid in my image you have chosen as an example of "fantasy", but you know what, the vehicle itself is accurately presented. You present here however an average snapshot. A bit of tweaking of the levels, contrast and brightness in Photoshop presents a lifelike image that is not fantasy (see example). You also admit to cloning parts of the image which to me may breach one of the FP criteria of how much digital alteration is allowed. Seriously, when you put your photos up anywhere for people to judge, expect criticism and take it on board. I wouldn't have a any awards or sales of my work if I didn't listen to the criticism of my past work and used it to improve. Capital photographer (talk) 07:56, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The shadow from the staircase on the right is darker in your edit, while the major shadow was lifted without color adjustment so that it looks like some bad HDR. Now, Mr. Criteria, I believe that the criteria for exposure is that the exposure is that it is accurate, not HDR like. Did I mention that I'm not a huge fan of the HDR look ? Maybe getting the color rendition in the clouds faithful is less important, and a cell phone would retain the clouds highlights and the tree's shadows. Do you want to know how I metered this? Spot metered the brightest white in the scene and the darkest shadow I could find then a compensation chart to put the midtones about a third of a stop lower than normal. The exposure is, IMO, as accurate as possible. You also seem a bit obsessed with post to be honest. -Fcb981(talk:contribs) 14:17, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
While you remind me of yourself, Fcb981 - very rude as always.BTW I am really thrilled that you still remember me! and that's why I Support original image.--Mbz1 (talk) 20:10, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the support, I guess this isn't a "No Value Image" =). I didn't mean to say anything offensive, only that you are a stubborn and tough opponent in an argument, and there is nothing wrong with that. :) It's good to see you back. I guess you didn't leave for good? -Fcb981(talk:contribs) 22:32, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't call it nor imply any opinion of it being a "no value image", every image has value and it (edit 1) is a good image... however... I do not personally beleive Edit 1 has proper exposure/processing (in particular contrast and levels) to warrant an FP. I do appologise if you thought I considered it worthless, I was merely highlighting some easily correctable flaws I perceived that if remedied (like in Observer Edit) would certainly change my vote. Beleive it or not I am just offering a conrtuctively critical eye. Capital photographer (talk) 00:10, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I wasn't clear in my comment about "No Value image", I understand that isn't what you are saying. That was a quibble Mbz1 and I had awhile back. here and here as well as some nominations over at commons. It was just a joke on my part for finally getting a support vote from Mbz1. =) -Fcb981(talk:contribs) 04:04, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I'm withholding support for now because I'm on an uncalibrated (and frankly awful) monitor, but I have to oppose the edits because they have way too much digital manipulation. FWIW, I have no problem at all with the tourists, in the first place because there's little to be done about them and in the second because they help provide scale for exotic places like this. I don't think it's reasonable to expect a perfectly clear shot of a high-traffic tourist area and I think Fcb has done a good job on minimizing their intrusion so that all they block are some less interesting bits of wall. Matt Deres (talk) 13:57, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Further Comment I'm puzzled by the supports for the edits. It strikes me as odd that we get opposes for minor stitching errors in clouds, yet the glaring stitching problems here don't elicit a comment. Guys, the ropes are all broken, some disappear and reappear, and the pathway looks completely un-natural. Yes, they're not the subject of the picture, but they're right there in the foreground as a distraction. Matt Deres (talk) 10:50, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, there wern't really stitching errors in the Version 2 near the ground... Those would be cloning artifacts. personally, I don't really care about tourists, but the monument sure looks more impressive without them. :\ -Fcb981(talk:contribs) 14:12, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Confused. What is the relation between Original, Edit1, and Observer Edit? Edit1 cannot possibly be and edit of Original. Could you get the labeling straight, please. --Dschwen15:27, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And what the hell is an Observer Edit? Shouldn't it be Edit2 per convention. How do you edit something as an observer, either you edited it or you didn't. Mfield (talk) 20:39, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Appologies for the confusion caused. My logic was that the "Edit #" format should remain for edits made by the original nominator/creator. The "observer edit", an edit made by I as an observer, showing what I beleive the image should look like... visual feedback. The new convention of "Edit - user" works better though. Capital photographer (talk) 00:56, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support Edit Version #3. I see no real merit to the above complaints (not to mention that with the second version and its edit, some are no longer valid). All I see is a very high quality image of an important Mexican landmark. Good job to Capital photographer on the edit: the details have really been brought out. NauticaShades21:35, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support. Considering the quality of the image and the difficulty of obtaining it, this most definitely desrves to be an FP, especially if stitching errors are fixed. --Jamesflomonosoff (talk) 21:58, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support version 3 only. Now that I've seen it I can say I like it and the cloning is completely superfluous. Reluctant support version 2 or edit of version 2. Reluctant, because I actually don't want to award rude bitching. Then again if you look past that, there are some strong points. I don't like version 1 though. The colors look like a faded photograph from the sixties, and the mood lighting doesn't help the EV. I'd like to see an original unretouched version though! I don't mind the tourists at all. If that is how the site looks then that is how it should appear in the article. It's that simple. --Dschwen22:42, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to second that request. I really want to support the original, but the talk here has gotten me concerned about how much manipulation has gone on. I'm really not in favour of cloning over things unless its really unavoidable or if it's removing something really inconsequential. Big steaming pile of poo right in the foreground? Go ahead and wipe 'er out. Otherwise, less is best. Matt Deres (talk) 20:40, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. After reexamining I'll actually have to add an Oppose Original, Version 2, and Version 2 edit. The clone job is smudgy, and its extent is too big for me to tolerate it. Compared to the original the contrast boost is no enhancement either. Version 3 is just fine as it is. --Dschwen19:38, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Weak support Original, Ver 2, Edit of Ver. 2. There are still several stitcing errors in the lower wire in front in all editions (vertical displacements, soft spots) and some additional soft spots, but for me it is a minor detail, especially considering the large resolution, it is almost unfair to look at it in 100%. The image is very crisp, it has EV, and in this case I do no mind a tourist or two - it gives a sense of scale. I'd go to full support if the last remaining stitching errors were fixed. -- Slaunger (talk) 10:55, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Can someone explain please? I don't see how you get Version #2 from the original - it's at a different angle (or have you somehow created steps on the left?) The sky has changed from what you would expect in Mexico to an overcast English sky. I see little value in losing authenticity in pursuit of an unreal techno-perfect ideal. For me the solitary tourist wasn't a problem, and the heat brown, though perhaps a bit strong felt OK. The new clouds add too much clutter and don't help the composition, but the cropping is better in the edit of V2. Motmit (talk) 19:04, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Version two is an entirely different picture. Were it the same it would be labeled an edit—which it was initially, to some confusion above. Thegreenj20:26, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I take it then the sky is genuine in Ver 2 and there has not been any significant modification. Both pics are good enc and give different impressions. Which is better is hard to say and so I'll leave it at that Motmit (talk) 22:02, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Version 3 could use a bit more contrast but other than that, I feel it's a good image and the subject benefits from the presence of persons near it to give it scale. One must also acknowledge that it is now a tourist attraction so tourists are now a part of its existence too.Capital photographer (talk) 12:57, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support original or version 3. The other versions have some terribly visible operation scars in the lower left-hand area. Dorftrottel (complain) 19:05, April 30, 2008
Observation since Version 3 added - for me this addresses the tourist in/out question (in general but not for this pic) - tourists looking at a sight add strength and value, whereas tourists just ambling past in a disorderly manner and not looking at it can be distracting. Motmit (talk) 09:51, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original - A photograph taken of three camels at the Pyramids of Giza
Reason
I found that this picture not only captured my interest, it also evoked my emotions. I was led to wonder: who is the man shown in the photograph? Where is he going? What has caught his attention? And what of the camels? The picture asks many questions, and it gives few answers. The quality of the image is good, and the colours provide a gentle contrast in the barren and arid surroundings. For these reasons, I believe that this image could become a feature image.
Edit 1 - non destructive noise reduction to reduce the color splotches (chroma noise) that ruined the original
Oppose Original - Strongly Oppose Edit, It raises many questions alright, such as why this should be a FP? On a technical level, the image is very soft, has a a very high amount of noise and compression artifacts had a distracting background and is taken from an uncomfortable viewpoint (a little too high). Furthermore, according to the image history, it appears to have being interpolated (made larger) and it does not add considerably to the article in which it is used. I do not believe this meets enough FP criteria. The edit is shocking with a high level of digital artifacts and very soft along with exasperated exposure flaws. Capital photographer (talk) 11:46, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose It's very noisy, disorients the colour of the middle camel. Plus if my memory serves me right, there's already an FP for camels? Dengero (talk) 13:24, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As you can see, I have personally contributed a couple of partially improved images. But those had one or two issues. This one has too many technical flaws, much less issues of composition, there is no way to correct them, certainly not without excessive digital alteration. Capital photographer (talk) 03:04, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - in answer to your questions, the man hires out camels to tourists, he is heading towards the buses and he has just spotted a punter. However I do not think the picture deserves the sort of knocking it is getting here. It adds considerably to the articles showing working camels in the desert as they are normally dressed up. The only other such picture in the camel article is imho vastly inferior. The viewpoint is absolutely correct because with dunes in the desert (and I know this is Giza) this is the sort of view you get. The subject is well placed within the frame and well structured as a whole. The main issue that I see is the way the head of camel two is lost in camel one. If there was a contrast the picture could have an interesting depth which might raise the status enough Motmit (talk) 08:36, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's a snapshot with poor composition and technical quality taken from an unpleasant height that gives it no context. It may be better than the sole competitor you've found, but still not up to FP standards (namely, criteria 1, 3 and 5). Capital photographer (talk) 11:03, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Cor! You talking to me? That was comment, not support for FP! (Furthermore I wouldn't put any of my Camel-shots in for FP nor stick them in an article that's covered) Motmit (talk) 18:22, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It may be labelled a comment but it goes through tvarious FP criteria and states why the image meets them so I would take it as a supportive comment to which I replied why it doesn't. Capital photographer (talk) 01:14, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original - 1535 engraving by John Byddell of Truth, "the daughter of time" being led out of the darkness by Time, which "revealeth all things". A vomiting demon labeled hypocrisy threatens her. From the Goodly Prymer.
Reason
A bizarre little 16th-century engraving, that's very encyclopedic for the sections of the article on time dealing with its mythological and allegorical uses. Delightfully grotesque, and perfect for a Halloween PotD. Spelling is modernised in the caption.
Conditional Oppose it's nothing special but in particular, not very sharp either, perhaps up the contrast and sharpen a bit because at the moment, it looks like a photocopy rather than a proper high res scan
An engraving on what? It's black and white and at 100%, you can see artifacts and sharpness issues caused by poor reproduction. What was the original media? I've seen heaps of engravings, never any that were originally perfectly black and white. Capital photographer (talk) 06:18, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ha ha, granted a flatbed may not be the best choice. I've worked in digital preservation for the National Library of Australia and methods do exist to digitally copy just about anything. One of the FP criteria is accuracy and I am wondering how this reproduction was created? Would recreation be a better description and ae there any images showing the original? Capital photographer (talk) 12:19, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, yes, that would be the usual interpretation of "Source: English Woodcuts 1480-1535 by Edward Hodnett, Oxford University Press, 1973" in the image's information =) Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 06:48, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You are being very evasive. Is it a scan or photocopy? Looks like a scan OF a photocopy to me. And how was it reproduced in the book, was it a sketch, in which case how accurate is this? What is the value in uploading a drawing from a book from 1973? It's not like it's a copy of the actual original, rather a poor replication in a book which has being replicated again and uploaded. Furthermore, this book was published in 1973 by Oxford University Press, copyright? The original engraving may be old and in the PD but the book and a copy in the book would be protected by copyright.Capital photographer (talk) 07:24, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, that's fine. I assumed because you were the nominator and the creator listed isn't a user that you created/scanned/uploaded, I was silly not to check the creator details on commons which shows another person. Big concern is my research indicates this image comes from a 1973 reprint of a book first published in the 1935. I don't know about UK Copyright law, but the book would still be copyrighted. Depending on how this image/replica was created for the book, it too may still be copyrighted even if it's an image of something from the 1500s. The creator is listed as John Bydell, the book's from 1935 originally and this from the 1975 edition. If the copyright is for the life of the author +70 years, then this is probably a copyrighted image. Capital photographer (talk) 09:01, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As I remember it copyright does expire 70 years after the death of the author, but this would also apply to the individual woodcut so you're probably OK. Time3000 (talk) 13:18, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That's right, but many classical pieces of music that are too old for copyright are still not free of copyright, with performances protected by copyright. Hence, this is not the original engraving but copy of it, a new image created in the 1930s or 1970s. Capital photographer (talk) 16:38, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
But it's unlikely that this crosses the threshold of originality. I have no clue how this applies to British copyright, but a google search turns up some references to a similar limit. It's the same reason I can't handwrite a copy of The Odyssey and call it my original work. On the other hand, a musical performance is an interpretation of the original. To make another comparison, if I take a head-on photograph of the Mona Lisa with front-lighting, it's not eligable for copyright. If I take steal the Mona Lisa, bring it to a studio, and take a photograph from an angle with dramatic lighting, it would be eligable for copyright. Thegreenj05:25, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original - A panoramic view of the Hong Kong skyline just after sunsetEdit1 - selective curve adjust + local contrast enhancementEdit 2 - not for voting. A quick-n-dirty version of this panorama stitched from only the neutral exposures (not -2 / +2 exposures blended), as a demonstration that while it differs slightly, the original is not particularly overcookedEdit 3. Reprocessed and restitched from scratch for better alignment and to respond to the issue of overly cool colour balance. Also has a slightly wider/deeper view but shows slightly more of the side of the mountain in the bottom right corner.
Reason
This typical 'postcard' view shows almost all of Hong Kong's skyline (except from the air, this is, as far as I know and have seen, the most complete panoramic view possible) from Victoria Peak and is very detailed and well exposed. Due to the extremes of brightness in the scene, it is not possible to expose correctly for all elements with a single exposure - I took three frames for each of the 26 segments, exposed -2, 0 and +2 stops and merged these prior to stitching.
Taking the photo at night allows a very detailed view and highlights the many architecturally interesting skyscrapers of the city. Each of the buildings stand out far more than during the daytime.
Support original (per user:antilived below) Superb! — BRIAN0918 • 2008-04-23 20:31Z
Comment Nice, it's a great view and very detailed - if I can make a suggestion, i think it would benefit from an S curve adjustment (gradient masked to avoid the top half of the image) to push contrast in the top a little. Also, I find that some wide radius USM works well after HDR to bring back a little local contrast, something like 20% at between 10 and 20 pixels for an image this size. It helps reduce some of the flatness that HDR leaves. Just a couple of suggestions, take them as you will, I tried them out on your image but held back from uploading it as an alternate in case you wanted to try it. Mfield (talk) 21:14, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I hesitate because I don't know if extra contrast is what it needs in this case... Hong Kong was (and is, in general) quite hazy and that lack of contrast is the result. In any case, I have already boosted the contrast a little. That said, perhaps you're right. As a photographer, sometimes its hard to see when an image needs a subtle adjustment because you're too involved. I am working from a pretty contrasty monitor (Dell 3007WFP-HC) but have noticed that some monitors, particularly on laptops, are quite washed out. Did apply the wide radius USM (hadn't tried that before - interesting) and it certainly brought out a bit of punch but I'm still not 100% convinced it needs much more than it already has. Feel free to upload the edit and we have a look at it though. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)21:47, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There you go, its a slight thing, fairly subjective to be sure but i think it is an improvement. The image in general reminds me very much of one of mine I took of Seoul at dusk. Mfield (talk) 22:26, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I like it, and I can see what you've done and why you've done it, but to me its six of one, half dozen of the other. :-) Its a subtle edit and I could switch back and forth over and over again appreciating different aspects of each edit. I suppose I'll leave it to the rest to decide which they prefer. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)22:51, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Semi-weak support It's a stunning picture. But I question the level of smog? above the city. Is it possible to re-take such a photo with less smog?crassic![talk]21:51, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Its certainly not possible for me to re-take the photo any time soon, as I don't live there - it was just a holiday. And as mentioned below, this is pretty typical for Hong Kong. In some sense this is more encyclopaedic as a result. ;-) Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)22:51, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support Edit 2 only. Too much HDR effect on the original; not a realistic image. If this were being used to illustrate High dynamic range imaging, I might support it, but I think it actually detracts from the Hong Kong article, as it is distractingly unrealistic. Kaldari (talk) 21:57, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Do you mean Oppose? It isn't actually HDR anyway, or tone mapping. Although its a somewhat similar process, the whole point is that it doesn't have the same 'HDR look' that tone mapping does. Obviously its a subjective thing and impossible to prove absolutely whether a photo is 'realistic', apart from having slightly better shadow detail, a normally exposed image would look quite similar. In fact I can upload a similar image to prove it to you if you'd like. This is not an overprocessed mess of an image as you seem to believe. ;-) Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)22:24, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've just uploaded a quick-n-dirty stitch of the image taken only from the neutral exposures. As you can see, there is not a huge difference. It hasn't been edited in any way from the RAW file (hence it is slightly darker), other than colour balanced. The main difference, IMO, between the images is simply the shadow detail is slightly better in the original compared to Edit 2. Oh, and because I rushed it through, the projection of the panorama is a bit different. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)22:47, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think the reason the original version looks "overcooked"/HDRed is because there are no black shadows. For an image taken at night, you would expect something in the picture to be black. Otherwise it looks like the buildings are glowing unnaturally as you typically see in HDR images (example). Your 3rd image looks far more realistic to my eyes. Kaldari (talk) 23:11, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that in a lot of HDR images, buildings appear to glow. This is due to the tone mapping, where local contrast is enhanced to provide extra contrast and to make the image appear to have greater dynamic range than it really does. But that is not the case in this image, where no tone mapping has taken place. I can see nowhere in the image where the buildings are glowing (apart from the obvious bright lights causing the hazy sky to glow, that is). And you're right in that usually in night scenes, there are areas of blackness, but this is Hong Kong! If the area truely was black, it would still be black in this image. All I've done is lifted the shadow detail slightly. Some parts of the image are still very dark, but ambient light means its not pitch black. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)23:21, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand how you are claiming this image is not a high dynamic range image. Whether you are blending the exposures manually or by computer algorithm doesn't matter - it's still HDR. All that I'm saying is that by "lifting the shadow detail" you are making the photograph appear unrealistic. It looks almost like an illustration rather than a photograph. As Mfield's previous comment attests, it's obvious to anyone who sees this image that it is HDR (if they've seen HDR images). You may think that it looks great now, but in 10 years, when people get tired of the "HDR-look", the image will look dated and probably very specifically dated to around 2007–2010. Why don't you like the more realistic Edit 2? Kaldari (talk) 01:01, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, although as an exposure blend is an HDR image, albeit not a tonemapped one, that doesn't mean that it has to look incorrect. HDR images often resemble much more closely what the human eye and brain, with their adapative exposure system, perceive at the time. I would wager that Edit 2 looks less like what Diliff was looking at at the time with his eyes than the Original or Edit1, the skill is in finding the balance that matches what the eye saw with what the viewer of the image sees. A big problem is that viewers are accustomed to seeing low dynamic range images of high dynamic range scenes and perceive them as natural, when in fact they aren't natural either. Some of my edit suggestions are ways I have found to counter the side effects of exposure blending and HDR, I didn't witness the original scene so it's impossible for me to say how much it deviates. I have just noticed however that the blue lights on the Edit2 version on the tower just left of center are blue and pink on the Original. Is that a side effect of some PP or do they change color and that was captured in multiple exposures and reflected in the blend? Mfield (talk) 01:25, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You're absolutely right in saying that sometimes a well processed HDR image is more like what the human eye sees than what a typical camera captures with a single exposure, but as you say, a lot of people expect to see a more typical camera exposure (limited dynamic range). Well spotted regarding the colour of the lights. Yes, they changed slightly between frames, but I don't really see it as an issue, as long as they're blended nicely. Give it another 20 seconds and it would have been a completely different colour again. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)02:49, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think this is just a mismatch of terms. This is not HDR; there is no such thing as HDR in jpeg because jpeg is limited to 8 bits. Instead, Diliff took an HDR version and tone mapped it, i.e. he compressed the dynamic range to 8-bits. FWIW, the original does not look at all unrealistic. Thegreenj02:14, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You're right to an extent, but I actually did not tone map it at all. At no stage was it a true HDR image (32 bits). I merely blended each exposure together so that the 'good' bits were kept (in the centre of the exposure curve) and the overexposed and underexposed bits were discarded. I find that this, when it works, does a far better job of maintaining the 'realistic' look of an scene, whereas tone mapping tends to mess things up (at least from my experience with Photomatix). As an example, here are two similar photos that I've taken. This one was turned into a 32 bit HDR image and tone mapped. This one was exposure blended. The tone mapped one could definitely be done better, and I don't claim they are otherwise identical (slightly different time at dusk, different weather conditions, leaves vs no leaves, but my point is that from my experience, you get a much more realistic image through exposure blending when done right. Anyway, I'm sure I'm annoying everyone with conversation in the middle of this nom so I'll leave it there. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)12:31, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support edit 1, weak support original Most of this technobabble goes right over my head, and while they're both excellent images I prefer the retouched version.--HereToHelp(talk to me)23:35, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, yes! Isn't it odd that Blade Runner supposedly presents a "dystopian" future, yet we seem to be using it as a blueprint for designing our living spaces...? Matt Deres (talk) 21:54, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support either, slight preference for the edit The edit and the original are both absolutely stunning pictures with a remarkable level of detail. Axeman89 (talk)
Support edit. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 10:57, 24 April 2008 (UTC) Neutral. In the end, I can't convince myself that HDRI is necessary or beneficial to this particular scene. Edit 2 is probably reasonable (but not officially nominated?). Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 10:40, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
But given that the HDRI (I even hesitate to use that term, this image has very subtle use of blending techniques, thats all, not HDR tone mapping) improves shadow and highlight detail, I'm not sure how you could say it isn't beneficial. Whether it is 'realistic' is of course open to interpretation, but I suspect that if I didn't mention any editing techniques in the nomination, the issue may not even have been raised as this scene could almost be possible with a single exposure, and I don't know if anyone could look at the photo and know for sure, without having tried. In fact, in a couple of years from now, if cameras start coming out with increased dynamic range capable of capturing this scene, would you decry them for it? This whole issue is significantly overblown IMO. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)11:22, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think that I could alter Edit 2 to look very similar to the original without using any HDRI whatsoever. The only significant difference would be the quality of detail in the highlights and shadows, not the brightness or balance of them. I think you have a preconception about what HDRI looks like. I can't really be bothered, but I could assemble a collection of images and ask you to determine if they were edited single exposures or HDRI images, and I think you'd get a significant number of them wrong (as would most people). It isn't as clear cut as you seem to believe. There are far too many factors at play here. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)14:40, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think that I could alter Edit 2 to look very similar to the original without using any HDRI whatsoever. What is your point? This image is a very clear example of HDRI, and your comment in fact exemplifies the increasing slipping of our grasp on reality here at FPC. The gold standard we should aspire to is for images to be passed as FPs without being edited at all. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 00:53, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
My point is that HDRI doesn't automatically mean overprocessed, if it is done well and sometimes it serves to make an image look more realistic, even if you can identify it visually as being HDRI (although I don't think you always can with certainty). As for aspiring to images being passed without any editing at all, I don't think that is the right attitude. As I've mentioned elsewhere, image processing occurs the split second you press the shutter on a camera, whether you like it or not. Cameras essentially edit an image when it turns the captured data into a JPEG file, giving it sharpening, colour balance, contrast etc. Now by your logic, you would say that the output from a camera is the 'gold standard', but as soon as I process the image from a RAW file - essentially doing the same thing that the camera does - you seem to imply it isn't accurate anymore. It has never been as cut and dry as that. Cameras are quite capable of messing up the accuracy on their own. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)08:38, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I was hoping you wouldn't bring that up, because it's utterly ridiculous and somewhat embarrassing imho. Of course jpeg is a compressed format. But the algorithm is standardised, at least for each camera line - the same algorithm applied to each image - and is honed to represent the image *as is*. JPEG compression is a necessary evil that camera makers chose to work with, both in early cameras because memory chips were small and expensive, and in some budget cameras currently, where the included chip is, again small. You and I know that no allrounder pro camera would add essential edits to an image out of the box, because it limits the artistic expression you can achieve with the camera (and get me right here so we can avoid another argument - I was talking about *artistic* expression for just a second there, not encyclopaedic faithfulness!). I even suspect that any such behaviour can be switched off if you know how. We also both know that in the age of cameras using film, you had to pick your film to match the lighting conditions, and different films gave different colour characteristics. But you knew that all pictures shot on a Velvia film would come out according to a shared standard, and a trained eye could tell a Velvia from a Provia etc. HDRI photography does not currently have this benefit, as there is no standard rendering, and many images come out looking rather clownish as a result. Your concept of "overprocessed" only serves to substantiate my concern: if you no longer care whether your image is slightly processed (as we've seen with the variety of edits being offered here), you're making a fundamental mistake. Maybe Hong Kong is lit differently to NYC, but after the last person has had their say and their wish granted, it may end up looking exactly like NYC. FPC is not about making a beautiful picture, it's about making an encyclopaedic picture. We have a time-honoured tradition here of sending "beautiful" pictures to Commons. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 09:22, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support Any. Even if the first two versions are deemed "unrealistic", a full-size and properly edited Edit 2 would be sufficient. NauticaShades21:50, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support edit 2 only the other edits do in fact look quite different than the actual conditions shown in edit 2 not to mention the glare has increased in the exposure blended original, it does not look like a natural night scene Thisglad (talk) 08:30, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I did mention that Edit 2 is not for voting, just for reference.. At the very least, it is quite underexposed, as I did not post process it for actual use on Wikipedia. Also, I think the 'glare' you think you are seeing is probably just the ambient light reflecting off the haze in the sky. This is not a HDR related artifact, but was very real and is only more visible in the original because it is brighter (not wrong or fake, just brighter). Just my opinion though. If you're intent on supporting edit 2 only, I assume that would make your vote by definition neutral towards the original or edit 1? Or are you opposing? Could you clarify? Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)10:51, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Actually looking at again the main problem I have with the original is the blue color cast, I think the color balance is inaccurate, at least the sky should be more black than blue Thisglad (talk) 12:26, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The colour cast is identical in both the original and edit 2. Again, the only significant difference between them is the brightness and highlight/shadow detail. Brighten Edit 2 and you will see the colour is almost identical. As for the colour cast accuracy itself, because of what I mentioned about the haze in the sky, it will never be a true black because the various lighting of the city (incandescent oranges, coloured lights, intense whites etc). As such, you cannot choose the sky as a grey point (and if you do, the whole scene ends up looking very faded and unpleasant yellow). so in the end it comes down to an attempt to present the scene as accurately and aesthetic as you can, making certain compromises along the way. Its very easy to second-guess but far more difficult to please everyone. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)12:59, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The example you provided does not have the low lying haze that mine does so you cannot compare the sky colour. During that day, the sky was a hazy, murky grey. Does that mean that the colour was 'fake' since the sky is usually blue? The thing is, doing a random search on Google isn't really fair. Most people don't know how to use their camera. Their camera will likely be left on auto WB (which almost always exposes too warm at night), or they'll take a photo with a flash, leaving it severely underexposed. But heres a couple of examples: [2], [3]. In the end, as I said, it comes down to aesthetics as much as it does accuracy, since there is no single light source to balance for. So maybe I adjusted it slightly too cool, but if I didn't, it would look quite murky. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)16:25, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support Orginal or edit 3 - a native Hong Kong resident friend of mine says the original is more faithful to what you would actually see than the edit, which is what I think is well, considering all the smog and possibly fog in the photo (normally the smog isn't THIS bad). This is not what you would expect directly from camera, but it matches what we actually see very well, and to me that is way more enc than the arbitrary camera response curve that we are all used to. --antilivedT | C | G10:55, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral I am a native Hong Kong resident, and I can say that Edit2 (quick-n-dirty version) is the most realistic one. Edit2 separates the business district and the mid-levels residential area clearly. -βαςεLXIV™14:35, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That was answered a bit further up. Basically the neutral exposure was, as described, a single exposure and the HDRI - I still hesitate to use that term, but it was multiple exposures. The tower's lighting was constantly changing, so when the three exposures were blended, it gave a slightly different colour. Thats it, nothing too overt, and not really misrepresenting the scene either, as it isn't a static colour. Taking another shot seconds later would have resulted in a different colour again. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)14:28, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose and Obvious conditional support after fixt. Just noticed this on commons, amazing. Buildings are leaning to the left, which is easy to fix I believe, and which is why I oppose (stupidly one might say). I think one cannot get right exposure of night scene without a bit of tone mapping, so I prefer the retouched version. Blieusong (talk) 19:48, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Actually I think you will find they are leaning inwards slightly on both sides. I'm surprised, with all of the controversy over this image, that nobody has mentioned this. It was actually kind of delibrate. I found that when correcting the tilt completely, the composition was not as good, because the edges of the mountain became more prominent in the frame, so it was a bit of a trade off. I'm glad you agree with me about the exposure, although as I said originally, it was not tone mapping. I used a program which you may be interested in. Rather than create a HDR file and then tonemap it, it calculates which pixels in a set has the best exposure on a bell curve and combines the image together that way. So it is similar to tone mapping, but quite different in how it works, and it usually results in a much more pleasant photo, without messing with settings too much (although you sometimes have to increase contrast a bit afterwards). I'll put a note on your talk page with more information about it. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)19:58, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
me and my roomate user:sanchezn found the leaning obvious (and I'm surprised we are the only ones :) ). I needn't pixel peep (though I often do that with high res panos such as this one) to notice, I just put a building edge against the border of my monitor, to find out. Blieusong (talk) 20:46, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, its pretty easy to check the lean when you have so many skyscrapers to choose from. Your Paris skyline panorama has a big horizon curve though. ;-) I know, I remember you saying that it was delibrate. I was just looking at your commons gallery, lots of them should really be featured pictures on the En Wiki. I'm surprised they haven't been nominated. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)20:52, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
yup, unfortunately, there are many buildings eligible to be put against the edge of monitor ;). BTW, my oppose really isn't one, as find this picture beautifuly amazing and I know it won't change the results of this candidature. I just meant to get attention on the leaning. Thank you for the comment on my gallery. Maybe they are not nominated because they suffer from being compared to your panoramas ;) Blieusong (talk) 21:58, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I decided to go right back to square one and reprocess/restitch it completely to also address the issue of colour balance that Kaldari raised. While I maintain that colour balance in a scene like this is very subjective and complex with so many light sources, I think this may be a better compromise. And I still maintain that the dynamic range and accuracy of this image is far superior to Edit 2. What do you think? Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)22:00, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's great !!! I strongly support Edit 3. I agree with you for the dynamic range point, and color balance wasn't a matter to me. Hope other people will notice this edit, now that this section has gone very far down this page ! I'll just put this edit on Commons FPC too. Blieusong (talk) 06:59, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment for closer. I hope I'm not misspeaking for the others, but as this nomination is so far down the list and not attracting any attention since I've added Edit 3, I wanted to point out that as the creator, I think it is the best version (Mfield's edit could equally be applied to it and I'd be happy to support those changes too, if consensus pointed to Edit 1) as the tilt is corrected, issues with colour balance have been addressed (hopefully to Kaldari's satisfaction) and the angle of view is slightly wider. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)14:09, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support edit 1 or edit 2 only, edit 1 has far better contrast in the upper half than the original, but my personal favourite is edit 2. Dorftrottel (warn) 19:27, April 30, 2008
Like the original, the upper half is too bright with fuzzy light, the entire image has an artificial, "HDR overkill" feel to it. Dorftrottel (talk) 23:29, April 30, 2008
Obviously you've never been to Hong Kong or Mainland China recently, the air had gone down greatly in the last 5 years. My point is: it DOES look like that in real life.--antilivedT | C | G07:25, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, its quite frustrating. It seems like these days in FPC, everyone is overcritical and just wants to give their unqualified two cent opinion and/or speak before thinking. Nevermind that an experienced photographer believes it is accurate, as do many people who have been there. Furthermore, the whole purpose of HDR is to compress dynamic range so shouldn't that mean that the bright 'fuzzy light' in the background would be darker than in Edit 1, rather than brighter, if it had a stronger HDRI effect? Yes, thats what it means. Oh well, what can you do? ;-) Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)08:31, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Doesn't matter to me personally what it looks like in reality. Edit 1 and edit 2 still look far better and also more authentic, and that is what counts. Dorftrottel (warn) 11:04, May 2, 2008
So you are basically admitting that it doesn't matter what the reality of a scene is, it only matters what you think it looks like? This is Wikipedia, not Dorftrottel's website of things that he thinks look good and authentic. ;-) You might think thats what counts, but I certainly hope that the closer takes into account your disregard for those who have first hand experiences with the subject. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)11:42, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm 'admitting'? What is that even supposed to mean? Did you accuse me of anything? Do yourself a favour and slow down on the rhetoric. And yes, like everyone else here, I'm providing input from my personal perspective, and I don't feel the need to give other people that kind of talk. Also, are you as strictly opposed to photoshopping tourists out of siteseeing hotspot images because it's not authentic? Dorftrottel (criticise) 12:00, May 2, 2008
I think you need to look up the word 'admit' in a dictionary. Admissions don't always follow accusations, although they often do. To admit is to acknowledge. As for photoshopping tourists, yes actually, as a general rule I am opposed to photoshopping tourists out of images. Why do you ask? What relevence does it have to this? Are you questioning my consistency? ;-) Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)12:12, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Then write "acknowledged" when you mean acknowledged. ;-) You see, I lost some assumption of good faith right between "This is Wikipedia, not Dorftrottel's website of things that he thinks look good and authentic. ;-)" and your accusation against me of "disregard for those who have first hand experiences with the subject" totally out of the blue. ;-) Dorftrottel (ask) 13:18, May 2, 2008 ;-) ;-) ;-)
Support, with preference for Edit 3. The color balance adjustment and wider view are improvements, in my view. The visibility of the haze is part of the image's encyclopedic value.--ragesoss (talk) 18:48, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support all, prefer edit 1 or 3 Very interesting, illustrative picture. Edits 1 and 3 are very well done, although edit 3 shows a bit more mountain than I would like. --SharkfaceT/C19:39, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original - Interior of Our Lady of Sorrows Basilica.Founded in 1874. It has been administered by the Servite fathers for its entire history. Ground was broken for the current church building on June 171890 and the church was dedicated on January 51902.Edit1 Edit to fix distortions as best as possible.Observer Edit Nothing much can be done to correct the edge softness, but the solution to the contrast and brightness is literally a click away.
Support - spectacular, lifts the article and informs. Is it perhaps a bit too bright here? - it seems more toned in the article but perhaps it depends on the slant of the LCD. Also I wish I could blot out that line of wall lights which puts support a bit on the edge. Motmit (talk) 10:55, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose obvious pincushion distortion, very blown highlights, too much NR. Surprised this made QI - doesn't say much for the QI review process. Mfield (talk) 20:53, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I had a go, resulting in Edit1. It's about as close as I could get without major work. There's some pretty interlinking distortions going on. Mfield (talk) 23:19, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral to weak oppose Maybe it's my computer screen, but I don't see where it's grainy. I do, however, see that the lights are way too bright, and IMO that is the biggest detraction from the image. JuliancoltonTropicalCyclone00:17, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Weak oppose Looking at it in the browser window and then even more so at 100%, edges of image are very soft, I would say around 30% of the image area. Areas of image are too bright, there is a noticeable colour cast and contrast is a little lacking. What makes many of these errors surprising is they can be greatly reduced or even solved using a single mouse click... Auto Levels, in Photoshop. Fixed it up a lot. I then did some further manual levels adjustment, then I did some further contrast adjustment and removed the colour cast, but even the auto-levels did a lot by itself. See Right: Our Lady of Sorrows 080202 feedback.jpg. Apologies if this sounds harsh, but, one mouse click! Capital photographer (talk) 17:10, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment To me your edit looks to have too much magenta, I think the more orangey cast of the altar area in the original is probably more accurate to what the eye would observe, this is a building with a huge mess of different lighting sources and temperatures and white balance is always going to be a judgement call, something which auto levels is going to misjudge a lot of the time. Choosing the altar as an area of interest, and specifically the white cloth on the table in the center, I would tend more toward orange than magenta. Mfield (talk) 17:53, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You mean a magenta cast over the whole image? The original has a strong orange/yellow cast. My colour calibrated display (I finally calibrated it) doesn't show any, but some displays have a magenta cast. Could anyone else please confirm if a cast exists?
Yeah, the edit definitely has a magenta cast. Auto levels isn't going to work well when the interior of the building is orange to begin with. The original looks reasonably accurate to me. Thegreenj23:17, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Just to clarify, what you see here wasn't done with auto levels, rather manuals levels and brigtness and contrast adjustments. My point was I used auto-levels (though this change wasn't retained for the final version here) and it improved it quite a bit. Capital photographer (talk) 01:03, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Weak support edit 1, strong oppose observer edit It could be sharper, but I'm willing to overlook what is, to some extent, a depth of field issue a bit. The observer edit, however, looks unnatural, particularly in the painting above the altar. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 09:50, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original - Apium graveolens is a plant species in the family Apiaceae, and yields two important vegetables known as celery and celeriac. Cultivars of the species have been used for centuries, whilst others have been domesticated only in the last 200-300 years. The petiole is the part consumed.
Reason
Excellent picture, showing Vascular tissue (Xylem and Phloem) and looks good under higher res.
Oppose There's zero detail other than on the vascular tissue, and the DOF problems cause too many problems with that detail. SingCal03:33, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Oppose I am pleasantly surprised by the quality given its from a non-Macro Tamron zoom lens. For me, there are two issues, both of which are crucial to the success of a macro shot. Firstly, DOF (Depth of Field) is not quite right. Secondly, control of the background, the large brown section in the top right is a distraction. The background could afford to be bit darker too. A good effort, I would like to see another one with a bit more attention to detail. I'm sure it could make FP. Capital photographer (talk) 06:58, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support Searching online could find no better image of this subject at this time so it's unique, of high quality and adds to the article(s) it appears in. Regarding the use of PNG format, I too am puzzled. PNG is as good or better than JPEG depending on compressing settings. Furthermore, PNG has allowed the removal of a set background, increasing the versitility of this image. Other versions of this image available online had a solid white or solid black background. In any case, what is shown is the subject and the background is irrelevent. Capital photographer (talk) 00:39, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - A picture is worth more than 1000 words? Not in this case, I'm afraid. Though it represents an important scientific achievement, the picture is unimpressive and does'nt cause a feeling of awe, like this other nomination. Or maybe the image is not beautiful enough. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 07:47, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't recall "cause a feeling of awe" being one of the FP criteria. Yes, there's no denying the nebula image is a stunning work but this graphic is as unique and informative for it's subject. Capital photographer (talk) 08:42, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What I mean is that this picture is a pale image of the work done in mapping the cosmic microwave background radiation and of the reality it represents. I don't think it makes us really interested in reading the article, as it shows very little meaningful information to the majority of the casual readers. I'm a macro physicist myself (well, I used to be...) and the only thing I can see is some random distribution of the temperature in space. On the contrary, reading the article may make us interested in seeing the picture... -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 10:10, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support For me, as a physicist, this image of the microwave background radiation is impressive and has very high EV. The amount of work which has gone into this image is enourmous, from designing the instrument, building it, launching it, accumulating the data and subsequent data analysis. It tells us a lot about the homogeneity of the universe as well as the first signs of anisotropy in the early universe perhaps the seeds for the first galaxies to form. The png format is only natural for this image as it allows for a transparent background and hinders any image artifacts. -- Slaunger (talk) 08:21, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Weak support After some thoughts, I have changed to weak support. The reason is, that for me, an FP should preferably be self-explanatory. This image is only self-explanatory for those who have some knowledge of the subject or who reads the article quite thoroughly. I do not have any good ideas how it could be made more self-explanatory, which is why I still support it. -- Slaunger (talk) 21:00, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I acknowledge what Alvesgaspar is saying, but I think this is the best possible image of its subject matter. Caption could use work, though: perhaps it could explain in brief what the different colors represent, and the significance of the red parts being bunched together. Spikebrennan (talk) 14:49, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Read the article and you'll understand... this isn't art, it's science. The colours are those of the original data and the colours are not just for decoration, they indicate temperature like those weather charts you see which show temperatures. Replace the colours and the image is meaningless. The colours are an integral part of the image, replace or remove them and the image is made useless. P.S. There is quite a bit of yellow in the image... yellow is made from Green and Blue and is therefore not a primary colour!Capital photographer (talk) 08:43, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, the colour of the original photons is up in the radio frequencies, not in the optical, so is not something visible to the human eye. The colours you see in this image are those picked by NASA to display the image; while it could be recoloured, this is by far the most popular colour scheme for the image at present, hence the most recognizable, and hence this is the colour scheme that the image here should use. Mike Peel (talk) 08:48, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
To clarify my original comment, the colours of the original image released by NASA based on the original data from NASA. In other words, not just art but what NASA feels is most illustrative of temperature. I guess the point is the colours are not picked at random but are significant. Very interesting info none the less. Capital photographer (talk) 12:45, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support Instead of viewing this as a picture, it should be treated as a figure/drawing as this image was generated by NASA following studies on the topic of CMB. This image has high en value. --Kalyan (talk) 02:55, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per Alvesgaspar; it's important and unquestionably of high encyclopedic value, but it's not that interesting until a viewer already knows a fair bit about what it illustrates.--ragesoss (talk) 18:41, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original - The Trevi Fountain (Italian: Fontana di Trevi) is the largest — standing 25.9 meters (85 feet) high and 19.8 meters (65 feet) wide — and most ambitious of the Baroque fountains of Rome.User Edit A bit of editing adds depth and realism. The sky has more presence, yet the fountain has not being altered in any way, nor has the brightness of the building, accomplished using nik Viveza[1]Unprocessed Original - To facilitate discussion only.A small portion of the image to illustrate the minor tilt.
Reason
Again, a reprocessing of an old image that I wasn't 100% happy with. This is a very detailed rectilinear-stitched mosaic image of the Trevi Fountain in Rome. It is derived from 25 individual frames. I needed to use this many due to the extreme nature of the rectilinear stitching (the edges are very stretched/distorted, but due to downsampling of the image from 15000x10000 to 3500x2300, softness is not as visible). I've never seen a rectilinear view of the Trevi Fountain before. Typical views only include part of the scene (This for example), are taken from a long way back and obscured by the crowds, or are distorted by the upward angle. This image avoids all of these issues and is a pleasing view. This is perhaps despite the slightly ordinary sky, which I think I've managed to make look 'atmospheric' rather than dull, and does contribute to even lighting of the building.
support original, support edit colours are pale, particularly the sky so the image looks flat and very cold, I actually mistook it for a painting until i read the description. Framing is nice though and looking at it in the article, it certainly adds to it. I am also extremely impressed that this is the resolt of image stitching, it is entirely seemless. While I feel it needs more depth, it's very very good already. Capital photographer (talk) 12:17, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, you can't make a scene something it is not though. You can see from the people on the edges that there is plenty of saturation in the image - its just that the fountain itself IS somewhat pale. If I'd taken the photo in strong sunlight, it would no doubt look warmer but instead, there would be heavy shadows and probably uneven lighting. As you no doubt know, lighting in phototgraphy is often a compromise and indeed it is in this case. I think that if I were to edit the hell out of it to try to get more oomph and colour, I'd probably ruin it in the process, as I've already massaged it enough to get it looking like this. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)12:28, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The big issue for me is that the building and sky are both quite pale and bright and the sky lacks contrast and saturation. The result is in image where the building blends too much into the background and the image is inbalanced, with a darkish colour foreground and a very pale and bright top part of the frame. Lighting is a tough thing and the lighting you took this shot in is actually ideal, minimizing possible shadow and glare. We all have our own eye for photography, so I opened this image in Photoshop and made some changes using nik Viveza to show what is possible and what I personally feel would work better, to better express what I'm saying. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Capital photographer (talk • contribs) 13:43, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Your welcome to your opinion and I'm sure feedback is appreciated, but I'm not sure it's entirely good form to replace the original with your edit in the article while it's under discussion here and Diliff hasn't even had a chance to reply. --jjron (talk) 14:15, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Have you updated your cache? I reverted the image a while ago after testing it in the article. I would certainly encourage the nominator to test the edit in the article to see how it looks though. Capital photographer (talk) 16:14, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Not that I'm personally offended that you replaced my image in the article, albeit briefly, but why did you need to see how it looked in the article, when your edit is only moderately different, and you could see it just as clearly in this nomination. And even if you did 'need' to see it in the article, you could always preview it rather than save the change... And for that matter, and I know I'm being picky (sorry!), but you should probably try to make all your changes in a single edit, rather than going back over and over. ;-) As well as creating potential edit conflicts when others are trying to contribute, it also just looks a bit messy in the edit history.
One of the FP criteria is does it contribute to the article. Personally, I can't tell here if it would or not. Images appear at a different size and with different text rapping in articles. Also, leaving it in the article for a brief period allowed time for a reversion. Given that it looked good in the live article and was not reverted, I consider it a success and that it does contribute to the article. Capital photographer (talk) 07:57, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, you wouldn't expect it to be reverted within 3 hours unless it was objectively inferior or vandalism. As I said, it is so similar to the original that most people simply would not notice or care. Eventually someone with a keen eye would probably notice but that is a bit beyond the scope of a 3 hour test. The active contributors here at FPC are just as competent in determining an image's contribution or potential contribution to the article. Anyway, I'm not really having a go at you, just letting you know the way it usually works here. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)10:05, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Now, 'finally' getting to the critique of your edit. Aesthetically, I don't mind the change you've made, as it does make the sky somewhat more dramatic and contrasty against the building, but you've introduced (or possibly just exacerbated) posterisation in the sky. Also, you say you haven't altered the fountain/building in any way, but you have. The windows are now tinted a bit overly blue, and the plaque at the top of the building is clearly blue-tinged now. Seems like that little tool of yours has been strong on the blue saturation. As I said, I don't mind what you've tried to do in theory, but in practice it seems a bit heavy-handed. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)19:04, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The tool I used has a saturation adjustment function, but I didn't use it. Just corrected levels and turned the brightness of the sky and reflections of the sky down 25% and contrast up 8%. You are correct, the reflection of the sky in the windows and water is part of the layer mask used to correct the sky. The sky is reflected in the windows and water... so if the sky changes, so to does any reflections of the sky. I didn't consider this a change to the building and the building itself was not deliberately altered, only the sky and reflections of the sky.Capital photographer (talk) 06:15, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well ok, perhaps it was just a brightness change rather than saturation change (darkening highlights to midrange often does increase the perceived saturation), but you ignored the point I made about the plaque of the building also being blue tinged now. That is clearly not a reflection of the sky. It evidently had a small amount of blue in it to begin with, since I'm assuming you essentially darkened anything with blue in it, assuming that it must be the sky?), but it is looking a bit over the top and unrealistic now. Regardless of whether it was deliberate or not, it is an unfortunate mistake. ;-) I would have made a mask of just the sky, rather than a mask of the colour of the sky. But then, the more I've looked at both images, the more I believe the changes just aren't that necessary. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)10:03, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I checked mask coverage in PS and it has only included the sky, windows and water, not the plaque or building. However, the mask also adjusts surrounding luminance and has darkened the plaque and top of the building a bit. On my display, it looks neutral, white-grey, but on a non-calibrated screen, there may appear a blue or even mild magenta tinge.Capital photographer (talk) 10:45, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Are you sure your screen is really calibrated properly? If you're not convinced, eye drop various areas on the plaque and you will see that significant portions of it are blue-tinged. Particularly above the top row of text - hold the eye dropper on it and drag along the top and you will see the blue is almost constantly more luminent. They are on my image version too, but to a lesser extent, and less visible as they are brighter. I suspect that your screen isn't as well calibrated as you think, if you're unable to see it. I can see the blue clearly in the plaque on two different monitors - my contrasty, punchy (and admittedly not professionally calibrated) 30" Dell screen and a cheap flat HP business laptop screen. Can anyone else comment on this? I need a third opinion here. ;-) Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)11:06, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It is sometimes difficult to teel between a mild blue and mild grey, so I will conced that depending on people's eyes and displays, it may look bluish to some. I loaded it into Photoshop CS3 and used the eyedropper. Running it over the area, the colours ranged from light to mid grey and a couple were borderline. Here are the colours I am getting: #ced3d6 , #dfeaee (very borderline, looks mostly grey on my display with a very faint hint of blue), #cfd4d7 , #ccd9e1 (again, borderline) , #e3e8ee , #aabbc5 (grey but leaning to the blue region of the spectrum), #b7c5ce. On inspection with the eye dropper, some could be classed as grey with a slight blue tint. Mostly grey though. Capital photographer (talk) 12:01, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(reset indent) Sometimes I think it is better to explain visually than numerically, as hex colour codes are unwieldly. I know that HOW blue something looks will be determined by the monitor as well as the colour values, but I've cropped and increased the saturation of the plaque so I can show you what I mean here. Now I'm not saying you've created this blue - I admit it is there in my version too - but you have darkened it in your edit, which has made it much more visible and unrealistic looking. Thats all I'm saying. I'm not sure its really borderline blue-grey, but as I said, different screens will show different things. I'm not sure that I'd trust a laptop screen for accuracy though. I've never seen one I was very impressed with. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)13:41, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I had a chance to check it using a CRT display today, yes there is a blue tinge. I would guess the displays on the Macbook Pros, despite calibrating, have issues with blue and grey because it certainly doesn't look blue on the MCP, but unmistabaly light grey-blue on the CRT. Given I didn't adjust saturatation and further testing of the original indicates blue hues were present in that area of the image, my brightness adjustment has merely increased the appearence of the blue rather than created it so I guess the image is more or less true to the original in terms of the colours present but not so in how pronounced they are. Capital photographer (talk) 03:14, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What calibrator did you use? I ask because I have a MBP and it took some messing to get it to calibrate correctly. Using a Huey Pro, I found I had to apply the calibrator to the screen horizontally rather than vertically. Others have reported the same thing. I think its something to do with the way the LCD panel is constructed. With the calibrator vertical, the display calibrated with an unmistakeable tint. Mfield (talk) 03:28, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The MCP 15" uses LED backlighting so it's suppose to be more accurate however I have heard rumours that the panels inside (like many notebooks) have lower colour range than desktop panels and, like most notebooks, it uses dithering. Anyway, I use a ColourVision Spyder2Pro, which isn't actually made for new LED backlit display which have a different backlight temp to regular LCDs. I think I'll need to do more tweaking, the prints I've done have being coming out ok but this image has shown there is definatly room for improvment. Capital photographer (talk) 03:38, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The edit is even more unrealistic than the original. The sky is a dark grey blue and looks like there must be a storm on the way, yet the building is glowing bright as day. Kaldari (talk) 18:45, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the sky is more unrealistic in the edit, but having a bright foreground and dark looming clouds in the background is perfectly possible without manipulation. The sun often breaks through clouds as a storm passes through. A moot point as it isn't in this case, but I just wanted to counter the argument that if it looks fake it must be fake. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)19:12, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't say it is unprocessed. I never added that caption, Kaldari did. I would just say it is less processed, or perhaps badly processed. But you can see how the lighting conditions were difficult. The fountain is surrounded on all sides by buildings, so it is darker at the bottom than at the top, and the sky is far brighter than the building. But to compensate for this isn't really stretching reality too far I don't think. What would you have done differently? ;-) Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)09:04, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the processed, "unprocessed original" appears much warmer. Where as with my edit, I was keeping it cool and crisp as per your edit which has a cool overcast lit pallette. The "unprocessed original" actually looks unnaturally warm for the setting, so I am puzzled by which is more accurate. I guess if I had seen the "unprocessed original" my edit would have tended warmer instead of cool. Capital photographer (talk) 09:10, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, it does look warmer, but I'd say that it isn't correct, if you look at other images of the Trevi Fountain. At the time I processed that image I was on a poor quality laptop screen and quite a lot of my images were not very accurate, looking back. I don't suggest that you base any changes on that 'unprocessed' version. About the only conclusion you can draw is the brightness differences, not the colour balance. I shot it in raw. If you let the camera decide white balance, each frame would be different, so you have to pick the settings and apply it to the whole series, and I evidently picked wrong. So as I said, I wouldn't call it unprocessed or authentic in all respects. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)09:46, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
BIG Support Regardless of the colour of the sky, this picture truly stands out amongst all I have seen. The stitching is well done, as I can't seem to find any areas of problem. Kudos to the creator. crassic![talk]14:57, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
question Is it just me or is the image slightly squished vertically? I wouldn't know it from the fountain, but the people look slightly... wide to me. Am I seeing things? Matt Deres (talk) 19:18, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No, you're right about that. In rectilinear projection, because all lines remain straight, elements on the periphery of the image are distorted. With a view as wide as this, it is impossible to avoid, except by bending straight lines (see the Roman Baths nom for an example of that - you can see that the straight lines of the rectangular baths are bent). It comes down to which projection is more aesthetically pleasing to the eye, and whether straight lines are important to the composition. In this case,IMO they are. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)20:51, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support original Excellent. My only observation/niggle would be a slight tilt of the side roof sections of the building down in the center, but I am fully aware of how difficult it is to get this many images to stitch whilst correcting distortion. What software did you stitch with as a matter of interest? Mfield (talk) 21:19, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, I'm aware of that stitching niggle too. I tried to correct it but for some reason if I made any change to straighten the horizontal lines, the vertical lines shifted, and I figured the verticals were more noticable. You're right though, it is one of the more difficult scenes to stitch and correct perspective distortion on. As I mentioned in the image notes, the horizontal angle of view is about 100 degrees, which is borderline extrem for rectilinear. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)22:19, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I just read the comment above, and it would seem that the tilt is unfixable. If so, that's fine. If I'm misreading it, then please tell me. NauticaShades23:26, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I tried to fix the horizontal tilt (its not so much tilt as a concaving of the horizontals), and correcting it caused tilt on the verticals, so while I wouldn't say its definitively unfixable, I wasn't able to. Its very slight though. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)00:15, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thats quite ridiculous though. Where have you got the impression it is HDR? It is a single exposure per segment. The only changes made were a slight contrast enhancement of the building, darkening the sky slightly and brightening the foreground. Have a look at the previous version. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)19:19, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
After looking at the original version, I see why the current version looks unrealistic. The building in the current version is quite bright with perfect contrast despite the fact that the sky is quite dark. This is a common feature of HDR images, thus why it looks similar to them. Kaldari (talk) 18:51, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose a very nice image, but the sphere-like crown and angel's heads at the very top are just too distorted, as are the people on the sides. —Pengo05:12, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The crown is clearly not spherical, it is quite elongated to begin with .. The people on the sides are rather incidental to the subject in question,surely? With such a wide view, could you really expect anything else? Ah well, you can't please everyone. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)10:26, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Do you really expect distortion correction to be pixel-perfect? Would you oppose every other image nominated here for the same reason? Are you aware that a 'normal', uncorrected photo of this scene would be far more distorted, due to the angle of view? *sigh*. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)10:17, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The crown thing looked spherical in one of the alternate (web) shots, but I admit I didn't look very closely. I first noticed the angel's heads seeming very long though, and the people on the sides being very stretched, and I find it disorientating. Of course ideally the shot would be from far away enough as to not to require any correction whatsoever, (rather than a wide angle), although I'm guessing shooting from further away wouldn't be possible. —Pengo14:51, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No, its not really possible to take it from further, unless you'd prefer to look at a photo of the back of somebody's head, instead of the fountain. ;-) Its hard enough just getting this photo without people in the way. I had to stand up on top of a small pillar just to avoid them. This gives you an idea of what I mean. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)15:56, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What yellow building? You mean the orange-peach coloured one? I don't think it is tilted in the photo. It is deceptive because the drain pipes are tilted, but the building itself isn't. Not significantly anyway. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)16:10, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support Original improved classic shot of classic building lifts the article - don't see that it needs fiddling about with any more. I suspect any "tilt" that people see along the top of the building is an optical illusion caused by the diffential in the adjacent building heights. Motmit (talk) 20:46, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I just uploaded this section of the photograph to show the tilt I am speaking of. Once again, it is very minor and I support the image's promotion regardless, but some have said that they do not see it. NauticaShades22:02, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose top three versions. It would be good to fix the tilt before promoting. I think the tool you're looking for is called perspective correction. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 00:14, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I know it is historical, but I don't know how historically significant this image is. Nowhere, apart from in this nomination, nowhere does it seem to mention that they were discussing plans for the BoB.. The photo itself is a bit snapshot'ish, full of dust/scratches (which could and should be removed where possible) and Goering's face is obscured. Just not quite what I'd consider FP material for a portrait. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)17:06, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment this picture needs to be sourced... I know there is a lot of shenannigans with U.S. government claiming copyright for Nazi images, etc... and this may be perfectly acceptable... but we still need a source and a government claim of that. 128.175.87.157 (talk) 00:41, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose There is a lot of noise in the image, a very high amount. Admittedly this is mainly confined to the background but it is very obvious. The resolution only just meets requirements. It is however a nice capture of a bird. Capital photographer (talk) 09:08, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Withdraw nomination There is clearly no way this image is going to be promoted, and I do not possess the technical capability to improve the image. J.delanoygabsadds13:42, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original - Toyota Aurion ProdigyEdit 1 - Reprocessed from RAW file by User:Capital photographer to minimise JPEG artifacts and ensure greater colour fidelityEdit 2 - Saved to JPEG quality12 instead of 10 and removed odd "burn mark" visible on some displays. Also brightened image a bit as it was a tad too dark
Reason
The image is of a high technical quality, comparable to commercial images and adds greatly to the articles in which it is included. Simple composition (the vehicle set against mist rising off a lake and strongly colored ground surface) ensures the vehicle is the focal point. It is well lit, has little to no noise that occurs when using high ISO and is of high resolution. It is also of a uniquely high standard for Wikipedia. I beleive this image meets the Wikipedia feature picture criteria, being of a high technical standard, high resolution, among Wikipedia's best work (among the best examples of a given subject that the encyclopedia has to offer), having a free license and adding value to an article.
Support. Very nice as a product photo... but... At 100%, you can see funny artifacts, particularly in the dirt/grass, and I don't think it is just JPEG artifacting (although I suspect it is contributing, as 1.6mb seems a bit small for an image of these dimensions). I'm not positive but it looks a bit like the image has been upsized fractally. Surely this is not the typical output of a 1Ds III? In any case, it is still detailed enough for FP requirements but I wanted to point this out and ask why. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)14:46, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your feedback. The image was taken using a Canon 1Ds mkIII with EF 24-105mm IS USM lens. The original RAW files were imported to Aperture and then exported to Photoshop CS3 for processing and output. Because the RAW files and working PSD files are so large (PSDs around 400mb), it becomes very time consuming to work with them so for this application were it would be viewed online, I exported the images to Photoshop as JPEGs, edited and then saved as JPEG (quality 8) again. So the image has being compressed to JPEG twice which to some extend explains the presence of artifacts at 100% view. I deemed such results to be acceptable for use on the web. Also, when shooting, I was using around ISO 1200 due to variable light. I used nik Define 2.0 to clean up the noise but some ISO noise still remains. I can assure you that the image has not being upscaled in anyway, with 21MP original images, there's no need to. The image was cropped at the top and bottom.Capital photographer (talk) 14:55, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, that explains it then. Its the noise reduction and compression. I didn't realise the scene was so dark, although working with JEPGs and saving multiple times with 8 quality is almost as bad as downsizing then upsizing in terms of work flow. ;-) I always work with 16 bit TIFF files to do any post processing as the effect of any changes is minimal on quality. And you think 400mb PSD files are bad.. That Hong Kong panorama I recently uploaded was a single layer 1.2gb TIFF file before I downsized and saved as JPEG! Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)15:03, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
1.2GB! Wow, makes one feel small. Normally working with big files isn't an issue for me, even HDR rojects, I usually use a 8-core Mac Pro with 4GB of RAM and a 30" ACD. Due to renovations, the Mac Pro is in storage for a month and I'm having to use a 15" Macbook Pro with only 2GB of RAM. Running Aperture and PS3 at the same time is quite a challenge for it. Capital photographer (talk) 15:10, 25 April 2008 (UTC)—Preceding unsigned comment added by Capital photographer (talk • contribs) 15:08, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think you could have afforded to drop to ISO 400 given you were shooting a stationary object at 1/320s, you could use a tripod and shoot at ISO 100. The 1DS3 may be the highest rez 35mm body available, but its not the best high ISO performer as a result. As far as the artifacts go - unless you have a really underpowered computer, the files aren't that unmanageable. It's an awful waste to shoot something with a $7000 camera body and then go through 2 stages of jpeg compression to save 2 minutes extra waiting for photoshop to work on a TIFF, certainly when the resulting artifacts remains this visible. You could also export a smaller tiff from Aperture, say 2400x1600 instead of a full size jpeg. Just some suggestions, not trying to be harsh. Mfield (talk) 15:13, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Completely agree with Mfield here - I was going to say a similar thing. Saving 'for the web' isn't really appropriate here, as Mediawiki will resize/compress the images itself when displaying on a page anyway, and many people are interested in quality detail at 100% magnification, which is spoiled by lazy editing. Oh, and I've only got 4 cores but 8MB RAM along with the same 30" screen. I'd go for the extra RAM over extra cores anyday. Its not like 4 cores at 3.4ghz isn't fast enough for most image processing. ;-) Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)15:24, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure why TIFF keeps coming up? Originals are RAW and working files and final outputs are PSD for me. TIFF has issues of cross platform computability that I like to steer clear of and doesn't support Layers from nik software filters. When I'm doing work for print and large scale digital display, I work for hours to make it as good as can be, to get the most from a $12,000 investment. Working with Photoshop and Aperture both open is a strain for any system with less than 4GB of memory, mainly because Aperture's database engine isn't well developed. Amendment: Image was taken at ISO 800, there are two versions of this shot in Aperture and one was 1200. This is ISO800.I will upload a new version processed using only RAW and PSD.Capital photographer (talk) 15:27, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I used the term TIFF as analogous to 16 bit lossless in this context. You can pick the format of your choice. :-) The point was that 8-bit JPEG isn't ideal to do post processing with. Looking forward to seeing what the new version is like. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)15:37, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, okay, because I normally use PSD due to the new non-destructive filters in CS3 which don't work well with TIFF+layers. My normal workflow is 16bit lossless, using PSD files around 300-600mb. I guess I get lazy when it comes to images for the web, a bad habit. Capital photographer (talk) 16:12, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The reason I said TIFF is because I would normally convert RAW-16 bit TIFF, open the TIFF in PS, Edit, Save as PSD with layers, as flattened TIFF over the unedited one and as a jpeg for web etc. I'm not sure why but I feel happier with a third party RAW converter generating a TIFF file rather than a PSD directly. I know a lot of other people work the same way. I also know I'd rather not have images only stored in a file format controlled by a closed company such as Adobe. That's why i would store a PSD a TIFF and a jpeg. Storage is so cheap its sensible to keep all the versions of important images. Mfield (talk) 15:41, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Conditional support I oppose this original, but if you can upload a new version without the horrible jpg artifacts, and remove the dirt specks on the front bumper and the round dot in the sky at upper left, I'll support. (Am I correct in assuming that you've added the Aurion text to the license plate? It looks a bit artificial. PS: Do I see four swans in the fog? )--Janke | Talk16:31, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Still opposing new versions, the "overbleeding burn" on the windshield is still visible, and the contrast and color were changed for the worse, IMO. --Janke | Talk07:14, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Have uploaded new version, created entirely using my regular 16bit workflow. Original 14bit RAW converted to 16bit PSD (Adobe RGB) finally saved to sRGB JPEG (quality10) for the web. Size reduced to 8MP from original 16MP crop. Looks to have far less compression artifacts and more definition. Colours are also more realistic as I did more to ensure accuracy when changing from Adobe RGB to sRGB for web version. Also, I cloned out the 4 swans and a water hen that were a distraction in the mist and removed all possible dirt from bumper and surrounding image. You are correct about the text on the numberplate, inserted to disguise the real numberplate and intended to look better than the blocky pixelation most ad. I blurred the text a bit to make it look more original but at full view (100%), the trained eye can tell. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Capital photographer (talk • contribs) 16:49, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, looks much better. I can see you've introduced a slightly warmer tint on the car (not really a problem though, and as you say, it might be more accurate), but... I can see what looks like an enormous burn (probably about 1/3 the height of the image) on and around the windscreen that leaks onto the grey background. ;-) You can see it as a subtle dark blob if you're looking for it in the thumbnail. To be honest I probably wouldn't have noticed it if I couldn't compare to the original, but it is somewhat distracting now that I have! By the way, what are you doing up at 2am AEST? Wikiholic already? :-) Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)17:01, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Actually 3am, um, planned to go to bed a while ago but too much to do with college going back next week. Regarding the burn on the windscreen, not sure about that. I see some odd distortion which is a reflection on the windshield but nothing seems to bleed into the background on my display. I certainly didn't do any burning on either version so I'm puzzled. Might have to calibrate my screen again. Colours are warmer in the new version,much more realistic. Another pitful of repeated JPEG compression, colour info gets lost. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Capital photographer (talk • contribs) 17:11, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Here is what I mean. Left is the new image and right is the old one. I messed with the levels to accentuate the burn, but its clearly visible in the image once you know what you're looking for. It looks like you've burned the windscreen to make it darker in the new image, but as a result also darkened a big blob outside of the car. Also, don't forget to sign with the four tildes. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)18:24, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Your comparison certainly shows its there. I did some screen setting changes and found I had to turn the brightness down to see it in the regular thumbnails. Again, I didn't do any burning at all to the image. The only thing I can think of is the noise reduction may have analysed that area of the image and the changes bled out a bit. The noise reduction did darken the windows a bit. I have adjusted the image and it doesn't seem to be visible anymore. Capital photographer (talk) 07:08, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your feedback. Personally, I think the colour palette and composition do make it (the vehicle) stand out quite well and the image eye catching in the articles it is used, but I would agree it's not an overly exciting image... it is just a car after all. I could make it much more exciting, but that would be more artsy than encyclopedic. One reason I think it deserves FP is because it shows how good images of vehicles for articles on Wikipedia can be, with simple, focused composition and good (natural) lighting. Take a look at the car pics in these articles for example Ford Falcon (Australia), Mercedes-Benz S-Class, Mitsubishi Magna. In these four random articles including one for one of the best cars on the road, most are poorly composed and exposed. Only a couple which look to be taken from official marketing sources are good. So I propose that my shot, taken using only a camera of a car parked in a woodland area of the city, easily accomplished by anyone with a camera shows how good a car shot can be and would hopefully prompt people to leave behind the current norm of car shots on Wikipedia depicting vehicles in poor lighting with distracting elements such as other cars around it. Capital photographer (talk) 06:30, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You're right that a lot of the car images on Wikipedia are very ordinary. I had a bit of a try a couple of years back with a Mazda6, just shooting with a Canon A95, but was never totally happy that I got quite what I wanted with composition and lighting (especially in the sky) - Image:2003Mazda6-McMillansLookout.jpg. Still it's been lead image in the article for almost two years, but I've never got around to doing a better shoot. --jjron (talk) 14:34, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Even edit 2 looks like it has compression artefacts (check the back of the mirror, image center). Furthermore, I'm not convinced that the image is properly sharp - there seems to be some fuzziness towards the rear of the car. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 15:02, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Edit 2 and Edit 1 were both saved to JPEG from the original 700MB 16bit PSD. There would be no more compression artifacts unless your browser has JPEG support issues (JPEGs above quality10 can sometimes look weird in older browsers). Are you sure you're not confusing compression artifacts with ISO noise? There is some on the edge of the mirror and some drops of water on the mirror too.
If it's noise, then that's just as bad. If they're drops of water, I don't see them anywhere else on the vehicle, which would need some explaining. And let's not brush over the issues with sharpness. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 00:30, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The noise is confined to a very small area on the left edge of the left hand mirror and is only noticable if viewed at 100% with your nose almost touching the screen. The drops of water were originally over much of the car, I was driving through mist. The shape of the mirror and the indicator on the mirror tends to cause water to dry there last where as air flow over the rest of the car dried it quickly. Some water was present on the other mirror, under the spoiler and the trunk lid, again, both issues are noticable only on very very close inspection. Capital photographer (talk) 03:47, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
OpposeNeutral still the composition, but quality is now great. Mainly because of the placement of the horizon. It is just to strong of a horizontal line dividing the picture. Then there are the more minor concerns of poor background, and compression artifacts. Light on the car is good, but what is with the overcast BG... Heres my problem: The actual ground ends shortly after the back of the car (either the start of a slope or cliff or something) and the clouds are right there, it feels like the car is being crowded by the BG. On a side note, you lucky bastards (Diliff and Capital photographer) ;-). I have to do my workflow, stitching and editing on a G4 iMac and a slightly more powerful G4 PowerBook. Try doing perspective correction on 12000px files with those. ;-). -Fcb981(talk:contribs) 15:33, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The vehicle is parked on the shore of a lake and the white background is very heavy mist rising off the water. The use of such a horizon in an image to break up an otherwise bland background is quite a common one in commercial images of vehicles. I think the composition does not reduce the focus on the vehicle and is far less distracting than the many vehicle images which have strong shadows and other objects in frame, this is even more evident if you look at the image in the article Toyota Aurion, however composition is a personal preference so thank you none-the-less for the feedback.
Support. The quality is without a doubt sufficient to pass FP standards. There a few issues, but they are minor enough not to detract significantly from the image. The composition for this car still is far superior to the average shot, and since (as far as I can tell) we have no FPs of this kind, this one deserves a promotion. NauticaShades23:37, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yet again, someone judging the subject instead of judging the image against FP criteria. It's a car. The image of the vehicle is above average for the topic on Wikipedia and meets FP criteria. Diagrams of engines that I consider bland have being FP but they met FP criteria even if I didn't find them exciting. I move this vote be struck as some were in an above submission for a historic document where people judged the subject rather than the merit of the image according to FP criteria. Also, the user is a possible troll. Capital photographer (talk) 03:18, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support original, but oppose the edits. The original hue is far better, and the little stones on the ground are of no concern. Dorftrottel (troll) 19:18, April 30, 2008
Oppose - I am no photographer so I can't comment on the techinical aspects of the photograph. However, the Toyota Aurion is just another mass-marketed saloon of no specific importance to the car industry as a whole. I know I should not be commenting on the subject of the photo but, the fact is that with such an unimportant subject, a highly detailed photograph would be no more informative than a snapshot. By inference, the photograph has no encyclopaedic value.84.69.242.57 (talk)—Preceding comment was added at 19:30, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep it to the image, not the subject. Besides, the Aurion is notable, the most fuel efficient and most powerful Australian V6. Praised my motoring groups as a better alternative to the fuel guzzling Holden and Ford models. Capital photographer (talk) 00:31, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry, who made you judge, jury and executioner in your short time active on this project? Try and stay out of it as nominator I suggest. You can't be so emotional about images of your own you have nominated. Other people have a right to object to them. It's not up to you to try and offset every objection with a comment. Certainly you have no right to tell anyone to disregard an objection. Mfield (talk) 05:29, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think the people on here are smart enough to make up their own mind whether to accept an objection or not. I do have a right however to offer my opinion if I feel an objection is not based on FP criteria, as these two above are. Of course people have a right to object. I should ask, are you an admin or person of authority? Capital photographer (talk) 08:52, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You do have the right to offer your opinion, but you don't have the right to put a Stroke [4].As an example, take a look at this: [5], Later it was reverted to this: [6]. You are right, people are smart enough to judge whether the vote should be valid. When this happens, more people will vote in order to counteract with the votes they think its unreasonable. -βαςεLXIV™10:13, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Note on my opposition: I should have elaborated a little more. I meant it is merely a car. It is not a car driving through a slalom or parked in an area surrounded by something interesting. Example: flowers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gerrittk (talk • contribs) 22:50, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, ok, thanks for your feedback then. The original wording sounded very much like a crtisism of the subject, but it is quite a genuine comment about composition. THanks for the clarification. Capital photographer (talk) 13:51, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support Seems a bit smeared at 100% but photos like these are not meant to be viewed at 100% anyway, otherwise a great product shot which we seriously lack. --antilivedT | C | G03:23, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. The background and the colour of the car are very similar, which I find distracting. I don't think the image is sufficiently sharp and I find the choice of location a little odd. Pstuart84Talk23:50, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose (with regret) it's ashame to oppose such a great shot, however while the visual may be impressive, the technical flaws are an issue. I downloaded this image and despite using one of the most advanced noise reduction programs available, still could not remove a lot of the noise. There is chromatic aberration present, notice the green hues on the chin. Sharpness and lighting are also out, both also un-fixable using advanced filters. Really a shame. Capital photographer (talk) 07:20, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I'm suspicious about that dark jaw in edit 1, I wonder if the edit has added colours that weren't there in the animal. Narayanese (talk) 05:49, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have no clue what the original colors were. I used three different white balances and blended them together. Also, I did not lighten or darken anything—that certain colors appear brighter or darker is an optical illusion. Examine both in an image editor, and you'll find that they have identical luminosity, aside from some sharpening. I know edit 1 is a bit sloppy; it was made more to replace the original, whose colors definitely weren't there in the animal, with the edit, which should be somewhat more accurate. Thegreenj15:52, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You don't know what the original colours were? It's a Jaguar, not a rare Amazonian Macaw, there are only so many to choose from, none of which are green. Also stumped by "optical illusion".Capital photographer (talk) 16:34, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think the edit actually ended up less jaguar-like, as I'm fairly sure jaguars don't have orange pigment on the lower part of the head. The intriguing metallic shine in the original isn't that bad (neither version is FP quality though). Narayanese (talk) 17:14, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I can't find the image illustrating this right now (I've seen it somewhere around here.), but basically, the eye is more sensitive to certain frequencies of light than others. Check this in an image editing program, and, except for some sharpening, I think you'll find luminosity is unchanged. About the colors themselves: I have not seen a jaguar in a very long time. I don't know what the color of their snouts are: white, light orange, orange. The edit was an educated guess; I thought orange more probable than blue. That said, the whole point of Wikipedia is that if you know how make it better, you can very easily. If my edit is inaccurate, there's nothing stopping you from uploading a new, more accurate edit and replacing mine. Thegreenj18:46, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The only colours you'll find on a Jaguar are shades or orange, white, cream and grey. Not green or blue. The errors in this image are beyond what can be corrected in software. Capital photographer (talk) 05:53, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original - A kea is a species of parrot native to New Zealand. This image shows one mid-flight, its iridescent wings gleaming a myriad of colours above "The Remarkables", a mountain range near Queenstown, New Zealand
Reason
Taken at the perfect moment, this shows off the iridescent wings to perfection.
Weak oppose. Although this is a great photo of what looks to be a beautiful bird, I am a little concerned that its head can't be seen. J Milburn (talk) 19:35, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Weak support Although we have many pictures of birds sitting still, head-on, with razor sharp details on their feathers, that's not what this image is. Instead, the subject is the plumage of the bird's back, and is only visible while in flight. This leads to enough motion blur to make those chiseled edges impossible, and also shows us only the back of the head. That said, the rear plumage view outweighs that--though not by much.--HereToHelp(talk to me)21:36, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Very Weak Oppose This is a very good shot. Because the head can't be seen, I have some reservations but on the other hand the coverage of the bird's plummage is excellent. The background is a tad too bright and not diffused enough. It's a good shot but without the head in view and the very strong background (the latter can be remedied), can't support at this time. Capital photographer (talk) 00:58, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I'm not sure how this affects diffusion, but the light in alpine New Zealand is typically very harsh and bright during most of the day. Mostlyharmless (talk) 00:07, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The lighting would affect the brightness and intensity of the background, but diffusion refers to how blurred the background is. The more blurred, the better as viewer will enjoy less distraction and be more focused on the subject. Lack of diffusion leads to messy and busy comps. In bird photography especially, diffusion is very often used [7]. Capital photographer (talk) 03:34, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Weak oppose. The perspective of the shot is quite unique, but as aforementioned, I don't like the fact that the bird is not shown in its entirety. -- mcshadyplTC05:44, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support Good illustration of its posture during soaring flight and its camouflage. On both pages there is no need to show the head (Kea has a pic of the head, and Flight is about using wings), and it is normal for birds to look at the ground for finding food, so a pic with the head up is probably worse for the article. Narayanese (talk) 08:43, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support, although can relate to the concerns that in our non-relativistic environment, object's can only be seen from one side at a time... Dorftrottel (talk) 19:12, April 30, 2008
comment* Just to check, we all are aware that SOME of the head can be seen if you look above thumbnail view, right? It's a little more off to the left than you might expect thanks to angles and position, but quite obvious. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 07:52, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support — This is an excellent shot. The errors in the image are miniscule compared to the challenges the photographer had to overcome. It is dynamic and captures the subject accurately. Therefore, I must support it.Sumanch (talk) 18:03, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. You might want to actually put this in bird flight. Has this been tried? They have two ducks, one goose, and one swan. You'd think one of those might be replaced by a parrot for good measure. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 19:25, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Support - much as HearToHelp. If the head had gone because of a bad cut-off, that would be unacceptable, but given the point of view etc there is probably a trade-off between the head and the beautiful wings. There are enough heads in the article to make up for it and the image adds much value to the article. What I have a bit of a problem with is the composition and I am not sure why. The bird is well placed in the frame and the wings pick up nicely with the grass. I think it must be the direction of the grey rock underneath that is causing an imbalance, which is a pity because you can't do much about it. Any thoughts? Motmit (talk) 23:33, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Weak oppose. It's a great shot that I'm sure was hard to get, but in addition to the headless angle, it is a bit out of focus and the subject is not distinct enough from the background (especially at thumbnail size).--ragesoss (talk) 18:31, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I just recently had a look at some photos a friend of mine took while he was in NZ and the Kea is exceptionally tame and easy to photograph - a better shot both in terms of sharpness and composition is not too much to ask for. --Fir000200:20, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Limited colour? Have you ever been to Arizona? The greens of the river double the number of colours from typical Arizona fare =) Also, on Exposure - that's exactly what Arizona looks like. IT's a desert. It's all very bright. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 14:03, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think a levels adjustment is required for this particular image but what I should have said was, while the colours are accurate for the time of day this image was taken, some of the finest images of Arizona I have seen are taken around dusk or early in the morning when colours are richer and landscapes seem to have more depth. Here's an example off Flikr: [8]. However I will concede it's better than existing image. I suppose it was more an artistic oppinion however so I have corrected my vote. I'll support though.Capital photographer (talk) 01:05, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Anywayy, thinking about it, while dawn and dusk photographs have their place, to say that all Arizona desert FPs must come from those times would severely misrepresent what the American desert looks like. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 16:21, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, not all should be, but the most striking and enticing images are those. As people has pointed out with other images, an image needs to draw the viewer in and make them want to know more about the subject, so in that regard the ones with more colour and contrast taken at dusk and dawn are perhaps a bit stronger in that regard, but this is good too. Capital photographer (talk) 01:11, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Looks like a faithful representation to me (as far as i can remember from my own visits). Autolevels isn't the answer to everything... --Dschwen16:20, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think anyone who cares about images uses Auto-Levels. I clicked on it for a composition below to make a point that even a single mouse click improved it a bit but as I said below, I didn't keep it with the Auto-Levels changes. Levels would solve the under exposure in this image though... manual levels. Capital photographer (talk) 01:07, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The dam, cliffs in top right, sky and the cliff faces in the center of the image are fine.Bottom corners look under over exposed though. Given auto exposure and auto focus tend to work together, I'm thinking the camera put the focus on the middle to top of the frame most and metering prioritised those parts exposing them right but has slightly under over exposed the foreground. Capital photographer (talk) 07:16, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think you need to re-sit Exposure 101 or maybe slow down a little and think about it, there is no way that the bottom corners of this image are under exposed. If the camera had prioritized for the central darker portion of the image as you suggest (unlikely anyway as this is a stitched image so the center isn't camera center and in addition it was likely manual focus and manual exposure) then this would lead to it over exposing the lighter shades in the bottom corners. This is basic exposure. Mfield (talk) 15:43, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Um, as a photographer this is emrarrasing... I meant overexposed. Colour and contrast are less and brightness a tad too high than the rest of the image which is perfectly exposed. But anyway, there proper exposure is academic... if it looks good and is accurate, I'm supporting it. Capital photographer (talk) 01:09, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If I recall my time in arizona correctly, the sun is usually hairly high, so things near you reflect more of the sun back at you. This makes things nearer you look lighter. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 16:19, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Conditional Support regarding it being added to article(s). Looks pretty spot-on to me. I can't see anything wrong with the stitching, and the image quality is top notch. I don't think there should be more sky or none at all. You need at least some so that you have a feel for the horizon level, and you don't need too much, since you can see already that it is essentially lots of blue sky and not much else. That said, slightly more sky couldn't hurt the composition, but not much is needed. Shomaker's Holiday, as per the discussion on the talk page of the criteria, I think that it does need to already be in an article to establish that it adds to the article, among other things. Thats not to say you should jam the image in where it doesn't belong, but it should really have a home before its nominated here. It isn't for one of us to decide whether it is better than existing images, its for all of the contributors to the article. We shouldn't feature it and then find a home for it. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)16:33, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, and I d think that it's better than at least some of the images in those articles, but I felt that it was better to let others make the decision as to whether they agreed with me, and have them choose to add it, as neither page is very active. However, there is no doubt whatsoever that it is an excellent addition to Glen Canyon, as the only panorama we have of it, so I've gone ahead and added it to that page as a start. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 16:59, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original - David Herold, one of the conspirators in the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, photographed at the Washington Navy Yard after his arrest in 1865.
Reason
Historical importance and high encyclopedic value. Captures strong emotion in the subject's face. Good technical quality for a photo from 1865.
Support. Impressive photograph for its age. The expression on his face is worth 10,000 words. (Note: I made a minor edit to the caption. It's Washington Navy Yard without the 's'.
Support. Good historical photograph involving one of the most widely known events in U.S history.
Support A respectable, though by no means exceptional (sharpness, sharpness, sharpness!), attempt to capture both the insect and the flower. On the whole, the combined effect--illustration of an action rather than two objects-- makes it a worthy image.--HereToHelp(talk to me)01:55, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support Sharpness works for me. Looking at the eye, it's clear there's very good pixel-per-pixel detail. The yellow flower makes for a good contrasting background. Thegreenj03:54, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Oppose original - neutral edit I am not sure how the original is a panorama. It has an almost 1:1 ratio, where as panoramas are generally considered to be an image with 1:3 or greater aspect ratio although it could be expanded to include images of 1:2. Also, it is very soft viewed at full size. Have uploaded one cropped to a panoramic format with some sharpening and contrast adjustments. I feel the edit is crisper and has more depth and clarity. I have to admit that the original did not have enough resolution to crop and still keep it at FP requirements so it has being interpolated (upscaled) by 5%.Capital photographer (talk) 10:43, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Weak oppose both. Edit 1 is an improvement on the composition but the image quality still isn't particularly good and the view of the subject is only moderately impressive. Just a bit low on the wow-factor. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)11:48, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. Resolution and sharpness wise, there wasn't much to work with. Edit 1 has around 30% sharpening and is still very soft. Further sharpening yielded heavy distortion. The original image appears to be only 3MP according to Photoshop. Capital photographer (talk) 12:02, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support edit 1 big enough according to the criteria - shows the mills 'in context' of their landscape setting - ie. flat featureless Netherlands (no offence to my Dutch cousins). --Joopercoopers (talk) 14:26, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose both. Not big enough given that the sharpness is lacking. Neither will an 800x600 picture fullfill the criteria after upsampling! I'm not too excited about the edit either. Crops too much from the top, I'd have left about twice the headroom above the wind mill. Nice subject, good conditions, but the technical side is way too weak for FP. --Dschwen15:10, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original - The Bicoloured Antbird (Gymnopithys leucaspis)Edit by User:Capital photographer - Tried to correct the unrealistic look created by use of flash. A flash should be set so as to not overpower the content of an image. Main corrections in the areas of brightness, contrast and saturation.Edit 2 by User:Matt Deres - I've left the spot on the eye, while toning down the washed out effect caused by the flash. I decided against boosting the saturation; this is a very gentle correction to the original - maybe too gentle, but perhaps worth a look.
Reason
Pulled from PPR as I was archiving. Received some positive feedback and probably deserves a chance. From the PPR nom: This is a beautiful image of a difficult to see bird. The species, like most of its family, tends to skulk in the undergrowth in the forests of South and Central America and we have few images of the family.
Oppose Original- support edit2 The underlying image is good but the use of flash has degraded it. It's a common mistake, but even with the advanced metering on camera's these days, manual adjustment is often necessary to ensure the flash doesn't overpower the view. The flash should only output enough to gently even out any lack of lighting so as to blend with the natural light. The flash is too strong in the original and therefore has a very artificial look. One other thing, there has been too much sharpening added. However, great work getting a shot of the bird, it's not easy.Capital photographer (talk) 09:16, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I like the general effect of your edit, but I think you've gone too far in removing the spot from the bird's eye; the lack of reflection there gives it a very lifeless look. Otherwise your, er, jiggery pokery works very well. ;) Matt Deres (talk) 01:54, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support Original Nice neat pic and it looks alive here. I have already complimented Cap on some jiggery pokery on a fairly duff pic, so by the same token I hope it won't be taken amiss if I say don't think it has added value here. Comments on the flash may be technically correct, but I prefer the original Motmit (talk) 16:38, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support edit 2 as person that dragged this image into peer review. Mdf's photos of antbirds are exceptionally clear compared to most you see on the web, and inspired me to push the article on the family to FAC (it's getting close to peer review at the moment). Sabine's Sunbirdtalk22:10, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support edit 2 And btw, what special circumstances give us a "neutral as nominator"? I thought the idea was to only nominate what you support. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 19:37, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Jjron just brought it over from PPR. The folks that submit there sometimes are unsure of the nomination process here at FP, so he sometimes nominates on their behalf. Matt Deres (talk) 00:26, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support edit 2. Strongly oppose edit 1 with the poked-out eye. Dorftrottel (ask) 22:51, May 7, 2008
Support edit 1 colour more vivid than edit 2 and whilst it looks worse as a thumbnail I think the eye looks better and more natural at full size, in the other versions the second bright white spot is obviously from the camera flash. Guest9999 (talk) 02:34, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose by the above. Plus this was just crammed into three articles where it provides no additional value, and the image description is more than lacking. Where was this taken for example? Also I believe this rather shows an Arcade than a wall. It contributes nothing to Villa (except allegedly being taken near a villa), and the relation to Veneto is unclear (plus it is a completely arbitrary picture, should we add random shots of gardens to all articles on regions in the world?). --Dschwen14:06, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment How about a more positive tone? It's all very well to talk about an "easily reproduceable image" but someone has to physically go there with a decent camera, feel inspired to take a picture, and have the motivation to upload it. This image was taken on a Canon Powershot, arguably about as good as portable cameras get, so without lugging around a heavy SLR this is about as sharp as possible. If I was going to vote on this, I don't think it is interesting enough, but I do think the comments should focus better. ProfDEH (talk) 15:21, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I wish I could add something positive but in this case I find it hard. The focal point is way off shot to the right, and the funny angle of the arches from this viewpoint fails to bring it back. The plants on the top of the wall are partially cut off, and there is very little information that can be derived from the picture. It has indeed got nice bright colours ("but not necessarily in the right order"). Dschwen makes very valid points, and hitting articles with FPCs is a matter of concern - although in this case no damage seems to have been done. Perhaps there should be a required waiting period between adding a pic to an article and submitting it for FPC. (and size should be default with the upright tag in the articles) Motmit (talk) 16:11, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I think at present, the image lacks focus. I would crop roughly 20-30% off the right side to make it a portait shot with more focus. At present, there is a lot of bland green space and little interest on the right side. Capital photographer (talk) 03:37, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - the composition does not showcase the plant well enough. It is just a good snapshot of some attractive flowers/plants, but just one of many of this plant family. It does not stand out above the crowd - a sparser composition with water in view (it is a water lily) would be better. - Peripitus(Talk)05:05, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose all. Quality is way below the standard. Fuzzy, noisy, and tons of JPG artifacts (especially given the rather small size). No detail, low enc flower shot. Sorry for the harsh criticism, but I can only urge you to try Wikipedia:Picture peer review first, and/or lurk a around some more before you nominate any further pictures. --Dschwen14:11, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Noise removal is not the silver bullet. The NR removes the noise alright, but also removes any remaining detail. This edit has less value than the original. --Dschwen18:23, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original - The Stomorhina lunata is a fly of the Calliphoridae family (Blow flies), quite often misidentified because of the unusual band pattern in the abdomen, resembling a hoverfly. This specimen is a male and was found in LisbonEdit 1 - Dry flower cloned out from the foregroundEdit 2 - Dry flower cloned out from the foregroundAlternative view
Reason
Very detailed and high quality depiction of a non-typical blow-fly, adding value to the articles
Oppose Original - Neutral Edit I have to agree, rest of the image is good though. Regarding the edit, I have never seen a fly standing on an object with it's hind l;eg out like that. The removal of the flower has improved aesthetics but harmed the integrity of the subject. You just wouldn't see a fly do this. Capital photographer (talk) 13:19, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That is a common "pose" for a bee, it's also a logical image showing a bee with wings captured but in motion holding the bee up to the flower. The image of a fly shows the fly standing on a leaf with its wings held in to its body and not moving yet the back of the fly is not supported and it's hind leg is stretched out. Capital photographer (talk) 09:40, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Info - I like this picture a lot and it will be very difficult to find another specimen so colaborative. Because the problem with the original appears to be only asthetical, I'm nominating a 2nd alternative with the dry flower was partially cloned out. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 17:16, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support original, oppose edits I don't really see the problem with an insect sitting on a bit of dead plant and I don't find its presence distracting at all. The edits are quite skillfully done, but I feel it necessary to oppose them as per Kaldari. Matt Deres (talk) 02:01, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I guess for me the problem was that at thumb size I was briefly confused about whether the flower was a part of the fly. Mangostar (talk) 03:50, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Weak support Nice composition and interesting subject, but the technical quality is a bit low. Was this a scan of a film negative? Because there are a few black splotches and areas that aren't as sharp as the rest. TheOtherSiguy (talk) 20:37, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I can appreciate the work that went into this but it's flawed in too may ways to succeed here. As tonemapping goes, this is pretty good but it's not a good stitch; vertical and horizontal parts are all over the place and even though the edit makes a commendable job of correcting it, I'm left wondering whether the place was actually build like this, with wonky doors and windows, off-level sills, etc. The small splodges in the sky are probably birds, the big faint ones top left is sensor dust. Both should be cloned out, really. Bigger issues like uninspired lighting and slight over-exposure (worse in the edit) are the final nails. --mikaultalk10:51, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original - Crew members refuel an A V-22 Osprey before a night mission in central Iraq, Feb. 2, 2008.Edit1 - with less heavy/selective NR to avoid the plastic look by Mfield
Reason
high quality and resolution, best picture of particular aircraft on wikipedia, helps add to the article
Neutral original, Support Edit 1 I don't know what it is about the noise reduction, but I'm left with a very mixed feeling. Going from the original to the noise-reduced version, I see that it's a good job; I can't pick up any places where there was detail lost. But still, there's something unnatural about it being that smooth... If an image can feel like plastic, this one does. Other than that, a nice picture. Thegreenj03:51, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Original, Support Edit1 I found the noise reduction too heavy on the Original - it almost looks like a model. I went back in the history to the original upload and created an Edit1 with less heavy/selective NR to avoid the plastic look. Mfield (talk) 06:48, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose original, support edit 1 I see the plastic look everybody is referring to in the first one. I don't mind a bit of noise in the second one, and it is a great image overall. TheOtherSiguy (talk) 20:41, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I think the "fake", "plasticky" look has as much or more to do with the camera placement as anything else. Why nestle the camera among pebbles when trying to shoot an aircraft? The forced perspective there is what makes it look like a model. Matt Deres (talk) 10:42, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think so. At least, it didn't help when I was fooling around with it; you need something down there to even the picture out vertically. I'm just puzzled why the photog decided to do that. Matt Deres (talk) 22:35, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'd guess it was sat on the ground as it was a point and shoot and a 10 second exposure - the photographer probably had no tripod so he sat it on the floor and used a self timer? Mfield (talk) 00:13, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
CommentThe original's noise reduction is overdone and the edit is noticeably over-sharpened. Composition looks top-heavy to me. Can't support either, but content and capture are good enough. --mikaultalk10:58, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Note the Original as nominated is not the actual original image. It was already edited with heavy noise reduction and uploaded over the original before the nom (which I am not sure such a destructive edit should ever have been). Edit1 is derived from the original rather than the Original. There is actually more change in the Original than Edit1. Confused yet? Mfield (talk) 17:29, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support original, oppose edit 1. The hue in the edit looks even more artifical. Dorftrottel (complain) 22:43, May 7, 2008
The greenish/blueish one, it takes away all of the warmth. Dorftrottel (vandalise) 11:39, May 8, 2008
Oppose a great image in many ways but I find the blurry people too distracting when viewed at full size. The visible crew members are specifically mentioned in the caption and I don't think it is a good illustration of them or what they are doing. Guest9999 (talk) 02:28, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. All of them are incredibly soft and 'fluffy' looking. I suspect Redmarkviolinist may be using digital zoom as they just look like they've been upsampled - badly. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)15:56, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the Canon A70 is 5 years old, but yeah, thats a good idea. A 3 megapixel Point and Shot camera is always going to struggle to meet the FPC requirements, but a good camera doesn't automatically mean Featured Pictures either. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)16:55, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment It's going to have to be some picture if you're going to get a FP of a leaf. Just some advice: I find front lighting tends to make leaves look very flat; back/side lighting helps bring out some of the detail in the veins, etc. Here's one of mine to give an idea. Thegreenj20:37, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Certainly does not meet FP featured picture guidelines. For something that can be so easily taken, this cannot be a FP. EgraS (talk) 07:18, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original - A classic single-lens reflex camera: the Canon FT QL (1966), where "QL" stands for the "quick load" mechanism of the 35mm film. A Canon 135mm 1:3.5 telephoto is attached to the camera.
Reason
A high resolution and good quality depiction of a classic single-lens reflex camera, comparing favourably with the existing pictures of the subject. This is a composite image of eight photos using focus bracketing.
Oppose halo-ing on highlights (see strap ring on left) and some other areas of softness. Is that a side effect of the focus bracketing? Mfield (talk) 18:48, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
From my experience with focus bracketing, the hardest part is aligning the photographs, since focal length changes with focus distance, which might account for some of the softness. However, all of the highlights seem to have halos, so I'm more inclined to think that this is mild flare. Thegreenj22:15, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral Focus brackets need to be perfect, and this image is almost but not quite there. In addition to the technicals of ridiculously sharp macros, I would also like to point out the the background is very similar to the color of the subject, which makes it hard to distinguish the two. Also, I don't much care for the reflection.--HereToHelp(talk to me)23:17, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. At the top of the camera, the background and subject are nearly indistinguishable. As a minor side issue, there is a weird reflection on the bottom left. Contra HereToHelp, I do like the camera's reflection.--ragesoss (talk) 20:34, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Low quality. Unsharp, noisy, unfavourable lighting. Just uploaded and slammed into the article. I've pointed this out in the Old Wall nom before, but got no reaction from the nominator :-( --Dschwen16:23, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Not really enough detail in the image, and my guess is not an ideal viewpoint. For landscapes I think we tend to have a higher standard requirement as they are easy to replicate. I think the lead image in the article is a better shot that this one.
Redmarkviolinist, you can't fix all the issues in this image. Do you really think all your images are that special? I'm not judge, jury and executioner, but I think you need to take a step back and look at the images as if they were somebody elses and not your own. Then maybe you can be more objective about how good they really are and whether they deserve to be featured. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)16:31, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, I apologise for how that came out. When I said ""Do you really think all your images are that special?"" I actually meant it as a genuine question rather than intending to be rude, but the sentiment does remain. You do need to have a look at the quality of images that have passed FPC and ask yourself whether your images are truely in that league before submitting them. As you have found from your nominations, generally people haven't found them to be. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)22:23, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I must agree with the sentiment of Diliff's comment. It seems to me that to a certain extent you're nominating images as much to receive feedback as with any real expectation that they've got a genuine chance at becoming FPs. I'm sure some (but by no means all) 'voters' here are happy enough to provide feedback in this way, and wish to encourage potentially valuable contributors such as yourself. But on the other hand I don't think anyone wants to feel like you're spamming the page with nominations that have almost no chance, which is why I think some of the comments are becoming a bit harsher. 'Mr 100 FPs' Fir0002 has commented several times how the feedback he got in his early days at FPC greatly helped improve his photography at the time, and I'm sure good feedback from here has helped many others. As a start could I suggest that you perhaps slow down on the nominations. For example, look at the photos you've taken for a week or fortnight, decide on the one you think is the very best, and nominate that either here or at PPR. If you do so I'm sure you'll get some valuable feedback and a better overall reception. --jjron (talk) 08:20, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose Horrific quality. Seems to have been saved in a low-quality jpeg. The plantlife on the left side look awkward. crassic![talk]02:47, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I agree with capital, the sky is washed out. It's not a great photo and some of the mountains could be in better focus. SpencerT♦C17:09, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent wide angle mosaic image of the interior or the Grand Opera House in Paris. It is detailed, very aesthetic and I think the projection actually helps rather than being a necessary evil.
I was hoping that getting a bit more cold light in there would promote chromatic contrast. For the basement, the lack of contrast is understandable, but much less so for the gallery and middle levels. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 19:50, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, that depends how well lit by sunlight it is. I did a quick search and wasn't able to find any photos of it that were particularly naturally lit (This gives you an idea of how much window space there is, and this seems to be about the same resultant ambient light as the FPC). Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)20:09, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support Very well done picture, specially with the dark lighting. The people in the picture are a definite plus to give a sense of scale. victorrocha (talk) 10:44, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original - Two great grey slugs mating, focusing on the entwined penises. Great grey slugs have unusual mating habits, in that they actively court, twining their bodies around each other, before everting their translucent penises, and exchanging sperm.A possible alternative (would need cropped)A cropped and edited version of the alternate.
Note: if adding several images to the nomination, it's best to place additional images directly below the first image in the code. This stops enormous white spaces from appearing in the text. See the difference between this version and the current one. Raven4x4x (talk) 00:37, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. A truly bizarre scene. It looks like they're oozing silicone glue. :-) The quality/composition of the image(s) is not really up to scratch though. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)16:57, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I understand, and looking at the others I agree, but I think its an established principle that not every subject automatically deserves a Featured Picture in lieu of a good one. Some subjects are obviously harder to photograph than others, and there is allowance for that, but there are still minimum standards that need to be met. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)18:06, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Is it really that rare? Surely slugs mate all the time, as there is no shortage of them. Its more that few people go out at night looking to photograph mating slugs, I would imagine!? Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)20:20, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As soon as I saw the alternative it reminded me of a very similar photo (including the brick wall background) I took a number of years ago back when I only had a fixed focal length compact film camera, i.e., I don't pretend for a minute that my version would be good enough for FPC. However it tends to suggest it's not that rare, it's just if it happens somewhere that someone with a decent camera is going to see it. --jjron (talk) 08:07, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose original, support alternate Too much cut off in the original. Normally we might look for higher quality or better lighting, but these, er, guys aren't going to perform in a studio, as it were. In that case, I think the harsh lighting is at an acceptable level. Matt Deres (talk) 18:51, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support alternate, weak support original. I think Matt has the right idea about this. Maybe we can do something about the harsh contrast that the corner of the building gives? Lighten the shadow? That'll improve the picture quite a bit, I reckon. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 19:30, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose both per Diliff. Just because no better image is available doesn't mean that one up to FP standards is not possible. But nonetheless, the most interesting picture I've seen at FPC in a long time. Thegreenj20:29, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I've added a cropped and retouched version of the alternate. I'm honestly not sure about the crop, but moving further left gives us the big dark shadow and moving further right cuts too close to the snots slugs. Matt Deres (talk) 00:24, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I tend to agree. Unfortunately, the uneven edge of the wall cuts to the right at that level and the deep shadow off the wall is what I was trying to avoid. Maybe the creator could just get a couple of very small bottles of hootch and some gay gastropod porn and get them in the mood for another go before the lights? Matt Deres (talk) 22:52, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Huh? Setting exposure comp lower would just give an underexposed picture. This isn't fill flash; flash is the only source of lighting. Thegreenj03:41, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
One could use other lighting sources. Lamps, strobes, hot lights, etc. Its not as if the slugs were going anywhere is a big hurry. ;-) -Fcb981(talk:contribs) 03:48, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support Very sharp. Shooting it from the side may have been more enc than head-on, because the lengths of the structures are more clearly visible.--HereToHelp(talk to me)22:04, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Subject takes up too small a portion of the picture. It would be far better if the picture was centered. EgraS (talk) 06:51, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Why would you make assumptions about one persons photography (or if they even partake in photography) based on their preference for a center composition for encyclopedia illustrations? I also prefer that encyclopedia illustrations have non-artistic compositions with limited negative space, does that make me a bad photographer? Cacophony (talk) 17:45, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original - WrentitEdit by User:Matt Deres - I've cropped to center and showcase the bird and given a very slight tweak with curves to bring out a bit more of the detail of the claws.
Weak Support It's a good image that I believe displays the subject well. Sharpness is sub-par, so it's only a weak support from me. Sharpness aside, good work. Capital photographer (talk) 13:01, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Oppose. The picture is quite encyclopedic, but the tail feathers are out of focus and the background is rather busy and distracting. NauticaShades01:41, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original - A real-life Rosie the Riveter working on the A-31 Vengeance bomber in Nashville, Tennessee (1943)Edit 1 (corrected) - Cropped, skin tones and exposure corrected using levels as per histogram, reduced flash artifacts. There is still a slight grey to the skin, however, this tinge is typical for film photographs of this era showing darker skin.Edit 2 by Diliff - Downsampled and sharpened slightly only. No levels/crop applied. Linked to original on image page as reference. No loss of real detail (As far as I can see and demonstrated as below)
Reason
Strong lighting and interesting composition in this photo from the Library of Congress. It's a posed photo, but I believe it has excellent encyclopedic value as a depiction of a real-life "Rosie the Riveter" during World War II. The contributions of African-American women during the war are often marginalized or forgotten. This photo expands our understanding of the "Rosie the Riveter" icon to include African-American women. Very large (8073x6449 pixels). I also like that we have good caption information (including the actual plane being worked on and the location of the plant).
Hold on... so you're opposing because it's too big? You can't compare a 52 megapixel image to a 2 megaixel one, just in the same way that you can't look at this on an 87-inch flat screen television and call it unsharp. Remember that downsampling cannot improve image quality; at best, it will do nothing to quality while making the file more manageable. But then again, I don't think manageable is one of the FP criteria. Thegreenj03:45, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The freddinator raises a valid point. There's no reason for this to be 20MB - that does make it unmanageable. Durova puts these sort of things up regularly and they're nothing like that size. And, FWIW, current Rosie the Riveterish FPs: poster, worker, and also similar (two of these are already in the short Rosie the Riveter article). --jjron (talk) 08:18, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the link to the other Rosie-the-Riveter FPs. All great photos, and I believe the other Rosies are from the same OWI photo series. As I say above, I like the way the nominated photo expands our understanding of the "Rosie" iconography to include African-American women.Northwesterner1 (talk) 08:34, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
My point is what is your point? Wikipedia allows images of such a size and FP criteria require high quality. An image of such resolution released under a free licence is an asset, not a burden. Either way, keep it this size or make it smaller, so long as it meets FP size requirements. Capital photographer (talk) 09:32, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have to say, I don't understand the point about manageability. Most wiki users are "managing" images as thumbnails in articles or sometimes as previews on the image page. They don't need to "manage" the full picture at all in most cases. I thought it would be preferable to have the largest image possible in the event that someone out there does want to take it under the public domain provisions and make a poster out of it. Wikipedia has an important role to play in disseminating the highest quality images to the public. However, I'm not opposed if any editor wants to make a smaller image and upload it over the same file name.Northwesterner1 (talk) 08:37, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
While I would normally favour the highest resolution possible for the reasons mentioned above, in this case the image is unnecessarily unwieldly and large. I've done some tests. Recompressing the image while keeping the quality high results (quality 11 in photoshop) in a perceptibly identical image that is only 10MB. Downsampling the image to 4036x3224 (halving horizontal and vertical resolutions) results in a functionally identical image in terms of detail and the image is only 2.9MB. As proof of the quality after downsampling, I've put together an image containing three segments, cropped from the part of the image that I felt had the most usable detail (the woman's face and the rivet gun). Crop 1 contains the original 8073x6449, crop 2 has been downsampled to 4036x3224 and then upsampled back to original res, and crop 3 has been downsampled to 2018x1612 and then upsampled back to original res. I believe crop 1 and crop 2 are virtually identical in quality and detail. Crop 3 is obviously inferior and I used it only to demonstrate that you can't downsample TOO much. Therefore I think that we could safely downsample it to 4036x3224 as a 2.9MB file instead of 20mb, with no loss of detail whatsoever, yet with the added benefit of increased perceived sharpness and smaller file size. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)12:25, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Good explanation, and having experimented with the image myself, I found reducing size was certainly beneficial. I was just a bit perplexed by the emphasis on file size rather than image res. My Edit 1 reflects the reduced size. Capital photographer (talk) 12:41, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Your edit has also caused havok with the highlights. The rivet gun has been posterised and has blown highlights (I know the rivet gun had minor blown highlights already but yours has resulted in one third being completely blown), the woman's nose has a minor blown highlight, and the white sheet metal holder is extremely blown now. You need to be a bit more careful of the impact of your edits (or recalibrate your screen!). I like the crop you've used though, but you've introduced too many faults to outweigh the positives of the edit! Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)12:56, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Tell me about it, I don't know what has happened. I still have it open in PS and it looks fine, I just opened the JPEG I saved and uploaded and it is all wrong. My fault for not checking the saved JPEG before uploading but it shouldn't do that. I will upload a replacement ASAP. Only thing I did different was I used the Save For Web function for some reason instead of Save As, I was doing other work on a website at the time. May have had some presets still active. Even the size is different. I guess its too close to bed time. Capital photographer (talk) 13:38, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, uploaded replacement. Because Edit 1 was really a mistake, have replaced with Edit 1 (corrected). I used Save As like I normally do and it came out right. Apologies for that lousy edit. Capital photographer (talk) 13:40, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(reset indent) I understand entirely that this photo could use some downsampling, but I'm just saying that an oppose based on it being unmanageable is not valid. Thegreenj20:06, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps I should have just placed it as a comment or made it some conditional statement. I was just saying that the picture could benefit from a size reduction. The freddinator (talk) 02:18, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Conditional opposeShort version: Skin tones have a grey cast to them. Tweak the saturation a bit and I'll support it. Long version: Ignoring the racial issues for a moment, the background of this FP on the subject is more interesting. The one being proposed is just up against a boring steel sheet. The skin tones on this one seem slightly grey-cast; some colour adjustment is necessary before it becomes FP (and that's the "conditional" part). From composition and technical quality, this image is not as good as our other FP. However, when we bring back in the race issue, then this is exceptional as a change from the thin, frail white women that were the standard iconography of WWII, and given this was before the civil rights movement proper, serves to highlight a neglected contribution. Hence, comparison with the other FPs is invalid, and we may judge it on its own merits, leaving only the skin tones as a problem. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 10:06, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Uploaded edited version. Analysed using histogram in PS, corrected using levels, reduced partially washed out areas caused by bare flash bulb, corrected skin tones. Finally cropped it to enhance focus on subject and reflection. Capital photographer (talk) 12:32, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You didn't say which part of the image has bad skin tones in your opinion. If it's the face, you may want to consider the possibility that she is wearing make-up that is not entirely flattering to her skin tones, perhaps created for a "white" ideal. If so, it might be encyclopaedic to leave the image as is, rather than try to push the saturation to match our modern-day ideal. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 15:12, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The bad skins tones affected all visible skin in my opinion. It is a common affliction for images of this vintage, a combination of the films used and the bare bulb flash. The skin gets an odd grey tint with a silvery-satin appearance. I have seen it in many many images of both male and females. The same sort of skin tone issues a lot affect images of people with other skin colors, skin tones are difficult to reproduce for any camera. My adjustments were minor however given it is a feature of the time. Capital photographer (talk) 11:06, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support either, but I think the edit is cropped too much. Some cropping is appropriate, but with such a tight crop some of the physical context is lost.--ragesoss (talk) 18:22, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support All Three. This high-quality image is a perfect symbol for the historically significant cultural trends during wartime America. I prefer the second Edit slightly, by the way. NauticaShades16:39, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support The scan's colour rendition looks spot on to me. It's a very early, large format Kodachrome sheet film capture, the sharpness of which is probably beyond the capability of the scanner to record. Ok, lighting isn't one of Palmer's strong points but he was quite pioneering in actually dragging around those big arc lights to record what are surely the best colour images of the US war effort at the time, and we're very lucky to have them freely-licensed for the encyclopedia. Please, don't crop this or delete the original upload: if files are too big, use them as masters for retouching (which this one needs a bit, I notice) then upload a smaller version for online viewing purposes, linking to the original on the image description page. Best of both worlds. --mikaultalk11:12, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I agree with mikaul about the crop. I support the retouching in the edit (and I'm very grateful for it, as I wouldn't know how to do it well myself). I also support the downscaling without significant loss in quality (with a link to the original file). But I believe the original framing should be used. The encyclopedic value here is not only in what the image shows but also in the image itself. The Rosie the Riveter article is about women who worked in wartime factories, yes, but it's also about -- you might even say primarily about -- the representation of those women by the U.S. government. From that perspective, the original crop has more encyclopedic value. I would like to upload a retouched, resized photo with the original crop, but I'm don't trust myself to adjust the lighting properly and would appreciate someone else's help.Northwesterner1 (talk) 11:51, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with the above sentiments. If this is to be promoted I tend to think it should be in the original version (i.e., uncropped), however for the only option above image page size to be 20MB is silly. I wonder if perhaps Diliff could upload the 2.9MB version he has alluded to above as a decent compromise, and then link to the others on the image page. --jjron (talk) 13:17, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I was going to close this earlier with some others, but have now commented so much I almost feel like I've voted. In which case I will vote and someone else can close. So Support Edit 2. --jjron (talk) 14:32, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support Great pic. I've had my eye on this for months and never quite got around to doing the restoration. The composition is unusually good with a second angle of the subject's face reflected in the airplane she is building, and as another voter noted I've always been intrigued by photos of female factory workers from World War II wearing cosmetics and other feminine ornaments as they do construction work...notice the ring here. Although the colors aren't quite as striking as in some other "Rosie the riveter"-ish photographs, superior compositional elements make it photographically worthy and the subject's ethnic background makes it encyclopedically non-redundant. This gets my vote, and I'm snapping my fingers for not having followed through on the urge to restore this myself. Prever edit 2, but either is okay. DurovaCharge!22:29, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I prefer the wider-field versions, but would support any. Remarkably good color-rendition for early Kodachrome. Very striking image, highly encyclopedic. As an aside, the discussion above is fascinating to this non-specialist. Cheers, Pete Tillman (talk) 05:54, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Clearly not unique. Many pictures illustrate the same topic better, and does not meet FP standards. EgraS (talk) 07:09, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original - The Wilmette House of Worship in Wilmette, Illinois is the largest and the oldest surviving Baháʼí House of Worship. The building was constructed between 1921 and 1953. Louis Bourgeois was the principal architect.
Regretful Oppose This is a great image with the subject well lit and focused but it fails to meet the size requirements which are there for a reason. victorrocha (talk) 10:39, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Too small. Why no larger version? I've had this discussion earlier today and apparently I'm not the only one who find this upload behavior disheartening. --Dschwen20:06, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry all. I did have a higher resolution version of this image (2048x1536), but some of my photos were accidentally deleted a year or so ago by some errant copy and pasting. Thanks for contacting me, however. Regards, -- Jeff3000 (talk) 22:27, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original - A reconstruction of Radio Venceremos, the Salvadoran guerrilla's clandestine radio
Reason
Using available light, an image of a reconstruction of Radio Venceremos, in the Museo de la Palabra y la Imagen, San Salvador. Some inevitable grain. Of historic and encyclopedic interest.
Comment People will probably say the image has a lot of noise, and the shadow on RHS cuts off the subject. You may need more light, maybe longer exposure with a tripod or other stabiliser, and an additional source of light to make sure the whole scene is covered. A camera with a larger sensor, such as a DSLR, will help reduce noise, but of course, you may have to live with what you've got. The composition is quite good, though, for a museum setting where you were probably cordoned off from the subject. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 16:53, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. To explain the shooting situation: the original Radio Venceremos was located in a cave, and so this reconstruction was set up in an unlit room with a curtain for a door. I had to hold open the curtain to let light in, to enable me to shoot without a flash. And I will have to live with what I've got, given I'm not about to be returning to El Salvador any time soon. Anyhow, I thought that the image was interesting enough to submit it here. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 16:57, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - unacceptably posterised and noisy. We can't promote pictures because they're 'pretty good for a point-and-shoot', sorry. You may want to put in a request somewhere on WP for anyone living in/going near El Salvador and who owns a good DSLR to re-take the pic. —Vanderdecken∴ ∫ξφ18:24, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The example is a very exaggerated case to illustrate the concept, but if you check your picture, it's clear that noise has flattened out a lot of the tonal subtlety. Thegreenj00:47, 9 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Posterisation is a compression effect. If fewer colours are used in an image, the image file can be smaller. The GIF format is particularly notable for trying to reduce the number of colours in an image to achieve a smaller size. That said, you'd be right to point out that Vanderdecken is contradicting himself a bit, because you're unlikely to get pixel-level noise and posterisation at the same time. While you may find that once you remove the noisy pixels, you're not left with many different colours in the image, it's not typically, technically, a posterisation effect. In this case, I'd say it's probably due to lighting conditions and the subject itself (there are some purple smears on the back wall - difficult to tell if that's an artefact or not - I'm tempted to think that there was *something* on the wall that came out purple in your image). Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 11:12, 9 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I meant that the low light conditions and the noise contributed to a pseudo-posterisation effect, particularly visible on the radio's front panel and the green thing leaning again the left wall - blobs of yellowy-green and purple that look like watercolour paint. I also realise that 'pretty good' wasn't the rationale, but I felt that some other people's possible reasons for supporting might include that argument, and I wanted to remind them that it doesn't hold here. —Vanderdecken∴ ∫ξφ19:15, 9 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Vanderdecken. Technically I think it is still posterisation, but as you say, not a typical example of it. What seems to have happened is that the underlying colour noise in the dark areas has been brightened, which exacerbates the noise by increasing the luminence range of it (essentially increasing the contrast). As a result, it is posterised but with speckles - not banding. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)12:03, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hopefully what you've learned isn't that its futile to nominate images and we're a nasty bunch of people to newcomers. ;-) We do have quite high standards though, and opposition to the nomination doesn't automatically mean it not is a valuable image for an article, so I hope you don't take them the wrong way! Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)13:40, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Alas, WP:BITE is ignore much of the time especially it seems when it comes to opposing FP's, there are ways to criticize and oppose the nomination of a photo for FPC without crossing the line into insulting the photographer and crossing a line which I think was crossed above. Cat-five - talk08:58, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Unacceptable grain and awkward composition. I realize that's it's a museum and that there are problems bringing expensive cameras to South America, but "This is the best that I can do" has never been sufficient. Sorry.--HereToHelp(talk to me)20:21, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Weak oppose. I don't agree with some of the comments above. I think the composition is fine, except for the fact that the computer (?) is obscured significantly. I think the photo has artistic merit, rather than being a typical encyclopaedic composition. It may well be the case that, as others have said, your camera will not produce Featured Picture material. Some of these smaller cameras do perform much better in bright, sunny conditions, but I couldn't say for your particular model. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 11:19, 9 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
NB FWIW the camera's a pretty high-end model of "point and shoot." I did in fact deliberately not purchase an SLR (though I had originally thought to do so) because I often travel in Latin America, and don't want to draw attention to my camera. Anyhow, I'll try again one of these days. Thanks to all for comments. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 12:10, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think they're rules so much as guidelines, but that said, the closer is likely to disregard it if it contains false or nonexistent rationale. You could always say "as above" or "per other opposes" but thats a bit of a cop-out unless its obvious. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)13:35, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but it doesn't prove you actually have your own valid opinion of the image. If it is ok to say "as above", then it really should be ok to provide no justification whatsoever. I think if you're prepared to vote, you should at least demonstate your own specific reason, however brief. I'm not saying you can't agree with above, but I do think you should specify it. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)19:37, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You have got to be kidding me. Sorry. Really nice restoration work, but the twenty-gazillionth American Civil War general to be featured. Go ahead, wave it through. I've voiced my sentiments on that subject before. --Dschwen22:18, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Also I wonder why you didn't use material from the right shot to fill in the spot on his lip. Your retouching made his lower lip bigger than it appears in the right frame. --Dschwen14:16, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The lip... please compare original and restoration this is easily fixed, but I don't want to meddle with your file. --Dschwen13:46, 9 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Okay; heading to bed. Will toy with that tomorrow and upload if I can make it an improvement (you're giving me so much lip about it). ;) DurovaCharge!07:12, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Support good restoration, good image (given era), quite notable subject. Sharpness is not great however given when the photo was taken, I would assume the softness is the result of the primitive photography of the time requiring long exposures. Capital photographer (talk) 02:29, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support good restoration, subject of atleast moderate interest (participation in civil war, baseball myths and Theosopical soceity membership) --Kalyan (talk) 04:28, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Weak oppose Many better FP pictures already exist of such generals, and the picture itself is certainly not up to FP technical standards. EgraS (talk) 07:11, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Is it not? E.g. Image:Tecumseh sherman.jpg doesn't look half as good, neither does Image:Ulysses Grant 1870-1880.jpg. (Obviously, that's not to say that Abner Doubleday is on the same level with those two wrt historical significance. But he sure is very notable, and combined with this quality restoration, I think the overall EV is fully sufficient.) Dorftrottel (troll) 12:41, May 8, 2008
Support. We just have to live with the fact that editors can't be told what they should work on - it's not like we're on a payroll! I'm sure that whoever schedules TPFs does their best to remedy systemic bias at that stage. As for this picture, you have to acknowledge that it meets the criteria (or nominate the article for deletion to establish non-notability, which will probably fail). Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 16:58, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Actually I'm doing my best to remedy systemic bias (if you look at my FP gallery you'll see). Some external factors do tend to be US-friendly. Namely, the best online archive I've found for high quality archival scans is the Library of Congress. U.S. copyright law also puts more material into the public domain than most other countries. I've been making efforts at Commons and at the Foundation level to clear some hurdles that would make it easier to counter systemic bias in image uploads, but that really gets too tangential to this FPC to discuss in detail here. DurovaCharge!19:05, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support A very nice and very well done restoration of an old photo and the number of previous Civil War General Photos (Union or Confederate) has no bearing and should have no bearing as to whether an image is made an FP or not. Cat-five - talk09:08, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per above sentiments, plus I question its EV. An interesting shot nonetheless. Almost looks faked. I don't know if a speedy close is warranted; I'm sure there are those would would give a great deal of weight to the power of the image (and presumably the difficulty of the shot) and give it passes on the technical shortcomings. Matt Deres (talk) 22:11, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose After examining the image, I am quite sure it is a digital manipulation with the lightning composited in. The small size is likely to reduce the likelyhood of people seeing the cloning work. The lighting and contrast makes it clear this is not an original single exposure image. Capital photographer (talk) 07:12, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The Picture is not a fake. When I took the photograph it was nearly impossible to take one without lightning. I have around 20 slides of the outburst with lightning. This one was the most picturesque. I agree with the comments about the qualitiy. I scanned the slide almost 6 Years ago and the qualitiy of the scanners were not as good as nowadays.--Spolloman (talk) 07:30, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Note: I speedy closed this more to avoid further inappropriate comments from voters and pile-on votes (as per WP:SNOW), rather than for the reasons given. It would serve well for some voters to either read or reread WP:BITE. Apologies to the nominator and photographer. Perhaps an improved scan is possible now? --jjron (talk) 08:34, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original - The FA Cup seen on the 12th May 2008 on the roof terrace at Portsmouths Spinnaker Tower
Reason
I think this is a good quality image of the FA Cup and I thought it would be suitable for Featured Picture status considering the FA Cup Final is on the 17th May.
Oppose tilted, distracting background, a little lacking in sharpness. A very nice snapshot, but still just a snapshot. Also, I found the reflections of the people a little distracting. Matt Deres (talk) 10:40, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original - Example of a threshold effect having been applied to an image.Composite by User:Nauticashades.
Reason
It's a nice example of how thresholding can be used to good effect. One may want to think about making a composite or hover-over with the original as an alternative.
Comment it seems a little pointless on its own. Your idea about a composite would be better, I think; either splitting the image in half (before and after) or duplicating the whole image vertically (top before, bottom after). Matt Deres (talk) 17:19, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose both. The source image has very poor technical quality, and given the ease with which an example like this can be created a better quality image should be used. Admittedly this isn't vital for the non-composite image, but the composite is much more informative. Time3000 (talk) 15:58, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. If it was done with a picture that had a little more color gradient in it, it would be a good example of thresholding. Clegs (talk) 19:18, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original - Burj Dubai's contsruction status on March 11, 2008.
Reason
The most noticeable feature of the towers' shadows, meets requirements, shows the contrast of Burj Dubai's height to other towers in the city. (This could be replaced when Burj Dubai has completed construction.)
Comment. Not sure what my opinion on it is yet. It is above minimum requirements but I feel like I want to see a bit more detail in it. Also, I don't think it would be necessary to replace it when it is finished, as I'm sure the construction of it is valid enough for its inclusion in the article and a FP. We don't really feature things that have a lifespan (evolution in minimum criteria notwithstanding), so it either is FP material or it isn't. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)10:28, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Just to avoid complications down the line, I don't think you can oppose an image on the basis of size if it meets the requirements, and you can't ask for "more detail", because a given resolution will only allow a certain amount of detail, so it goes back to the same criterion. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 15:44, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What nonsense - you can always ask for more detail, even if an image passes the minimum resolution requirement, since we're looking for the best images on the project. For a panorama of a city, detail is hardly an unreasonable request. Pstuart84Talk17:05, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You can ask for more detail, who says we have to settle for this resolution? It's only barely over the requirements. Someone has to retake the same scene at a higher resolution, simple as. And tee bee haytch, Diliff can ask for anything he likes around here. ;) —Vanderdecken∴ ∫ξφ09:22, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
He can ask but he may be told that it's unreasonable, and his opinion may be disregarded if it doesn't refer to the criteria. Same as anybody else btw. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 13:48, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The criteria is a guideline of minimum reasonable requirements. It doesn't mean you're not allowed to oppose it for any other reason just because it scrapes through. Ultimately we will make our own judgement based on the criteria. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)14:22, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - interesting photo, but although it meets the requirements on size, it still doesn't display enough detail for the type of photo it is. Very few digital cameras shoot at such a low resolution as this - has it been downsampled? If so, can we see the original? It's had all its Exif data stripped, so I assume it's been put through Photoshop's Save for Web function or equivalent, to try to reduce the filesize. As such, it's easily possible it was downsampled beforehand. —Vanderdecken∴ ∫ξφ09:22, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original - Rose-crowned Fruit-dove (Ptilinopus regina), a medium-sized dove of eastern Australia and Indonesia. This individual is approximately 20cm long.
Reason
This image provides excellent detail on feathers and colouring for this species; sharp and well-lit. Provided a quality image for a previously unillustrated article.
Strong oppose. Okay, let's be honest about this. I have a problem with the twig in the foreground slightly obscuring the tail, as well as DOF issues with the foreground foot being out of focus. I think this image has a number of flaws that would point to a reshoot as a more viable alternative. I thought I'd mention the contrast issue first, but in fact that problem helps to obscure the fact that the framing is bad - crop is too tight at the top, bird wants to leave picture. It's an image that's bound to trigger someone's delist knee-jerk, but really, I'm whole-heartedly opposing out of my own judgement here. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 19:09, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
weak support A couple of minor drawbacks (per Papa Lima Whiskey), but not enough for me to oppose. The contrast issue is more prominent in thumbnail than full size, I think. Matt Deres (talk) 23:37, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Weak oppose The blurry background is uncomfortable to look at, and it means the pic does not show anything of the habitat. Narayanese (talk) 10:55, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support. Knee jerk de-list? Doubt it. On the contrary, I think this is a very beautiful picture. The crop is just fine, and there are no contrast issues when viewed at full size. As for the bokeh, I think it only serves to emphasize the subject. Very good picture! Clegs (talk) 14:21, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Harsh lighting in the top half of the photo, and a leaf is blocking some of the fruit. In addition, the stalk of the plant appears to be somewhat blurry. SpencerT♦C18:33, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose The crop is too large with little content. While the Goalie is caught mid-action, he is too small in the frame to be of any interest. Lipton sale (talk) 23:41, 9 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose The fact that it is so busy makes it hard to tell the main focus of the shot (presumably the person taking the shot and/or the soccer (excuse me 99% of the world outside of America I mean Football [1]) ball, also the fans all wearing what I presume is the team color (red) in the background make it very distracting and even harder to easily find the subject at a glance which should be possible in such a photo. Cat-five - talk09:19, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"And now for something completely different": (editorial note) If anyone believes that me using a ref in a FPC nom is out of line please feel free to remove the reflist template and the ref tags around the article link in my comment. Cat-five - talk09:27, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Not sure how this passed at the Commons. No better than a snapshot that most people could take at a game, imo. crassic![talk]01:12, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose A lot of problems with the timing of this shot, the ball is mostly obscured, the crowd have not reacted yet, and the keeper has gone the wrong way so his being in mid dive is really meaningless. Buc (talk) 09:22, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original - Poster for United States National Park Service, showing a deer drinking from a stream in the forest. 1 print on board (poster): silkscreen, color.Edit 1 more sharpening
Comment - is it just me, or does the whole thing seem slightly out of focus? — BRIAN0918 • 2008-05-09 18:24Z
I downsampled and selectively sharpened this file. Didn't want to go too far and generate a grainy appearance. Think it could use one more tweak? DurovaCharge!18:27, 9 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support both Question: Is the yellow diagonal stuff supposed to be there, or is it just the aging (or something else)? SpencerT♦C18:37, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't look like aging or other post-printing discoloration (although it might be an accidental artifact of the production process). The deeper yellow region ends abruptly at the border of a different color, and doesn't reappear in the bottom right section of the same color.--ragesoss (talk) 20:18, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The yellow diagonal appeared to be artistic intention so I didn't alter it. Suggests stylized rays of sunlight through the trees. DurovaCharge!22:00, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support original. When I first looked, it seemed that some areas were noisy, but after reviewing the whole picture, I have to conclude that the "noise" is simply the fish's natural, uneven distribution of pigment. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 09:48, 9 May 2008 (UTC) oppose edit 1. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 09:24, 11 May 2008 (UTC) Was based on bad thumbnail that seems to be a caching problem. Looked like destructive editing. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 22:16, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes thank you Muhammad. I did of course mean #3, edit 1. And thanks jjron for acting like a fool, sparing me the embarrassment of having slightly incorrectly worded my support. ← κεηηε∂γ(shout at me)14:42, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, "slightly incorrectly worded" both supports if you want to be picky. My apologies for wanting votes to be correct and clear for the closers. :-) --jjron (talk) 14:02, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support original Oppose other Original is a nice encyclopedic shot that shows the whole fish and has very few tech problems. Other version has clear DOF issues.D-rew (talk) 16:14, 9 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support original although it would be better with some sense of scale, even if it's just in the caption. — BRIAN0918 • 2008-05-09 18:14Z
Support original Great, high quality photo. Plant in the background could be removed, but not a big deal. The alternate doesn't show the fish as well as I'd like. crassic![talk]02:42, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support Original Edit one I really like the high res detail and colour. Is it possible to eliminate the green thing at the bottom? SpencerT♦C18:40, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support Edit 1 the leaf is a distracting element to the original and since it was only a minor element it makes edit 1 a lot clearer with it out of the way. Cat-five - talk08:53, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original - Midnight sun panorama of Upernavik, a typical, minor Greenlandic town in the arctic circle. Upernavik (pop. 1140) is the only town in the enormous Upernavik district, which covers an area comparable to the United kingdom. With only 0.015 persons/km2, the district is one of the least populated areas of the world.Edit 1 by Jjron. Light improved in shadowy parts, noise reduced by downsampling to 1000 px high.Edit2 by Mfield. Same shadow lift as Edit1 but no downsample, instead NoiseNinja and selective resharpen to keep full size of Original.Edit3 for further processing by Slaunger. "Raw image". A restitch using the newest version of Hugin and fixing some soft spots in the original stitch. This 18MPixel image has been saved as JPG at a quality of 100% without any postprocessing. This edit should give much better possibilities for improvements by other image editors. 9051x2051 px as compared to Original 7720x1500 px.Edit 4 - (PP of the restitch - Edit 3) by Mfield - selective noise reduction, local contrast enhancement and sharpening. 9051x2051 px.
Reason
A highly detailed panorama from an unusual place, which is not easily accessible. The prefabricated wooden houses are exported from Denmark by ship, assembled and painted in bright colors. The panorama is a stitch of 21 images taken between 11:42 pm and 11:50 pm on August 8, 2007.
I prefer the Original or Edit4. Although both of these edits (as well as Edit 3) are darker and less colorfull than Edit 1 and 2, I think they better represent the real scenario as it was. Nomatter which edit gets promoted, if any, I'd like to thank jjron and Mfield for spending some of their precious time on trying to improve my image. -- Slaunger (talk) 19:37, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Support Weak Support Edit 1 - Support Edit 2 A nice scene. The image has an odd grain to it though, much like scanned 35mm film but could be JPEG compression noise. You can see it particularly in the sky and areas of shadow. User:Capital photographer|Capital photographer]] (talk) 09:04, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It looks like jpeg compression artifacts rather than film grain (blockiness & mild Posterization) but not really noticeable at 100% Thisglad (talk) 09:49, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Each photo is in jpg from a Canon DIGITAL IXUS 800 IS set to super-fine jpg quality. In the stitching process, tif is output. After doing all the editing steps in tif I have saved to jpeg at a quality of 92/100 in GIMP (default is 85). It is my experience that at this quality level there is no clearly visible jpeg articfacts in the image. The grain/noise you probably has two sources. 1. The original photos. 2. The curve adjustment i have made to bring in some more light and contrast in the image. Given the equipment I think it is quite close to optimal. I have had a 30 cm long print ordered, and in the print no noise is seen. IMO this is mainly a perceived on-screen thing when viewing in close to 100%. Had I applied NR more agressively, details would have been lost. -- Slaunger (talk) 09:50, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
JPEG compression (even at "super fine") is always present and visible, both as artifacts and the way JPEG compression degrades colour fidelity (compresses 12 or 14bit colour camera sensors capture to 8bit~). Nothing much can be done without ill effect in post-production to remove the artifacts and restore colour fidelity, but given most camera have a TIFF and or RAW option, it can be avoided. It is a very nice image and the stitching is very well done. ~12bit colour captures 4096 colours, 14bit captures over 14,000 (Source: Canon), so compressing to 8bit gives 300-600 possible colours depending on who you talk toCapital photographer (talk) 10:57, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
OK. Unfortunately, my camera does not allow me to save in tif or raw format, so here we are. I could probably benefit form better equipment. Unfortunately such equipment has an exccedingly low WAF. -- Slaunger (talk) 11:08, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
actually there is a hack for canon DIGIC II based cameras that allow them to save to RAW, but I would bet the benefits of raw vs jpeg are minimal. Thisglad (talk) 11:36, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Minimal? Raw can utilise the full 12bit colour (or 14bit on newer ones like the Canon 40D and Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III) the sensors can pick up so you get a larger gamut and smoother gradients. Also, it's not compressed so any subsequent saves will not result in repeated compression. Edit 1 improves it a lot, with very little artifacts in the housing area and noise reduced in the background. Anyway, because you had no choice but to use JPEG and Edit 1 is so good, I'll support. Capital photographer (talk) 11:47, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
for web display you have to convert to jpeg (sRGB) thus losing the benefit of the wider gamut of colors, raw does have a better dynamic range however Thisglad (talk) 12:58, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, saving a final output for the web does negate some of the advantages of using TIFF or RAW. Regardless of the final output, the more in the original image, the more software has to work with for editing. Taking an image in JPEG, the colours are thrown away immediately. The final output may have a limited gamut, but more colours in the original allows an editor to have better control over what is output to the limited gamut rather than accepting whatever the camera chose to keep. Capital photographer (talk) 13:20, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Echoing Cap Photographer's sentiments about RAW, I can tell you that there are definitely benefits to shooting in RAW, even if the end product is 8-bit JPEG. The end quality product is fundimentally dictated by the quality in which it is captured. Sure, if you have no intentions of editing an image after shooting it, perhaps JPEG will suffice, but as soon as you introduce ANY editing or processing, working from an 8-bit JPEG is inherently inferior. You argue that the wide gamut captured by RAW is lost when converting to SRGB. This is not true. The gamut is usually compressed but not lost as such. You still have the detail available in the RAW file, and you have control over how the colour is processed. For example, if you shot a JPEG of a very red image, if it exceeded the gamut range of sRGB, all red detail would be lost. If you shot it in RAW and were able to capture the red detail within the gamut of the RAW file, you would have the ability to compress the gamut while RETAINING the red detail, if you needed to. Similarly, you have slightly more dynamic range in a RAW file that you can selectively compress when processing the image, rather than losing it the instant the JPEG is created in the camera. Even Fir0002 was a vehement benefits-of-shooting-RAW denier until recently, when he saw the light. ;-) The benefits aren't obvious to a layman, but they are there if you know how to use them and you care about quality. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)13:34, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Also, Capital Photographer, I assume when you said "~12bit colour captures 4096 colours, 14bit captures over 14,000 (Source: Canon), so compressing to 8bit gives 300-600 possible colours depending on who you talk to" that you didn't mean 4096 colours, but rather 4096 colour values per channel. By logic, 8-bit colour means 256 values, not 300-600, so I'm a little confused by what you mean depending on who you talk to. I don't see how the answer could be anything else but mathematic in nature (ie 8 bit = 2 to the power of 8 = 256, 12 bit = 2 to the power of 12 = 4096, etc). Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)13:46, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Of course it depends on which of the 10 kinds of people you talk to, those who understand binary or those who don't ;-) --Dschwen15:57, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I did mean per channel. Most digital cameras are capable of 12bit capture (even if they can only output 8bit JPEG) which according to multiple sources including Canon will yield 4096 possible colour values per channel. Selected newer cameras will do 14bit resulting in over 16,000 possible values per channel. It is still being debated whether this increase actually means much despite the impressive jump in possible colours on paper. Most are agreed though that it does smooth colour graidents in an image. Comparing the shots from my old and now broken 350D to my 40D and 1Ds mkIII, I certainly see smoother gradients and more vivid colour range. Capital photographer (talk) 00:23, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
CommentJjron has been kind enough to provide an edit which has better light in the shadowy parts, and less noise as a consequence of downsampling to a pixel height of 1000 pixels. -- Slaunger (talk) 11:37, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support Edit 1, Weak Support Original. I don't really care about the camera or format used, this is a useful image of decent quality, and is from somewhere where we're probably not going to see many photos with this amount of information. Touches I like include the icebergs floating in the bay in contrast to the mainly rocky landscape, and the design of the buildings (though I'd prefer more info on the actual photo/setting in the image summary and less about how the pano was created). --jjron (talk) 13:27, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have added info about shutter speed (1/250 s) and aperture (5.5) in the image page (as well as a description of your edit and a link to the original). -- Slaunger (talk) 14:29, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment As I hate downsampling, I have added an edit inspired by Jjron's but that maintains the original size by tackling the noise problem with NoiseNinja instead. Selective reharpen instead of NoiseNinja USM to resharpen buildings without reintroducing noise into sky or causing haloing along horizon. Mfield (talk) 15:43, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thank your for taking your time to do this edit Mfield. I am quite impressed by what you have accomplished although the previously shadowy region at the RHS of the port is quite noisy in the edit. Overall, I still think it is an improvement though. -- Slaunger (talk) 16:08, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No problem, ideally NoiseNinja would need to be applied to your full size original version before it was cropped and and sharpened - and then this problem would go away. There's too many sharpens and saves this way. Mfield (talk) 16:17, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You are correct about this. The edit path for your edit is non-optimal. Is there any way I could send you the enblended and stitched tif file, which is produced by Hugin? The file is on another compter but as I recall it is about 100Megs. -- Slaunger (talk) 19:41, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You may want to try saving it as a png, so it will be compressed losslessly, perhaps enough so (under 20MB) that you can upload it to Commons. Even so, I doubt it will be significantly different from a jpeg with less compression; jpeg is an excellent format, and I find there to be little difference between it and RAW/TIFF unless the photo has significant technical problems, like white balance or exposure. Thegreenj00:27, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support original It's taken under the midnight sun, so fiddling with light levels is losing the plot a bit. Good enc and pattern and interesting detail as above. It should also go in the Midnight sun article because it illustrates the sort of place that gets midnight sun and would lift that article considerably. But I am a bit puzzled as to how you have got a picture from the future Motmit (talk) 08:29, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I gave up sending or uploading the original TIF file that came out of the box, it was too large. I noticed some soft spots in the original stitch and I have therefore done a new stitch based on the latest SW releases. I have saved this new "raw" output as an 18MP 100% quality JPEG (edit3, 12 MB) such that other editors have better base material for doing edits. -- Slaunger (talk) 22:20, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Here you go, Edit 4 added, I did the same NR and sharpening but no shadow lift as I think I prefer it without and there just isn't enough DR in the original to survive the operation nicely. Mfield (talk) 02:25, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, MField. Reviewers should note that the edit 3 restitch and the new edit by Mfield has a substantially larger pixel resolution, 9095x2051 pixels. The original, edit 1 and 2 looks brighter and more colorful. This is because of a general, global tonecurve adjustment and a tad added saturation in the original prior to downsampling to 7220x1500 px. -- Slaunger (talk) 06:03, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure I understand that. You oppose the Original for "unecessary downsampling", yet support Edit2, which is...an edit of the original? --jjron (talk) 08:24, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I was mostly opposing the extra downsampled Edit1, I think the Original and Edit2 size is acceptable, yet I prefer Edit2 over the Original. I will move all my support to Edit4 though as it's all got rather confusing with so many versions. Mfield (talk) 15:52, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Although I am aware that the decision of which (if any) candidate will be promoted is not merely a matter of vote counting, let at least me summarize the vote part of it for convenience to the closer
File:LMFBR schematics.svgOriginal - The fast breeder or fast breeder reactor (FBR) is a fast neutron reactor designed to breed fuel by producing more fissile material than it consumes.Edit - To address concerns.
Reason
Clear and informative picture. The world is now facing an energy crisis and fossil fuels are becoming global problem, so I want to attract attention to a new source of energy through which we can produce more clean energy than consume.
Ok, english is not my first language either, so take my corrections with a grain of salt. But more importantly the nomination text is pure soapboxing. May I suggest you rephrase so it points out why the image (as opposed to the topic) would be featureworthy, and how the image fulfills the FP criteria (and it does IMO). --Dschwen17:38, 9 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Diagram is pretty clear and readable. The rectangular border detracts from the image and isn't necessary, so I'd suggest removing. Also, the grey dashed line down the middle clashes with the text; consider adjusting its thickness or making it transparent under the text. Could have a little better detail in the components. Definitely should have a scale of measurement indicating something of the size of the unit. Is it as big as a house? Bigger? Smaller? Jeff Dahl (Talk • contribs) 00:19, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Jeff Dahl's concerns are good, but furthermore, I'm a little troubled by the steam and water being cut off. I assume that it goes to a turbine, much like a nuclear, coal, or gas plant. "(to turbine)" and "(from turbine)" labels would be nice.--HereToHelp(talk to me)01:51, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original true-tone high-dynamic range shot of adult Zebus in Pune,India
Reason
Image is highly encyclopedic, showing an adult Zebus found commonly in India. Cattles are major part of Agriculture in India and Hindu mythology. Picture is true-tone high-dynamic range shot. These are all done by taking the same shot with multiple exposures, combining the images, then tone-mapping the result. No distracting background.
Neutral I don't know what you mean by too dark, some places are almost washed out. Not useful? This is a good shot that shows the whole animal, and as such is very useful. Too generic? What would you like a cow to be doing, jumping through flaming hoops? This is a perfectly composed, highly encyclopedic image. The issues that keep me from supporting are the lack of sharpness over most of the cow, which appears to be a DOF issue, and the funny color graduation in the sky, going from dark blue, to light blue in a halo around the animal, and back to dark blue. Clegs (talk) 19:13, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I'd say there was a bit of artistic license involved, as I'm sure that vignetting isn't normal. It isn't evenly spread either. Might be due to the tone mapping or it might be a case of Photoshopping it in. It isn't a bad photo but neither is it an outstanding one. Its not that I'm calling it generic ( although generic is probably what we should want from a photo of a cow), but it takes up at most half of the frame, and I'd like to see it slightly more side on. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)20:11, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. HDR seems to be not only unnecessary, it also creates an unpleasing distracting vignetting effect. --Dschwen21:39, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
can someone suggest some method to improve this image? The image is original one if it little bit of work is needed please suggest. --gppande«talk»09:06, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think the first thing is to remove the vignetting, but that is very difficult and I still don't think it would make it a featured picture to be honest. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)10:11, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
3/4 support. This will differ between displays, but I can hardly make out the vignetting that other people are seeing. There seems to be a little bit of noise on the skin flap under the animal's neck. I also would have preferred a more lenient crop at the hooves - I have to go full size to be able to see that they are, in fact, fully in the frame. I shouldn't have to do that. All in all, while it's not a typical encyclopaedic picture, it will make a good eyecatcher on the front page.
Hardly see the vignetting!? The cow is in a brilliant glowing halo! And it's not something that needs to be corrected; it probably wasn't there in the first place, just a side effect of poor exposure combination. Thegreenj20:05, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original - The Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens, London, was built in 1872 in honour of Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria.
Reason
An extreme high resolution image of the south face of the monument, showing almost as much detail as you could want (I said almost!) on a clear, sunny day.
Comment - I feel bad about this, because I requested the picture following an expansion of the article, but is it not very slightly tilted? It looks very slightly off-kilter. I don't think the vertical lines are wrong, more the horizontal ones. More of the steps on the left are shown than on the right, and other things don't quite match up. Maybe it is some optical effect due to the placement of the shadows on the right? I apologise if I am imagining things. Could someone also explain to me the difference in tone of the colours with Image:Hyde Park Albert Memorial Jan 2006.jpg? Is that purely due to differences in lighting? I personally like the effect the bare trees had on either side in Image:Hyde Park Albert Memorial Jan 2006.jpg, but then that was January, and this picture was in early May. Maybe if it snows one year... :-) Carcharoth (talk) 06:46, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I suspect it could actually be the monument itself that is not exactly horizontal. Parts of the foundations ARE basically exactly vertical (such as the very bottom step) yet the pillar on the far left side (europe) is tilted slightly. I agree that there might be one or maybe two pixels of tilt across the entire image (this is virtually impossible to get exactly right and it is only through pixel peeping that we can see it at all), but this is a tilt of 0.017% from one edge to the other! As for the difference in tone, it is mainly due to the lighting. The other image was taken in the late afternoon, so it had a warm glow. It isn't really possible to replicate it in this image as warming the image up artificially would affect the colour of the sky negatively. Such is the price you pay for taking photos on a sunny day! Lighting is complicated, with compromises and trade offs no matter what time of day you shoot. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)11:59, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support - I've had a closer look, and I think I was imagining things. Possibly the shadows were affecting my perspective. Would still be interested in comments on the colours and the avenue effect of the trees in the other picture. Maybe both could be featured? :-) Carcharoth (talk) 11:48, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, well I had written the above reply before I saw this. You're right about the angle from the west side being slightly better, although then you don't get the frontal view showing Albert. I did shoot the same scene from the west side, but I haven't stitched it yet (assumed this one was better, but I can give it a go if you're not convinced). Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)11:59, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I predict we will end up with four featured pics, one from each side... (or can you have a set of featured pics?). I can't remember what the background of the other angles were. I know the view from the north has the Royal Albert Hall in the background, but what is there to the west in a view from the east? More trees? One more point - we talked about the shadows before - what do you think would be the optimum time of day and year for this sort of picture? Carcharoth (talk) 12:20, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Very well done mosaic photo. It looks very funny on a small scale from the detail the full res version has. Very well done. victorrocha (talk) 12:39, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. The appropriate article, of course, is Romalea guttata, but the current taxobox picture is very good and shows a single, whole specimen. There is a gallery at the bottom, but we should probably find a more prominent place to display this image. Are these grasshoppers mating? If so, it would be a good image for the "Reproduction" section of grasshopper.--ragesoss (talk) 20:13, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose A nice snapshot, but lacks the clarity of an FP. Also, doesn't show much of the animal and there's a lot of dead space in the pic. Matt Deres (talk) 00:18, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Weak supportDecent representation of a valley, though I'm sure this picture could be taken with better quality. The debris at the bottom is a little distracting, but maybe that's just me. crassic![talk]01:10, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Quality poor enough that I thought the background was painted. Also the stuff (or debris, as Crassic says) at the bottom is not good. SpencerT♦C01:27, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Low quality is visible even in the thumbnail--it looks like a painted background for a Hollywood musical. Clegs (talk) 20:19, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original - A statue of Lucifer in white marble, by Guillaume Geefs (Cathedral of St. Paul, Liège, Belgium)cropped
Reason
This picture is of good quality, as well as being a picture that contributes to the article it is placed in. The picture also has encyclopedic value. Overall, I believe that it would make a useful addition to Wikipedia Featured Pictures.
I think that the space on the left of the image adds to the general effect of the image. If you care to edit it, I would appreciate any changes. J.T Pearson (talk) 12:25, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Oppose Being that the subject has been digitally removed from its original context, I don't like that the bottom of it is cut off, which really caught my eye. Also per Muhammad, there's a lot of unneccessary space. SingCal16:33, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose If you're going to isolate it from its background, it needs a crop that shows the bottom and doesn't have so much nothing on the left side. Clegs (talk) 20:21, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Two questions: (1) what species is this? and (2) can you reupload the picture with a more descriptive filename? MER-C09:59, 18 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose When view full, the dark rose at from seems out of focus and somewhat grainy. Also, I don't like the blurry white flowers in the front by the right of the image. SpencerT♦C01:14, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
weak oppose the oversharpening on the head of the statue is presumably to compensate for lack of sharpness there caused by inadequate DOF, look how sharp the items on the railing are compared to everything else. They leap out of the image at you which feels a bit weird. It could use some perspective correction too. I'd support if these issues were addressed. Mfield (talk) 03:58, 19 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Weak support At first glance, it appears to be a large, sharp, well-composed image. However, the harsh lighting and over-sharpening on the head and upper torso, the (metaphorical) focal point of the image, is disconcerting.--HereToHelp(talk to me)01:12, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Though it's of good quality, it's taken from the side and the majority of it is cut off. Just not up to FP standards. crassic![talk]22:51, 18 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
weak support A very pretty picture, though the line of cloud is quite distracting. On the one hand, this is kind of an odd angle for a picture of a windmill; on the other, it's informative to see the back end of this style. You may want to try it at Commons as well. Matt Deres (talk) 02:56, 19 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Is there a higher resolution available? It would be better higher res (2 megapixels or more) and maybe cropped at the bottom Thisglad (talk) 03:13, 19 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
weak oppose if it was cropped tighter - lose the leaves on the left and some of the space at bottom and right to put the windmill on the lower right third then it would be much better. Then it would need to be higher resolution though too. Mfield (talk) 04:02, 19 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It would be a better image with a crop, but it will not improve it to the point that people will overlook the lack in resolution i think. Mfield (talk) 02:28, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Question Could you specify what parts you cloned out? I haven't looked at it with my graphics app (which would zoom properly), but I don't really see anything that looks cloned over, or that would need to be. Matt Deres (talk) 14:00, 18 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I think people tend to overcompensate with white objects in order to avoid the dreaded "blown highlights" oppose and end up with unappealing greys (as in this photo IMO). This is a white white flower and should appear as white as possible without actually blowing highlights. I've tried to address this in Edit 1 which has brightened the petals without blowing them (you can check the histogram if you don't believe me). Anyway weak oppose original and alternative due to: noise; harshly lit and distracting background; off whites and only mediocre sharpness. As a easily reproducible flower shot, it really has to be of exceptional quality to be worthy of being considered an FP. Neutral edit 1 of alt since it could only address some of these issues. --Fir000200:39, 19 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Fir, I withdrew the nomination which was including your edited version. If you would like to nominate the edited version to the new nomination, please do so. :) -- Laitche (talk) 20:15, 19 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose The image seem slightly tilted, the streaks on the floor add nothing to the photo, and the thing in the back seems out of focus. SpencerT♦C01:25, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support The image looks tilted, but as far as I can tell it isn't to any significant degree. Maybe the slanted bright areas on the floor create an illusion. This looks like it would have been hell to try to get proper DOF. Great job. Matt Deres (talk) 00:23, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support I think it is slightly tilted, and I suspect the streaks accentuate that. But that is not enough to detract from a fine shot that illustrates the article well and lifts it - swap it with the staircase shot. Motmit (talk) 20:11, 21 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original - A shell casing is ejected from an M4 Carbine as U.S. Army Pfc. Michael Freise fires the automatic rifle during a reflex firing exercise at the Rodriguez Live Fire Complex, Republic of Korea, on March 23, 2005.
Reason
The photograph is exceptionally-rendered at a high resolution, and the content of the image is directly related to the article-at-hand.
Oppose Is this WP:POINT? I don't know. But regardless, it fails to meet FP criteria 3: " Is among Wikipedia's best work." This took almost zero effort to make - it is therefore not among the best work which does take effort to produce. deBivort06:00, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Read into it what you want I won't confirm nor will I deny that it is trying to prove a point, incidentally the nominator's percieved motives while an interesting side note is not even broadly a valid reasons by the furthest stretches of the featured picture guidelines, including the parts that are broad enough where anyone can oppose for any reason based on a "judgement call", to oppose an image. Only Debivort and Capital actually have given valid criticisms of the nominated image which is what we're here to do. Cat-five - talk09:45, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support The level of detail is beyond what could be captured in a full-body shot of a rather large bird, justifying composition. (You couldn't have pointed the camera a little further down and got less space and more bird?)--HereToHelp(talk to me)01:21, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose The entire image is verry blurry. The lights in the background give of a bright glare, and that bush on the bottom is distracting. Not in any articles, either. JuliancoltonTropicalCyclone15:24, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose not FP material - massive camera shake (long exposure (30s) without a tripod, for some strange reason it was taken on ISO 100), out of focus, noisy, blown lights. Only satisfies criteria 2, 4, 5 and 6. Additionally, the nominator did not give a reason, caption or list of articles the image appears in, and the image page has no FPC tag - so it appears the nominator didn't read the nomination instructions or follow them all the way through. Not a brilliant indication of good intentions or effort in nominating an image. —Vanderdecken∴ ∫ξφ07:15, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Too small, tilt, composition and "gah". No article and no indication what exactly it might be encyclopaedic for. Train is not particularly well depicted, and station is obscured by train, all we see is a monotony of bins, benches, platform, roof and signs. Maybe the roof is interesting. But this is not a good picture of the roof specifically. Speedy close?Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 14:06, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original - The inflorescence of a Wild Carrot (Daucus carota) beginning to open. This type of inflorescence, where the flower stalks arise at the same point and all flowers appear at the same level is called a umbel.
Reason
A good quality and high resolution depiction of a umbel taken from a less usual angle, showing the flower stalks and giving a better perspective of the inflorescence's structure
Regretful, weak oppose This is an example of an unusual composition that still achieves top enc value, and I don't oppose it for that. However, nothing seems to be in focus. I think the problem is that you're trying to capture different parts of the flower which are (relatively) far away from one another.--HereToHelp(talk to me)20:18, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: The focus appears to be on the top of the stem. I like the image, but everything around the center point blurs a tad. --IdLoveOne (talk) 17:50, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Weak oppose Inadequate DOF - this would probably work really well as a 5 or 6 frame focus stack. Everything is nicely in layers front to back. Mfield (talk) 20:55, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Is this a good example of anything if you stand back from the purported 'personification of Wikipedia'?. I don't find anything about this to be FP material. Mfield (talk) 17:52, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Not encyclopedic, and if I did choose to make a personification of WP, it would not be in moe style. Add to that the fact that stating this is a "personification of WP" is totally up to personal interpretation, and likely OR, it all adds up to no FP. Clegs (talk) 20:48, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Quoting from that page, "images generally do not propose unpublished ideas or arguments, the core reason behind the NOR policy." this image does propose an unpublished idea: that this picture out of all others, is the personification of WP. Clegs (talk) 21:42, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not taking issue with the fact that it is user-created. I'm taking issue with the fact that a) this is a self-reference, and featuring them is usually frowned on, and b) I consider the assertion that this is a "moe personification of WP" to be OR.Clegs (talk) 21:18, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
1)this is not a self reference in the way WP:SELF means. 2)The argument being advanced in this case is that Moe anthropomorphism exists.Geni23:24, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support per previous discussions. It's a perfect illustration of the anthropomorphism. That it personifies WP is irrelevant. Attractive, illustrative, well done. deBivort03:09, 21 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Say this was promoted, how would this go up on the main page? We say, Here's the mascot for our manga wikiproject (?). SpencerT♦C11:05, 21 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
MERC, I imagine you know well that FPC is separate from POTD, we don't evaluate images based on their POTD viability. deBivort22:05, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose May be illustrative but far from unique or particularly impressive visually or technically. If this gets an FP, then a pic of Homer Simpson could. Capital photographer (talk) 10:45, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Copyright violations aside, he is correct in the principle. If we promote this cartoon character, we'll have to promote merely competent drawings of practically every other cartoon character. Clegs (talk) 17:43, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This is similar reasoning to say that we should promote one civil war general because it would mean potentially promoting many others. This reasoning has been generally rejected except for the caveat that spamming a single type of nomination reduces voting enthusiasm. So .. let's please evaluate this image based on the explicit FP criteria. deBivort22:05, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Bit of a grey area. Make a stunning image of a car, a public attraction or a brand name product an FP and it ends up advertising the product. So long as it meets FP criteria and is deserving of an FP, I don't see the harm if it inadvertently and unavoidably promoted a product. That said, such justification does not apply to this image. Capital photographer (talk) 08:12, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose mainly for the self-referencing. If the article was on Wikipe-tan, it would be fine, but we should avoid self-references whenever possible in non-Wikipedia-related articles. Would support if changed to some other subject. — BRIAN0918 • 2008-05-24 17:04Z
Oppose - I don't think this has much encyclopaedic value, so therefore no. |→ Spaully₪† 11:03, 25 May 2008 (GMT)
Original - The Indian Peafowl, Pavo cristatus, also known as the Common Peafowl or the Blue Peafowl, is one of the species of bird in the genus Pavo of the Phasianidaefamily known as peafowl. The Indian Peafowl is a resident breeder in the Indian subcontinent and has been introduced into many parts of the world and feral populations exist in many introduced regions. The peacock is the national bird of India.edit 1
Reason
clear enough to meets the FPC criteria and should be featured
Oppose all The lighting problem has not been fixed, the image has been oversharpened. Unfortunately, all the PP in the world isn't going to save this image. Mfield (talk) 15:01, 21 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original - The tiger (Panthera tigris) is a mammal of the Felidae family, the largest of four "big cats" in the genus Panthera. Native to much of eastern and southern Asia, the tiger is an apex predator and an obligate carnivore. Reaching up to 4 metres (13 feet) in total length and weighing up to 300 kilograms (660 pounds), the larger tiger subspecies are comparable in size to the biggest extinct felids. Aside from their great bulk and power, their most recognizable feature is the pattern of dark vertical stripes that overlays near-white to reddish-orange fur, with lighter underparts.
Reason
clear well focused and it meets the FPC criteria and should be featured.
Support-Excellent image showing facial details in closeup. Look at the clarity around eyes and mustaches. Good lighting and no special effects. --gppande«talk»08:38, 21 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose regretfully. I don't know what it is about this image, it's not out of focus, but it's not quite in focus either. Wish is was, 'cause it's a great pose. Clegs (talk) 17:51, 21 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Weak oppose, regretfully. Good lighting, good pose, and I have gotten over my distaste for head-only animal portraits. But the focus isn't quite up to the standards of other FP animal portraits: , , , for example.
Oppose It meets the requirements, but the resolution is STILL an issue. I would love to see this at higher resolution. Crassic! (talk) 22:20, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original - The Sukhoi Su-30 MKI (NATO reporting name Flanker-H) is a variant of the Sukhoi Su-30, jointly-developed by Russia's Sukhoi Corporation and India's Hindustan Aeronautics Limited for the Indian Air Force. It is a heavy class, long-range, multi-role, air superiority fighter and strike fighter. It is often considered by many to be the best multi role fighter aircraft in service anywhere in the world after F-22 Raptor.Reduced grain.
Reason
I thought it looked promising picture to be a featured picture and this image is in the public domain and meeting all the standards.
Oppose The shot is actually quite good visually, but technically, the noise is far beyond what is acceptable. Given the lighting, there seems no reson for there to be such noise. EXIF data says the image was taken as ISO100 yet noise suggests a setting of ISO 800 or more. A shame. Capital photographer (talk) 10:50, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Regretful Oppose The plane's alignment relative to the viewer is superb, but both are too grainy. The first is pretty obvious, and the edit still has too much. (look at the three objects coming out of the tailing edge of the plane's right wing) Thingg⊕⊗04:14, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original - The Great Wall of China, at Jinshanling, just outside Beijing. The wall snakes its way across mountainous terrain such as this for over 6000 km.
Reason
High resolution image of the landscape. Cropped effectively, and not too bright.
Oppose Poor lighting/time of day - near side is in too deep shadow whilst sky is blown. Also whole image suffers unsharpness/from bad jpeg compression. Mfield (talk) 02:26, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You will not be able to recover this one with PS. There's simply no fine detail present and there's not enough information in the shadows. It needs to be reshot with better lighting. Mfield (talk) 04:16, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough. For some reason the photo looks better in iPhoto on my computer - after uploading to wiki the colours don't seem as rich, and there is a blue hue. Suicup (talk) 04:20, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That's a color profile issue then - e.g. they will look different in Firefox compared to iPhoto or Safari on a Mac as Firefox doesn't support colorsync. Mfield (talk) 04:30, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose Aesthetically pleasing thumbnail ... BUT we're judging the full picture. It's just a poor quality picture. The hills on the right side are just ... BLAH. crassic![talk]02:29, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The Turkish Wikipedia may have much lower standards than the English WP, as they do not have nearly so many images or contributors. As for Commons, they usually have higher standards than we do - having looked at the Quality Images requirements page there, I feel it doesn't meet the criteria. I may nominate it for delisting there when I've found out how to do so. I've also corrected your links in that comment - they were broken. —Vanderdecken∴ ∫ξφ19:22, 21 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Very grainy and blown. As to that fact that it is featured elsewhere, that is why each wiki has its own approval process- what passed on the Commons may not pass here. Clegs (talk) 17:47, 21 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original - A red-necked wallaby, Macropus rufogriseus, joey in the pouch. The joey stays in the pouch for several months before starting to leave the pouch for small periods of time.Alt 1 Alternative that shows adultFor illustration, not for voting - image from "Pouch".
Reason
good quality, sharp, uncommon to get such a close-up of a wild mother like this.
Comment You know, that doesn't really make me think "Pouch" so much as "Alien". It might have been better to show a bit more of the mother. Still, Support, as the technical quality is very good. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 02:28, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Such a horrible image for something so cute. At first glimpse I thought it was being born! eek! How glad I am that its not... The elbow (or what i hope is an elbow) really ruins it. Also that dark thing in the top-right corner. Definately encyclopedic, but not a FP. ← κεηηε∂γ(shout at me)07:57, 21 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It being a 'horrible image' isn't a valid reason for an oppose. To quote Criteria 3"A featured picture is not always required to be aesthetically pleasing; it might be shocking, impressive, or just highly informative." And unless it's a horribly mutated wallaby that's not 'an elbow', it's obviously the hindleg, and while it may reduce the cute factor by being there, it adds to encyclopaedic value showing how they get in and out of the pouch, and the difficulty involved in so doing. And the 'dark thing' at top right is just as obviously the front paws of the mother, that's if you know anything about macropods. --jjron (talk) 08:13, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I am not opposing the image soley due to the fact it is not 'aesthetically pleasing'. As I say, the elbow and more the paws of the mother detract somewhat from the point of this image. ← κεηηε∂γ(talk)09:04, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Moreover, the 'point' of this image is the wee joey in the pouch. All we can see of this is a squashed face and its elbow, and the surroundings of its mother. Would you like me to go on? Or would you like to pick up on every other one of my votes? Hell, look at my contributions, im sure you can find more stuff in there to complain about. If you want to continue this 'conversation', message me on my talk page. This isn't really the place. ← κεηηε∂γ(talk)09:10, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'd say the point is not just the joey in the pouch, but the demonstration of how cramped the pouch is for the joey, and the difficulty in getting in and out (contrary to popular culture representations of this behaviour which are embedded in most people's minds, replete with spacious pouches and easy access for the joey). And did you even read my earlier comment - it is NOT an 'elbow', it's the hindleg. And if you are willing to make comments here you should be willing to stand by them, rather than making accusations of people that respond to them and point out where you have made errors. Perhaps Benjamint could clarify what the image is fully depicting since the description page and reason for nomination are pretty brief, and since I'm being vilified for commenting on his behalf. --jjron (talk) 14:25, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The reason I suggested taking it to the talk pages, is so that this page, which is only for voting on the picture, did not get cramped up with all this. But since you asked, I will reply here too. Fair enough, not an elbow, a hindleg, if thats what you believe it is, I am more than happy to take your word for it. Again, to stop this all getting out of hand on the vote page, i suggest you keep it to the talk pages. Im not even sure what you mean by "And if you are willing to make comments here you should be willing to stand by them, rather than making accusations of people that respond to them and point out where you have made errors." I am more than happy to stand by what i said. Just better for everyone if its not here. Still viewable by the public, but people coming here to vote will get caught up in this, no? ← κεηηε∂γ(talk)14:32, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I'm really struggling to understand what's going on in this photo - it could really do with more of the mother in shot. Pstuart84Talk17:03, 21 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. It would help if someone could make a case for the leg sticking out (maybe it's the typical posture of the juvenile in the pouch?) Otherwise, I'd have to agree with both kennedy and pstuart. I think the picture really needs a sense of scale and location. That seems to be what jjron is arguing for as well. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 15:31, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it's very common for legs to be sticking out of the pouch (it is a hind-leg) since the joey enters the pouch head first and can't easily turn around once it gets older. With a big joey like this one it is far more common to see it in a position like this with legs sticking out and sometimes even just the two legs poking out and no head. I have uploaded another shot, primarily for descriptive purposes for the original but I've also put it up as an alternative and improved the description on the image page. Benjamint01:58, 23 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support Different and attention-catching. Makes you stop and look and you realise it is not an alien but an animal looking very cosy. (That is why it has to be a close-up) Good detail to contrast with all the shots of nice-looking cuddly things in the article. It is not a picture where the composition is crucial although it is adequate. Motmit (talk) 16:13, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original - A Ladakhi woman in a traditional dress and hat.Edit 1 Noise removed.version 3: Full resolution, unedited.version 4:Edit of version 3 by Mfield
Reason
Beautifully lit and framed photo of a woman in traditional dress. Reminiscent of an Andrew Wyeth painting.
Oppose I was all ready to support this stunning portrait. I mean, look at the light and the subject and the ENC value. However, at full size, there is an unacceptable number of compression artifacts that muddle the image significantly. I hope it would be possible to get a less compressed version. -Fcb981(talk:contribs) 05:22, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose To be sure, the content of the image is worthy of an FP and the composition and lighting is good. However, the compression, making this image a tiny 85kb, is extremely detrimental to the quality of the image. Compression artifacts are visible throughout the image and cannot be fixed with software. A great shame because in other respects, it is a fine image. Capital photographer (talk) 07:31, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Not sure if anyone's in touch with the Creator, but it'd be great to get a higher-resolution version (sans compression) if possible. If not, the photo's so striking that I'm ready to support anyway on technique, EV, and rarity of photo ops. SingCal17:37, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Both Great pose, but there's artifacting, especially in the top right corner, and the blown windows on the R side are distracting. Clegs (talk) 20:39, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think at least Edit 1 could be removed since the sticking point was resolution and jpeg compression, not noise. Any further edits should be done from the original (version 3, that is), rather than the first nominated image. If we mention that the old images can be accessed via a link on the nomination, rather than showing the actual image, then I don't think it will cause confusion. Diliff | (Talk)(Contribs)19:46, 19 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - Add version 4 that's about the best that I can get out of it with more time I don't have to spare. Its a very noisy original, I unfortunately had to downsample slightly (you know how I hate that) to combat some of it but its still 1300x2000. Mfield (talk) 18:04, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I hope you're not becoming preoccupied by my interpretation of the size requirement, but essentially it's a minimum and just because a photo is above the minimum doesn't mean the size is suitable for the subject in question. Pstuart84Talk15:47, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Don't worry. There is ongoing debate about this. It ultimately comes down to this: if the de facto size requirement has changed, that should be reflected in the criteria. On the other hand though, we have to be careful not to base our size requirement on what the camera can do, but what is a sensible size that conveys all the pertinent information, e.g. do I need to be able to see individual hairs on the trunk of an elephant for it to be an FP? What about the fine structure of a person's clothing? Wouldn't it be nice to see that? And already, you've thrown out a whole load of historic images where we have no hope of obtaining a copy at the appropriate resolution because, well, history happens only once. Same for extinct animals or people, subjects no longer in public view, etc. etc. Any further raising of the bar will increase systemic bias. Does that make sense? Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 19:35, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original - The front view of the Nymphenburg Palace in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. This Baroque palace served as a summer residence for the rulers of Bavaria. Today, it is open to the public, but also continues to be a home and chancery for the head of the house of Wittelsbach, currently HRH Franz, Duke of Bavaria.Edit 1 - Crop.Edit 2 - Fixed tilt and brightened. (Latics (talk))Edit 3 - Higher quality of edit 2. (Latics (talk))
Reason
I saw this picture on Commons Featured Picture Candidates and thought it deserved a chance here. It is of high quality and of value to the article.
I'll do it myself tomorrow if I get time. Unless someone else wants to do it, I'll try to edit and have it up tomorrow afternoon. Latics (talk) 00:14, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Umm, this image is used only a gallery on Nymphenburg Palace, which would mean it doesn't really add value to the article. (I'm quite surprised everyone missed this.) Please find a better home for it. MER-C11:54, 19 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In my opinion, it is a far better image of the palace than any of the others in the article. I'm going to be bold and feature it more prominently. NauticaShades20:39, 19 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I also added it to a gallery of historical buildings of Bavaria. I doesn't add a lot of value to that article, but the palace should be mentioned there anyway. NauticaShades20:56, 19 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Edit 2 has very bad compression artefacts in the sky. Original has some weird gradations as well (scroll from left to right at full res and look at the sky change) --118.138.220.97 (talk) 23:20, 19 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
An icon of the Atomic Age. I recently uploaded a larger version, which is probably why this photo hasn't been nominated before. The New Mexico Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe has a print of this photo on permanent display, and I've spent a long time studying it there (and here). The WWI German helmet shape; the One-Eye Monster; Death, the Destroyer of Worlds.... An amazing photograph, taken under extraordinary conditions. Berlyn Brixner was the photographer, and some details are on his page. This edit is by User:Jjron, who helped clean up this historic image -- thanks, jjron.
Strongly Oppose The motion blur bothers me though. It is what defines the poor quality of the picture. I feel that the background is a little too distracting.-- mcshadyplTC00:07, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I'm okay with the background, but I do find the motion blur pretty distracting. When it comes to easily-replacable images, they really do have to be near perfect to be featured; while this is a good shot, it definitely has flaws. faithless(speak)01:40, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Weak support I think the background graininess is the problem--the motion blur of the subject is actually an asset. grenグレン02:15, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I don't mind that it looks a bit like a snapshot, after-all, a slightly rough look is appropriate for the subject. However, the composition is off, with the foot to close to the top of the frame and the person in the background on the left partially obscured by the performer. Capital photographer (talk) 06:32, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
A clear and sharp panorama that shows the high plains from afar which the other images on the Bogong page do not. It also did very well on Commons FPC and is featured there.
* Weak Oppose It seems a little artifacted to me, and there's some doubling on the stitch seam on the far right.NeutralClegs (talk) 03:44, 23 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Support. It looks very nice from the thumbnail and it is good quality, it's just not very impressive at full resolution. NauticaShades02:24, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original - The international biological hazard symbol, developed by the Dow Chemical company in 1960 for their containment products. All parts of the Biohazard sign can be drawn with a compass and ruler. The basic outline of the symbol is a plain trefoil, which is three circles overlapping each other equally like in a triple venn diagram with the overlapping parts erased.
Reason
This image is illistrative and infomrative, and enhances the encyclopdia by adding an element to Biohazard-related articles that can not be replaced by words alone. Since the symbol represents the entire biohazard field I decided to nominate it for featured status.
Oppose Though very enc. and informative, there's a reason why this page is called Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates. SpencerT♦C13:43, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support well done illustration of an encyclopedic symbol. Apparently holding illustrations to a slightly different standard than pictures when it comes to a need for complexity is beyond the scope of the opposition's views here. Cat-five - talk22:40, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It actually depends. These two here are iconic, however the constant exposure to them may have weened people away from the wow power they hold. This image, for example, covers such horrors as Biological Warfare, and represents an ongoing stuggle in society to to find cures for diseases who names we all know to well: AIDS, cancer, SARS, and so forth. Compared to my other svg FP here, these do lack a sense of wow at first, but if you stop to think about what each of the two symbols represents there lies your wow power. TomStar81 (Talk) 04:00, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think you've misinterpreted what the "wow" factor is about (which is not surprising since it's not an "official" criterion). The "wow" has almost nothing to do with what the picture represents and everything to do with how impressive the actual picture is; it's a shorthand term for a combination of detail, scope, brilliance, and clarity - it's the aspects of a really great picture that make you go "wow" when you see it. An SVG of the earth symbol has no wow factor; a high resolution composite photograph of the earth, however, will. Matt Deres (talk) 20:20, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original - The hammer and sickle is a part of communist symbolism and its usage indicates an association with Communism, Communist Party, or Communist state. It features a hammer superimposed on a sickle, or vice versa. The two tools are symbols of the industrial proletariat and the peasantry; placing them together symbolises the unity between industrial and agricultural workers.
Reason
This image adds greatly to the encyclopedia by showing what many people consider to be the symbol of communism everyhwere. As this is an svg formatted file, the size should not be objectionable, and as a historian in learning I feel that an image like this should be featured if only for the sake of the history behind the emblem.
Articles this image appears in
Communism, Hammer and sickle, and a lot of others that I am not going to add here becuase doing so would take forever.
Actually, if you're going to take that position, it should be just the opposite: let this run for all of the allotted time then cite it as an example of why such images aren't FPC material; otherwise, other contributers may write this off as "an exception" and not "the rule". TomStar81 (Talk) 04:28, 23 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per same rationale as that for national flags - easily replicated SVGs of simple geometric patterns are too run of the mill to be FPs. deBivort03:52, 23 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
By that rational you should oppose the nuclear blast image since it is essentially a circle on top of a line if the line was the top of a square in front of the circle thus cutting off the view of the bottom of the circle or a dozen other images that are essentially geometric shapes. Your logic is flawed in this case or you're only selectively applying such logic. Cat-five - talk22:44, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I can't follow your geometric description, but the difference is that these images are made geometrically (and simply) from scratch, and the nuclear blast image is a photo which happens to have geometric elements
Support if people can oppose this per above I guess I'll support this per my votes on the biohazard symbol however to reiterate it is a well done encyclopedic illustration of an encyclopedic symbol and it is not a photograph and should not be held as such. Cat-five - talk22:41, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm resisting the urge to nominate it now that you mention it because it would probably be construed as a WP:POINT violation but since it is ineligible for copyright as long as you got a larger image of it so that it fits the minimum guideliens I don't see why not. Nominated at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Flag of Libya, it is an encyclopedic illustration of a flag and is used in numerous articles, there are of course some size issues but I'll try to upload a new version later that takes care of that. Cat-five - talk03:01, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
On the topic of WP:POINT it's odd that you mention that especially since if I went down the list and opposed every non flag, non symbol, and non anime nomination I would be violating WP:POINT and be condemmed if not banned for it however when people are currently going down the line and opposing images that fit the above criteria just for those criteria they are exercising their right to "vote" their opinion. Gotta love how hypocritical Wikipedia and especially it seems FPC have become lately. Cat-five - talk03:17, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original - Monument to the Portuguese maritime discoveries (detail), LisbonEdit 1Edit 2 - to darken sky, lighten and LCE on statue, slight crop from bottom left to avoid clipped leg by Mfield
Oppose. That rotten leg sticking into the picture is... ew! Otoh, I'm not sure how harsh we'd want the lighting to be. Ultimately, for me everything rests on the subject being cut off, which is true of the other image as well. Is it a matter of perilously leaning out of a window to get the full picture? Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 15:15, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Just a nitpick on your comment: if anything this is the opposite of harsh lighting. Harsh lighting is when there is one single bright light source and very little fill light, like (to an extent) the other photo. This one is shot under an overcast sky and pretty much all of it are fill light, there are no distinctive shadows, and is pretty much as soft as you can get. --antilivedT | C | G00:16, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Weak support I have no problem with this only showing a detail of the monument; we've got a great look at the interesting part. I wish the sky had just a touch more colour to it, simply to make the picture more pleasant to look at it. I'm also, by the way, not too concerned with the cut off on the left, I just wonder if a slight crop, say over to the next vertical line between the blocks, would help matters. Matt Deres (talk) 02:31, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What about this new version, with a little more colour and contrast? Sorry, nothing can be done with the sky and the crop at left doesn't result very well -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 20:28, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Added Edit 2 to address some of complaints above - cropped tighter on left, darkened sky slightly and lightened statue whilst applying some local contrast enhancement to it. Mfield (talk) 21:54, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Original - Nelumbo nucifera is known by a number of common names, including blue lotus, Indian lotus, sacred lotus, bean of India, and sacred water-lily. Botanically, Nelumbo nucifera (Gaertn.) may also be referred to by its former names, Nelumbium speciosum (Wild.) or Nymphaea nelumbo. This plant is an aquatic perennial, but if its seeds are preserved under favorable circumstances, they may remain viable for many years. It is national flower of india.Edit 1 - croppedEdit 3 - from original, noise reduction on background, LCE on flower, crop by Mfield
Reason
Very beautiful and Crystal clear Quality Picture it meets all the FPC criteria and should be featured
Comment The photographer needs to clarify which of these images most resemble the actual flower with respect to colors. Edit 2 has a color balance shift that may be closer to reality but we don't know that. What was changed exactly and why? Mfield (talk) 15:40, 21 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I missed this one being underway. I've looked through my other photos of these flowers taken on the same day (like this one) and edit 2 is the wrong colours. Edit 1 is the closest to the actual flowers colours. From what I can see edit 2 has been created with the "auto-white-balance" option in photoshop and has not been kind to the flower. It's shifted the colours towards a blue cast that should not be present - Peripitus |(Talk)]] 02:44, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose all I'm surprised by all the support for this picture: The background is very noise, and the noise level robs sharpness throughout the rest of the image. Sharpness is really not very good for a flower picture. Light is cold, lacks contrast, lacks color depth. Composition is bland, background is distracting and awkward. There seems to be some tonal compression due to high noise level. DOF is too wide (BG is not OOF enough). Compare to: This, This, This, This. -Fcb981(talk:contribs) 17:08, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per Fcb - needs noise reduction in background - should be an easy task, but do it from the original camera file, please. --Janke | Talk20:10, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment There you go, new version Edit 3 added. I went back to the original, applied noise reduction to the background, some slight local contrast enhancement to the flower, and cropped to match Edit 2. Mfield (talk) 20:46, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Any of the versions. Very nice image. |→ Spaully₪† 11:08, 25 May 2008 (GMT)
And even if that wasn't the case the watermark (FWIW claiming it is copyrighted) would discount it anyway. Note that according to the Commons account, Spot Image and Spot Image Talk, this user is an employee of the Spot Image company and is legitimately sharing the images. Sharing them without the watermarking would be better. --jjron (talk) 13:03, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - way too small, not stunning, watermark, possible licensing issues. Nominator's motives may not be in the best interests of FPC. —Vanderdecken∴ ∫ξφ15:28, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Needs to be bigger, words in lower left are distracting, and I don't really know what I'm looking at...is the blue stuff just how the sand is, or is it water? I'd also like to note that it doesn't appear in any articles. SpencerT♦C21:05, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Watermark is very distracting and raises major questions about licensing issues. Hmmm, and the watermark is the same as the user's name. Attempt at self-promotion? Sorry, we aren't that blind here. Clegs (talk) 22:58, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]