Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Auguste Mayer's "Battle of Trafalgar"

Voting period is over. Please don't add any new votes. Voting period ends on 11 Jul 2010 at 01:42:29 (UTC)

 
Original - Multiple ships in combat.
 
1st Alternate - My own attempt to lighten the watery portion without losing the feeling or authenticity of the work itself. The colors are more realistic, reveal more detail and have more "pop."
Reason
Auguste Mayer was apparently a talented painter and this piece meets the qualifications, is noteworthy and eye catching, looks great small and large, was digitally transfered exceptionally well and I think is a great artistic depiction of a historic event and in that way has EV. I've seen perhaps four or so other paintings about this battle including two linked on this image, but I think this one is probably the highest quality.
Articles in which this image appears
Oil painting
Ship
History of the United Kingdom
Battle of Trafalgar
Painting
FP category for this image
Artwork/Paintings
Creator
Painted by Auguste Mayer, uploaded by Rama
  • Support as nominator --I′d※<3※Ɵɲɛ (talk) 01:42, 2 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Too dark sorry - can hardly tell without squinting any details of the ships below the sails... Will change if edit done to adjust levels... Gazhiley (talk) 08:45, 2 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • I have no problem with the darks and shadows in this pic, all clear and well detailed. Must be a case of different screen settings (I'm on a calibrated IPS LCD). Perhaps if the majority of users are viewing wikipedia on monitors that tend to reduce shadows to "can hardly tell" then there's a need for instructions how to handle it, say, a viewer that presents normal pics "a-la plain LCD". East of Borschov 03:48, 3 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose: I have reverted your addition to painting and oil painting- those articles are already very over-illustrated, and, having worked with editors on articles very like them (if not them, I don't remember) concerning images, I can assure you that every image is carefully chosen. Additionally, I am not wild about the EV in any of the uses. It's used nicely in history of the United Kingdom, but it is very much used decoratively. In Battle of Trafalgar and ship, it's just another picture. I would be inclined to say it could help out in the artist's article, where it shows a very different style of artwork to the one already there, but, though that would solve the EV issue for me, the fact remains that this reproduction is significantly smaller than the original. I would like to see more fine art FPs, but I don't think this one's "the one", sorry. J Milburn (talk) 11:51, 2 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ok, you got me, I did try to pad the number of articles this image is on, but for obvious reasons it's not hard to see why I would put it there. Might or might not withdraw my nomination of this, I mostly added it to test my FP-worthy-picking ability. Went through like 40 other VERY good pics, one was turned down before, and another already had been promoted. --I′d※<3※Ɵɲɛ (talk) 21:55, 2 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Quoting you: Too bad for you then. Please try to not take these things personally and react in that vein. Your post seems inappropriately combative and we don’t need that here. Greg L (talk) 22:14, 2 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I meant what's your problem with the image, which you could just have said in the first place, that's my problem - everyone else here has explained what there concerns are, but you're the only one who hasn't and is now apparently trying to draw me into a dispute, we don't need that here, so please stay to the topic at hand. --I′d※<3※Ɵɲɛ (talk) 22:18, 2 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • And I meant quoting you: Too bad for you then. We don’t need combative language like that here over FPC nominations. There are two topics at hand here: 1) your combative post, and 2) the picture. Instead of striking that part of your combative post, you whip out the ol’ Bat Mirror®©™ of righteous indignation over my rightfully and politely asked you to not personalize this (which you clearly did). As Gazhiley wrote above, it’s too dark. I find your “1st Alternate” (are more to come?) doesn’t solve the issue; there isn’t enough dark detail in the scan. Consequently the lightening done for “1st Alternate”, while bringing out some additional detail, also simply turns fields of murky black to fields of murky very-dark gray. Goodbye to you, sir; I don’t appreciate your conduct here and will have nothing more to do with you on this nomination. Greg L (talk) 22:29, 2 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Rather than rudely and trollishly hijacking my topic for a bunch of personal attacks on me, I'd suggest you bring your problems up with me HERE. Secondly, thanks for explanation about the image and please don't come back. --I′d※<3※Ɵɲɛ (talk) 22:41, 2 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The painting is 174 years old, the colors in the original look so grey because over time they've faded lost their luster and I only retouched this to give Gazhiley a nicer version, though I'm not too sure of my own refurbishing abilities and don't really feel I should. So it's greyed up a little, big deal, it's an old piece of art, it's stood the test of time and still deserves featuring. I didn't scan this, I did modified Rama's version on Paint.NET. I don't know if you've ever seen the ocean, for all I know you could've spent your whole life in northern Utah, but that murky gray is what deep ocean water looks like. I'm also not the only one to attempt to revive this image: [1][2][3][4]. People have different methods for making friends, but I'd prefer to friends with someone who is polite, not someone who raises anger. --I′d※<3※Ɵɲɛ (talk) 00:59, 3 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • You're working from a bad source image, the painting's quality isn't at question, it's the photograph of it. It's poor resolution. The whole phrase you can't polish a turd, comes into play here. I think your perceiving negative views on the picture as negative views of the painting, when that's not the case. If there was a better photograph to work with I'm sure it could be restored or even promoted. But with this source, it's not going to happen. — raeky (talk | edits) 01:10, 3 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sure it concerns me, you can't bully people to promote your pictures by trying to get opposers banned if they rub you the wrong way. Keep up that approach and you'll likely be the one on the wrong end of the ban stick. Tongue-in-cheek opposes like Greg L's or even far more harsh opposes are run of the mill here, if you want to keep participating in FPC/VPC you need to learn to take criticism and rejection of your ideas/promotions. The whole purpose of this part of Wikipedia is to judge the merits of pictures on both fairly strict technical grounds and educational grounds. I mean look at some of TonyTheTiger‎'s nominations, hes not resorted to ANI's and trying to get us banned, and I'm sure he's wanted to ring my neck on many occasions for my comments. He's a respectable well trusted member of the WP community and knows where the limits are. I'm happy to work with him but I'm not going to withhold my opinion on his nominations. — raeky (talk | edits) 01:06, 3 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, if it did concern you I wouldn't listed you along with him. I don't care what kind of "social hierarchy" you imagine here, but no users are higher than anyone else and neither I nor my vote is worth less than anyone else's, there is no caste system here! Just because someone has more listings of feature-picture candidate edits under their contributions doesn't mean I'm not allowed to disagree with them, and that is not going to get me a banning. I don't mind someone disagreeing, but, call me crazy, I follow WP's behavior guidelines. I've disliked images, but like Gazhiley and Elen I can keep my objections to the facts and let them speak for themselves. If they don't like people disagreeing with them than they should probably avoid me. Anyway, this is a whole major policy/philosophy discussion that's robbing the image of attention, doesn't belong here and we're not going to agree anyway. --I′d※<3※Ɵɲɛ (talk) 01:24, 3 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment You're not going to be able to fix this by photoshopping it. My guess is that the original picture fills an end wall somewhere (paintings of sea battles tend to the outsize) - to get the image sharp enough to see it has to be much bigger than the average screen (and larger than 135k). And the painting itself may benefit from a clean.--Elen of the Roads (talk) 00:42, 3 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • WithdrawnYou might be right and also THANK YOU for a good example of an oppose, some people here could learn a thing or two from you. I still feel like the image isn't getting fair consideration, but it's clearly not gonna get its due. It might not be featurable but it deserves a heck of a lot more respect than it's gotten here. --I′d※<3※Ɵɲɛ (talk) 01:24, 3 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: Frankly, I think the opposes are a bit mad: This seems entirely in line to how naval battals appear in art, with a lot of dark tones. The edit is completely out of line with artistic convention or natural colouring. Further, many of the opposes appear to be based solely on the thumbnail: at even a slight zoom in, the details people are complaining they cannot see are perfectly visible. Adam Cuerden (talk) 01:38, 3 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, there is still detail to be seen in the dark areas. I can’t speak for the others, but I certainly zoomed all the way in before voting. The image is still far too dark for me and there clearly isn’t enough dark information to work with in Photoshop. IMO, this image comes up well short of what I would consider “a high technical standard” required of FPCs. I strongly suspect the others here who found the picture too dark also fully zoomed in as well; it’s only too easy to zoom and that much effort is pretty much expected of anyone who is going to be weighing in with an opinion here. Besides, most anyone with much experience here feels that voting and expressing the underlying reasoning for their vote is an exercise akin to writing in a peer-reviewed paper: no one likes being odd-man-out just because they didn’t bother to actually inspect what is under consideration and instead based their decision off of a 250-pixel thumbnail.

    Oh… I also can not speak authoritatively to the issue of whether raeky, J Milburn, and Gazhiley are “a bit mad” and whether that shortcoming underlies their opinions that are somehow at odds with yours, but according to my 26 other personalities, “I’m” certainly not mad, and my multiple personalities are in the best position to know! So you and I might just have to agree to disagree and it might be best that you didn’t openly posit that those who disagree with you didn’t take the time to inspect the zoomed image like you did, or how others here might be a bit… uhmm… ‘off.’ Of course, if, by “mad,” you meant “angry,” then I again can’t vouch for all the others, but my tongue-in-cheek comment was certainly posted without malice towards anyone and I note that Gazhiley’s (“Too dark sorry”) doesn’t read as angry either. In fact, I suggest that all those who opined that this image does not rise to the level required of FPC candidates deserve a presumption that their opinions were based on the merits of the image and were not based on a lack of due diligence and anger and/or ‘nuttyness.’ Either way, (mad=nuts or mad=angry), I don’t think that’s the case. Greg L (talk) 03:58, 3 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Just to add, I zoomed, and I fiddled around with the settings on my monitor to see what I could bring out, before I made my comment (I know I didn't actually !vote, but I wouldn't have said it was good enough for featured picture, because that depends on both the subject and the image quality)Elen of the Roads (talk) 09:32, 3 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • My oppose was not based on the colours- not being an expert in art history, I wouldn't want to guess whether the colours were right. I wasn't convinced about EV in the placements, and, even more so, I am concerned that this is nowhere near the size/quality of the original. J Milburn (talk) 11:43, 3 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support to Original version, Beautiful illustration, good representation of a naval battle nice detail Sebastian 21:44, 4 July 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tian2992 (talkcontribs)
  • Oppose. For me, the main problem is that the quality of the photograph itself isn't up to par. The painting is fantastic and a detailed representation of naval warfare, but the scan has lines driving down the center and both far sides (perhaps tape from a slide in a book?) that cause some colour change, which bothers me. If a better scan--or bigger scan, for those who have a problem with the water detail--can be found, the image's quality and use would benefit greatly. Amphy (talk) 04:52, 5 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Can I just draw people back to the EV here? In which article are people feeling there is high enough EV? J Milburn (talk) 11:29, 6 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Not promoted --Makeemlighter (talk) 05:18, 8 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]