Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Mount St. Helens

Mount St. Helens

Original

Edit1 by jjron. Removed dirt from scanned image, sharpened, downsized, and noise reduction.

Reason: Striking image. It needs a little cleanup (there are hairs and debris on the scanned image), but I think the image is pretty spectactular.
Proposed caption: Plumes of steam, gas, and ash often occur at Mount St. Helens. On clear days they can be seen from Portland, Oregon, 50 miles (81 kilometers) to the south. The plume photographed here rose nearly 3000 feet (1000 meters) above the volcano's rim. The view is from Harrys Ridge, five miles (8 kilometers) north of the mountain. (May 19, 1982, by Lyn Topinka, USGS)
Articles this image appears in: Mount St. Helens
Creator: Lyn Topinka, USGS (so it's PD)

Support as nominator Spikebrennan 13:24, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support Edit 1 per nom.--Mbz1 14:20, 24 September 2007 (UTC)Mbz1[reply]
Oppose There's a piece of lint on it, it's blurry, and the colors seem faded. This was taken in 1984, four years after the eruption, and it doesn't look much different then to now. If this had been "pre-eruption", it might have more interest. A better picture can be taken! Puddyglum 15:55, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per Puddy. Actually, the lava cone is much higher now, about halfway to the rim I believe, so it neither illustrates the mountain now, or in the past. Debivort 18:20, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. It's a nice shot, but there are plenty of photographs that are equal if not better on Flickr (maybe could ask one of the owners of a 2.0 license to change to 2.5); this shows that it's fairly easy to get a good photo of the mountain, even releasing a plume (though I haven't found one quite as dramatic). I would make an exception for a shot of the 1984 eruption, but not an "anytime" photo. --Dhartung | Talk 02:56, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose; this picture is heavily fragmented and I can see some black spots surrounding the smoke column, and as per Puddy's comment, since this is a post-eruption image and not a pre-eruption one, somebody could just go down to Mount St. Helens right now, take a higher-quality, higher-detail picture of it and upload it onto Commons or here. -- Altiris Helios Exeunt 09:36, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- On the other hand, it is no longer possible to take a picture of what the mountain looked like _in 1982_. Spikebrennan 16:52, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - I oppose from an opinion that pictures of St Helens from 1982 don't hold much interest. 1980: Puddyglum 19:45, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Edit1 uploaded. --jjron 07:45, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Weak Support Edit1. I really like this picture, but am struggling to get it high enough quality even with the edit. Nonetheless, I think the edit is a significant improvement on the original. --jjron 07:46, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. The original is fuzzy, the edit suffers jpg artefacts. - Mgm|^(talk) 10:30, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- FWIW, what appeared to be significant jpeg artifacts in the original (though it could have come about through the scanning process instead) have in fact been greatly improved in the edit. --jjron 07:29, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support Edit 1 by jjron. Debivort, of course this photograph shows what it looked like at some time in the past; this is what it looked like in 1982! I wish it hadn't been downsampled (or not as much), but with the dust and all removed, I love this shot. I think it's compositionally excellent, getting a steam plume with a beautiful blue sky background. Enuja (talk) 20:58, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not promoted MER-C 01:57, 1 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]