Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Mulberry Street (Manhattan)

Voting period is over. Please don't add any new votes. Voting period ends on 14 Sep 2015 at 23:57:58 (UTC)

 
Original – A c. 1900 view of Mulberry Street. It is a principal thoroughfare in Manhattan in New York City. It is heavily associated with Italian-American culture and history and is often considered the heart of Manhattan's Little Italy.
 
CURRENTLY FEATURED VERSION (not used)
Reason
High quality. Nice historical view.
Articles in which this image appears
Mulberry Street (Manhattan) +2
FP category for this image
Wikipedia:Featured pictures/Places/Urban
Creator
Detroit Publishing Company
D&R--Godot13 (talk) 19:15, 7 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment The retouching probably went a bit too far compared to LoC's original where colors are more vibrant (since it's a color film I assume the colors are the real ones). The faces, for example, are pale and whitened akin to geishas. Brandmeistertalk 13:18, 5 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    It isn't colour film, is it? I was sure this was a hand-coloured black-and-white image which is why the palette and grading is so limited and half the people and objects are still in monochrome. Admittedly the LOC seem to be claiming that this is colour film but surely they have their heads up a place their heads shouldn't be. Whether the colours need adjusting is another question; I'd say probably not as stupid unrealistic colours are part of the glory of hand-colouring. Belle (talk) 23:14, 5 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

* Support – For historical EV, human detail. History may seem dry to some, but it's good to remember that real people went before us. (I like the lineup of eight kids near the vegetable cart. And who's that dude in the vest on the balcony?) Sca (talk) 14:16, 5 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comment – No opinion re D&R. Sca (talk) 13:20, 7 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The original photo seems to be a b&w, only colored later. --Tremonist (talk) 14:14, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Tremonist: But, compared even to the LoC original, the suggested version has significant degredation and has lost a huge amount of detail due to overprocessing. Adam Cuerden (talk) 14:27, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Oh yes, thank you, Adam. It's clearly overprocessed, I agree. I'm wondering why this hasn't been pointed out earlier... No, the new version can't be accepted in its current form. No replacement until the suggested version has undergone significant changes. --Tremonist (talk) 14:41, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hold on... You need to be more specific than that it needs 'significant changes'. You need to say what changes it needs. Also, can you explain what you mean @Adam Cuerden:? Could you be specific about which image you're referring to when you say 'compared to the LoC original'? I haven't looked into it deeply as there are simply too many versions floating around here and on the LoC site. I've only directly compared the two versions thumbnailed here, and there's not a significant difference in colour between them. The only major difference I see is the tilt, resolution and contrast. Other than that they seem largely identical. What I would say, if I was being picky, is that there seems to be some interesting artefacts in the 'original' nominated image that I generally only see when an image has been upsampled using algorithms that attempt to preserve details (ie the Photoshop CC 'preserve details' resampling and a number of others). The telltale signs of this are areas that have unnaturally smooth and sharp lines and seem a bit 'hollow' and lacking texture (the algorithm attempts to guess the path of object edges and lines but doesn't have the necessary information to preserve texture while upscaling and leaves it overly smooth). Some examples of it in this image is the rear of the second-from-right horse and cart, the belt of the man just below and to the left of it with the red cloth over his shoulder, and the green shutters just above the lamp post on the right side of the image. But anyway, that's beside the point as I'm pretty sure it's unrelated to the issue you mention above. I'm curious about what is so wrong about the colours in this proposed image compared to the current featured version. I suspect it's just the higher contrast that makes some of the colours appear more saturated than they actually are. They otherwise look pretty similar to me. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 15:58, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

 

  • Left: The image proposed
  • Right: Library of Congress Original TIFF

@Diliff, Crisco 1492, Godot13, Belle, Brandmeister, Tremonist, and Dusty777: Think this makes it clear. There's a ton of detail thrown away by the bad colour adjustment. I've also uploaded File:Detroit Publishing Co. - Mulberry Street, New York City (1900) - Original.tif - the actual original Library of Congress image. Adam Cuerden (talk) 17:36, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This is a common issue with Trialsanderrors, I fear - their colour adjustments can what is otherwise excellent work, and sometimes can't be recovered from. Once detail's lost, there's no way to put it back. Adam Cuerden (talk) 17:51, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  • OK, agreed. I suppose at the very least I think we should suspend the nomination. I think we all agree that there's potential in the LoC original file to replace the current FP - whether we promote the file now and someone (Adam?) volunteers to give it a better restoration without the loss of fidelity to improve it further, or we close the nomination as a fail and renominate a new image later, I think it's fairly clear that we should be able to delist and replace the current FP and the question that remains is what process do we follow to get the best result? Ðiliff «» (Talk) 17:59, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Oh dear.... When looking the pictures over, I was under the impression the over saturated one was the current FP, and the other was the new... I think a speedy close should be in order. It's obvious the nomination is just a mess at this point. Dusty777 00:03, 9 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I'll do a restoration. It's just... not a quick one if you're doing it right. Lots of specks. Adam Cuerden (talk) 00:48, 10 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Not Promoted --Armbrust The Homunculus 02:48, 15 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]