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Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/National Press Monument 2

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National Press Monument 2

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Voting period is over. Please don't add any new votes. Voting period ends on 9 Jan 2014 at 23:43:05 (UTC)

 
Original – The National Press Monument (Indonesian: Monumen Pers Nasional) is a monument and museum to the national Indonesian press. It is located in Surakarta, Central Java.
 
Edit 1 by nagualdesign (talk) ...On reflection, this is still a bit distorted.
 
Edit 2 by Diliff. Using Crisco's RAW files, I've reprocessed the image from scratch and re-stitched it. Improvement in the following areas: Sharpness, contrast in sky, noise, chromatic aberrations and corrected vertical lines in rectilinear projection
Reason
Since the last FAC, I've restitched the image to keep the building straight. Distortion has been fairly minimal, I think, so the main issue with the last nomination was taken care of. I couldn't go any further back to get everything in one frame, as I had my back against this thing. The building is on a corner, so the kerb is curved a bit in real life.
Articles in which this image appears
National Press Monument
FP category for this image
Wikipedia:Featured pictures/Places/Architecture
Creator
Chris Woodrich
  • Support as nominator -- — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:43, 27 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment It is housed in a building designed in 1918 by Mas Abu Kasan Atmodirono. This is essential information. Amandajm (talk) 05:34, 29 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. You've kept the horizontal lines straight, but the vertical lines are leaning inwards, as the edit (partially) corrects. It would be better to do this from the original files rather than as an edit of your image though. Do you know how to correct this? Ðiliff «» (Talk) 17:18, 29 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • I edited to try and fix that, but I am not sure how to fix the lampposts/other curved structures. I'll give it another shot, but if you (or anyone interested) could do it, that would be much appreciated. Raw files are here 1, 2, 3. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:49, 29 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • I've uploaded a new panorama using the RAW files you provided. I think it's an improvement in all areas. As I had to work from scratch and needed to re-process your RAW files using Lightroom, I took a few liberties... Hope you don't mind. The one potentially controversial change is a slightly more contrasty/darkened sky. I reduced the brightness of the blues in the sky and reduced the brightness of highlights which has the effect of making the sky more contrasty. If you don't like the change, I can reprocess easily enough and upload over the tope of the file without this change. All other changes I made are fairly straight-forward improvements like removing some chromatic aberrations on the edges of the frame (notably on the pole on the far right side of the frame). Finally, the obvious point of the edit was to correct the vertical lines. It was slightly tricky because I don't think the building is perfectly straight, nor are the poles, so this was a best-guess as long, straight, known vertical lines were hard to come by. As for how it was done, I can explain in more detail if you need. Long story short, I shifted the centre point downwards which has the effect of 'splaying' the top of the frame. This makes everything 'tilt' outwards and lines that previously tilted inwards (eg the poles and vertical walls) begin to stand straighter. Try it yourself and see the effect it has. That's what you need to do to correct the vertical lines. To get it precise takes some patience though, and you can't always see if everything is straight in the 'preview window' so you need to stitch and modify numerous times before you get it exactly right. Anyway, let me know what you think. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 12:40, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • That is... fantastic. Thank you. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:43, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
          • Question though: is there a way to rotate an image in PTGui without changing the axis or anything? (i.e. get a horizontal line first, then play with the 'tilt')? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:49, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
            • Well, any change you make to the projection/rotation occurs 'around the centre point' which I was talking about earlier - it's the fundamental starting point for the panorama, so it's best to set that first before making any other changes such as rotation. You can still of course change the centre point later if you find that it's not correct (sometimes you only notice after you make other changes and realise that things are not lining up precisely), but then other adjustments might have to be made again to fine tune it for that centre point. The centre point should usually stay in the same place no matter what projection you choose to use though because as I said, that point is fundamental to telling PTGui where the horizon is so it knows how to stretch the image to correct distortions that you created when you tilted the camera upwards or downwards while taking the photos. An interesting thing to note is that if you did manage to take the photos with the centre of the frame exactly on the horizon (it's not needed for a successful panorama however), PTGui would need no additional changes to the centre point - at least, not on the vertical axis - because it would already be set correctly by default. So really what you're doing is telling PTGui how much of an offset is required to correct for distortion on the horizontal and vertical axes introduced when you tilted the camera away from the horizontal axis. I'm not sure if I'm making any sense or just confusing you further. Really, the best way to understand is to experiment by setting the centre point at different positions and seeing how it affects the projection. It will start to make more sense once you've played around. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 13:26, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Edit 2. Slightly messy composition but couldn't be helped. We need more of this kind of high quality imagery from this part of the world. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 16:59, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Edit 2. The left hand side of my edit is stretched (see the bicycle wheels). You did a decent job with a difficult subject there, Ðiliff. Maybe if you paste the original lamp post top over the current distorted one it would look better though. Regards, nagualdesign (talk) 20:54, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks. Actually, the lamp post was already 'distorted' like that in Crisco's original RAW files. It has been slightly exaggerated by correcting the perspective, but it was never 'straight' as your edit shows it. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 12:40, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I realize that the lamp post looks distorted in the raw files, but isn't the idea here to reduce distortion, rather than adding to it? Unless you believe (or wish readers to believe) that the real lamp post is skewed like that, of course.   Happy New Year! nagualdesign (talk) 23:58, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • From the position in which the picture was taken, reducing the distortion on the lamppost would (as far as I understand the process) mean distorting the actual monument. This and this, for instance, show (to me) how the lamppost juts out quite a bit in an upside-down L shape (on a side note: our photograph appears to be better than anything the museum itself has on its website). — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:23, 1 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps you misunderstood what I was suggesting. There's no need to affect the whole image just to fix one little bit. And I realize what shape the post is, I just don't believe that one of the bulb housings should appear vastly higher than the other, or be smeared out like that. It's a very noticeable flaw in an otherwise solid image, which can be fixed. nagualdesign (talk) 02:26, 1 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
No need to apologize. nagualdesign (talk) 03:27, 1 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
But if the lamp post looks like that in the original RAW files then it hasn't been introduced by panoramic projection - that's how it looks from the POV of the observer. It isn't distorted in any geometric sense, it's just how it is. To 'correct' it means distorting reality in order to make it appear more normal. It might be aesthetically off-putting, but reality often is. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 15:38, 1 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
No, it's distorted because it was shot using the extreme wide angle (18mm) end of a (kit?) lens and, as you said yourself, it's been slightly exaggerated by correcting the perspective of the rest of the photo. Take a close look at the other images Chris linked to (this and this). It's fair to say that one bulb housing might be slightly higher than the other. Now take a close look at your own edit. Do you honestly believe that the real bulb housings are parallelogrammed (if that's a word) like that? Or that one is bigger than the other, even though they were likely manufactured in the exact same process? And since when did aesthetic considerations count for naught around here?! It looks silly, and that's a fact. Look closer and you can see it is silly. Should it be silly? Hell no! So pretty please, with sugar on top, edit the f***ing photo.   ..By the way, I didn't distort the lamppost in my edit to get it level. I just cut it out of the original image and rotated it until the main post was vertical, and hey presto! the tops were level. nagualdesign (talk) 18:44, 1 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It has nothing to do with the focal length of the lens or any camera-induced distortion - it has everything to do with the point of view of the observer and the consequences of rectilinear perspective. Let me explain why: the reason why it looks balanced in the photos you and Chris linked to is because you're looking at it from much further away. You can see clearly in those images that the two lamps are not facing parallel with the facade of the building, they are rotated inwards slightly, roughly facing the monument across the street from the building. As Chris was quite close to the building, this rotation meant that the difference in distance to each lamp was larger - in other words, the closer you get to the lamp, the greater the apparent disparity. The left one was closer than the right one. As they were of equal height, this has the effect of making the left lamp appear higher. The closer they are to the camera, the more objects above or below the camera's horizontal plane diverge from the plane. That's Perspective 101. I know it looks slightly silly, but what you're requesting is for us to selectively turn a blind eye to perspective in order to make something look more aesthetic and I disagree with doing so. I know the lamp post is largely irrelevant to the subject, but I don't see the problem with leaving it like that, as it's the true representation of the lamp posts in rectilinear perspective, the same perspective that preserves straight lines in the building. Anyway, I've said enough. If you want to edit it, you're welcome to. I suggest you upload it as a derivative over the top of your previous edit rather than mine however. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 19:26, 1 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
You're teaching your grandmother to suck eggs, frankly. Since nobody else appears to be irked by this I'll just agree to disagree (well, apart from us agreeing that it does look silly) and leave it at that. You can lead a horse to water... All the best, nagualdesign (talk) 20:27, 1 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Promoted File:National Press Monument, Solo (panorama) Diliff.jpg --Armbrust The Homunculus 23:51, 9 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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