Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral

Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral


I'm not religious in the slightest, but I think this picture is quite pretty. The architecture is fairly unusual, particularly for a cathedral, and at night the building is well lit-up. It's about five minutes walk from where I live.


 * Self-nom and support. - chowells 22:03, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Support, I really like this picture and think the lighting is great. Sotakeit 22:06, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose. It's way too grainy. - JPM | 22:56, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Support. Didn't think anyone would want to edit it down in size; bigger is better seems to be a crux around here. I support an edited version that makes it less grainy. - JPM | 08:37, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Fair comment, it is a bit grainy. Thankfully the grain seems to be caused solely by Photoshop CS2 -- its RAW converter does not seem to have done a very good job of "developing" the RAW .cr2 files into TIFFs. I tried using RawShooter Premium instead and the grain appears to be MUCH reduced/not present. I will upload the reduced grain version in a moment. chowells 13:13, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Support Lighting is interesting. I'd read the article. &rArr;   SWAT Jester   [[Image:Flag_of_Iceland.svg|18px|]]  Ready    Aim    Fire!  02:44, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Support Like Sotakeit, I really like the lighting, my only problem with it, is the building in the background is tilted. It is not very prominent though. --Lewk_of_Serthic 00:06, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Fixed in the fourth image. Thanks. chowells 21:16, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Support. Interesting. Alr 00:32, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Support. Good illustration of the building. The sky helped as well. enochlau (talk) 01:01, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Support. Great composition. Be fair, sure it's grainy... at 5666x3096 pixels... if its really a problem, reduce it by HALF and it's STILL big. --Dante Alighieri | Talk 01:43, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Support. Fantastic. Dylan 05:07, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Support (4th version). Nice exposure. So what, if it's grainy at 17 megapixels? Also, it's entirely possible to rectify the slanted perspective (and the foreshortening of the tower caused by tilting the camera using a wide-angle lens), see the example. Note: The example is only 800 px wide. If consensus favors rectifying, I volunteer to do it on the large image, too. --Janke | Talk 07:39, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Hopefully the grain issues are resolved with the new version I have just added. As for perspective correction, good point. I have tried doing this by specifying vertical lines in PTGui when stitching the image together but I seem not to be very successful. For creating the image I went RAW->uncompressed TIFF, so ideally the perspective correction should be done on this TIFF rather than the JPEG. chowells 14:00, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Actually you probably shouldn't do any perspective control on the TIFFs as it will need to be done perfectly or you will have alignment issues when you try to stitch it ;) Better to let PTGui do it. When aligning it as the final step before rendering, you can use the 'set center point' option (on the bottom of the panorama editor window, near the left corner). You can do basic perspective control with that. I recommend you set the center point somewhat near the bottom, this should give you a more natural looking image. You may find that that results in it being slightly warped at the top but that is unfortunately what happens with perspective controls. ;) See an example here (this is the exterior of the Notre Dame basilica in Montreal, the one I created the mosaic of the interior of). This pic is a pretty good example of how not to make a panorama :). It was just too wide an angle to try to stich and attempt to keep linear, but there was no other way to do it unfortunately, as there are too many things in the way if you attempt to photograph it from further back. Diliff  | (Talk)   (Contribs) 17:42, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah sorry, I was referring to doing the perspective correction on my final master TIFF, rather than the 1st JPEG, which was created from the TIFF. I actually love that photo of Note Dame outside, lovely colours. Setting the centre point near the bottom seemed to be essential, since PTGui otherwise ignored my vertical control lines, not quite sure why. Taking this photo took many attempts -- I originally tried using my 50mm f/1.8 but that was way too narrow and taking enough photos to include the sky was impossible :) I was slightly worried about barrel distortion at the short end of the 17-85 so I zoomed it in slightly, so I think that finally got it ok. chowells 15:30, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
 * You're right to worry about zooming in too far. Up to a point, the more detail, the better, but when you're making a panorama with a lot of sky in it, if you don't include a substantial amount of foreground information, its impossible to accurately stitch the sky with the sky, since the only visible things are clouds that move between shots. ;) Diliff  | (Talk)   (Contribs) 17:14, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Ok, good. In fact, you can easily do the perspective correction yourself, since you have Photoshop. Do a "select all", choose the "distort" command, and pull the top corner handles horizontally outward. This is better than the "perspective" command, which tends to distort the height/width ratio. When you're satisfied, you can delete all the other examples and leave just your edit... --Janke | Talk 16:45, 4 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Oppose - Huge images don't get an automatic pass. This one is insufficiently remarkable otherwise to support.--Deglr6328 10:02, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Support Fourth version. Finally you got it all right. I was really interested to see that Rawshooter resulted in a better quality image. I've always used PS CS2 but I'll have to check it out. Perhaps you weren't using the ideal settings in CS2, as it is somewhat a black art to master raw post production. Diliff  | (Talk)   (Contribs) 11:53, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks. It's quite possibly my incompetence at handling RAW, I've only started recently. Basically I loaded the images in Photoshop CS2 and chose the default options. Did the same with Rawshooter. The results from Rawshooter definitely look better to me, so who knows what was going on. I also like the design of the program. Just need to consider whether to go for the free RSE or pay for RSP. chowells 15:32, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Support whichever version wins. TomStar81 21:40, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Support any. - Samsara contrib talk 22:40, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Support any version. &mdash; 0918 BRIAN &bull; 2006-02-6 04:04


 * Comment: I've uploaded yet another version in which I attempted to give the image some more 'life'. See "brian0918's attempt". Compare the coloring of the sky as well as that of the building and the stained glass. &mdash; 0918 BRIAN &bull; 2006-02-6 04:04
 * Comment: No, it looks artificial, too saturated. My above vote of support is for Chowells last edit. --Janke | Talk 07:11, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Support any version. Interesting subject. Nice photograph. Adds to article about subject and articles on whatever architecture styles were used. - Mgm|(talk) 09:10, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Support - Any of the large version images, apart from Brian0918's version, which looks too saturated and unnatural. - Hahnchen 07:25, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Support any. Tito xd (?!? - help us) 23:44, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Support #4. Nice workshop on panorama processing :-) I'll have to create & post some --Wikimol 08:37, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Zafiroblue05 (talk • contribs) 06:58, 9 February 2006
 * Oppose. Slightly unencyclopedic. Why not a daytime shot?
 * Comment A daytime shot would probably not be as interesting. The artful lighting of architecture often brings out features not seen in daylight. --Janke | Talk 09:29, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Huh what? What about it being at dusk makes it unencyclopaedic? The building doesn't just disappear at night time y'know. I see no reason why how it looks at night should not be documented, in fact, in my opinion the building looks it best at night whilst illuminated. It is afterall the only time to enjoy the stained glass window at its best due to the fact that it's illuminiated from inside, and as you can see from the other photos on Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral during the day it looks fairly dull, grey and un-colourful. I'd be greatful if you could explain your "unencylopaedic" reasoning. chowells 10:32, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
 * If the point of the photo is to illustrate the stained glass, do so from the inside. We can barely see any of the stained glass here. (Which, of course, you have already done, though people are opposing it.) If the point of the photo is to illustrate the building, however, do so during the day. Sure, we could document what it looks like at night, but we could also document what it looks like at 7:30 am on the winter solstice as opposed to 7:31 am on the day after the winter solstice. In short, what's the point? There are already more than enough images on the page. Basically, it seems to me you just wanted to take a picture of some pretty blue clouds. Fair enough. But as a sunset picture, this one is distinctly uninteresting. Other remarks - it's not sharp, it's fairly grainy, and it has artifacts. Zafiroblue05 08:02, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
 * The point of the picture is to illustrate what the cathedral looks like at night. The logic in the rest of your argument makes no sense whatsoever. chowells 10:07, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Last time I checked, the best way to answer an argument is not by calling it stupid. Whenever I do that, at least, it just makes me look the same. And I don't know why I'm feeding you, but my point is that there's no reason to illustrate what the cathedral looks like at night - we already see what it looks like during the day. Should we set up a 24 hour live webcam on the cathedral - hell, on every location mentioned on Wikipedia - so we can see what it looks at all times? That's the logical extension of showing this picture. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of images. Finally, I don't understand why you need to attack a two-bit critiquer like myself. Your photo is passing through FPC with flying colors, and nothing I say will change that. I would just like to speak my mind: I don't think it's a particularly striking, interesting, or even technically accomplished photo. That, of course, is not a personal judgement, and shouldn't be taken as one. Why are you attacking me? Zafiroblue05 17:41, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I did not use the word stupid or any of its various synonyms so I do not understand how you read that meaning. I'm sorry that you consider me finding your argument to be illogical a personal attack, but there is not a great deal I can do about that. I, and seemingly quite a few people (considering there are books on the subject ) find the art of night and low light photography to be fascinating and extremely interesting and as I think I have already said, I think the cathedral looks significantly nicer at night time than during day. I note that you didn't oppose User:Diliff's photo of Tower Bridge on the grounds that it should not be FPC because it was taken at night. Is there something, that I am missing, which makes makes your argument of "If the point of the photo is to illustrate the building, however, do so during the day" apply just to this image, but not Diliff's? chowells 18:02, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
 * If "your argument makes no sense whatsoever" without explaining why doesn't mean "your argument is stupid," then I apologize. It seemed pretty harsh to me. As to Diliff's Tower Bridge photo, I didn't support it, either; it has other problems. Similarly, your photo has other problems: grain and artifacts, to name two. If one problem is enough to make me oppose it, I don't bother listing all the faults I find in it. As a side note, there are pictures that can be better at night - see Image:Sydney Harbour Bridge night.jpg, also by Diliff. I wasn't present when originally it was listed here (and you were, I note), but I would unequivocably support it - it is jaw-dropping. It has a natural grandeur to it - it is a work of art. Not to compare your photo to such high company, but, well, it doesn't compare. The dusk setting for the cathedral adds very little to it. The architecture is interesting, but in this photo - where is the grandeur? Where is the art? I don't see it. Again, of course, it doesn't matter - only one other person agrees with me. The strong consensus favors your photo - congratulations. :) Zafiroblue05 00:11, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, calling your argument stupid was never my intention in the slightest. If someone doesn't like the image that's fine by me since we are all different, but I couldn't get my head around your argument at all. Thanks for the explanation, I understand your position better now. Yes, I could have explained why I thought your argument made no sense, though you also didn't explain why you felt it was unencyclopaedic in the first place ;) cheers. 84.9.223.82 01:38, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Support (though I'd really prefer to look at a picture of Liverpool Anglican cathedral than Frederick Gibberd's wigwam). David | Talk 10:38, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
 * A night time photo of the anglican cathedral is on my todo list (along with night time photos of the Three Graces and St. George's Hall). chowells 10:41, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Support Flcelloguy (A note? ) 16:09, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Support any Kessa Ligerro 07:46, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

. The fourth version seems the most popular. Raven4x4x 06:50, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

