Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven

 * Reason:High resolution image of a bust of Beethoven. Restored version of Image:Beethoven death mask.jpg.
 * Articles this image appears in:Ludwig van Beethoven, Schroeder (Peanuts)
 * Creator:W.J. Baker (photography)


 * Support as nominator -- Durova Charge! 23:05, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Support. A very striking image. I think it contributes a lot to the article because it's one of the few non-sketches there. However, I do think it'd have a lot more EV in the piano section of Schroeder (Peanuts). :P Intothewoods29 (talk) 00:54, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Support. Encyclopedic as an illustration of the death mask and or Beethoven himself. Nautica Shad es  17:16, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Support with weak preference for Edit 2 as a sharp, encyclopedic image and good restoration. If this is from a death mask one should be sure to read the quoted quoted description of his last moment.  Fletcher (talk) 20:04, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Support per Fletcher. Added to Schroeder (Peanuts) too for illustration of the Beethoven obsessiveness section. Mostlyharmless (talk) 10:38, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
 * clarify support - edit 2. Mostlyharmless (talk) 00:18, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment. The background is extremely noisy. Shouldn't it be black anyway instead of gray so it isn't so washed out looking? Kaldari (talk) 15:02, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't understand your comment. Noise refers to digital photography; the concept sometimes gets misapplied to natural traits of pre-digital photography such as grain (this photo was taken in 1895). Could you please describe the visual traits in more detail?  Durova Charge! 16:28, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I do understand the comment: Basically, there's multiple way to restore a photograph, and one should be a bit hesitant to remove information. If the background is actually distracting, then it might be worth smoothing it out by raising the black point, but this has the inevitable consequence of removing some detail from the more shaded parts of the bust. This basically works out to balancing two issues: the photo as an illustration of Beethoven, and the photo as historic document. Both your suggestion and Durova's choice are reasonable restoration decisions. Shoemaker&#39;s Holiday (talk) 16:42, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Inevitable? Isn't that the kind of thing one can do with layers? Fletcher (talk) 22:38, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I've been giving this some thought--it's largely guesswork because the request is a bit vague--so here's my best interpretation and response. It appears that Fletcher wants a totally black background, such as sometimes gets presented in modern digital photography.  The comments about "gray" and "washed-out looking" led me to suppose he was unaware that this was shot on black and white film.  The bust sits on a pedastal, which along with other background details was almost certainly covered with black cloth for the photographic session.  Then, in order to compensate for low light conditions, the photographer would have used a high speed film, which produces grain as a natural function.  This was a limitation of the technology of the time, yet was also an artistic choice--during the film era photographers often selected grain for effect (for instance, using grainier film to shoot male nudes than female nudes because grain was considered more masculine).  Now Fletcher's comments appear to assume that the grain and black cloth were technological limitations rather than artistic choices, which might be a reasonable supposition, and his suggestion of a layers fix is theoretically feasible, but difficult.  The principal challenge is the intersection of the bust with the background.  If Fletcher or anyone else wants to have a go at it I'd be curious what it yields.  Durova Charge! 01:29, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * No wait, sorry, I was just questioning Shoemaker's claim that it couldn't be done without losing detail around the bust. I'm actually ok with the image (I supported above); it was Kaldari who claimed it was noisy and washed out.  Indeed the background is not perfectly smooth, but I didn't find it grainy enough to be distracting, and it's quite an old photograph anyway.  However if it were needed I thought one might be able to edit the background without hurting the bust, though like you say getting the edges right would be difficult and, in this case, probably not worthwhile.  Fletcher (talk) 02:57, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Oops, right you are; apologies for the misreading. Durova Charge! 03:57, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I created a version with a pure black background (and less severe crop on the right-hand side). There may be some detail lost in the shadows, but aesthetically I think it is a huge improvement. As this is a sculpture rather than a painting, I don't think losing some detail is hugely important as you can never see the entire sculpture in one image anyway, i.e. every photograph is a limited and artistic view. Kaldari (talk) 15:49, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Support Edit 1, Weak Oppose Original - per discussion above. Kaldari (talk) 16:05, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Support Orginal, Weak Oppose Edit 1 - Look at the bottom of the bust, for instance: In the original, there's a lot more detail, just visible that's lost in the edit. I'm not comfortable with changing the evident artistic intent of the photographer (he could have covered them with black cloth as well) like that. Shoemaker&#39;s Holiday (talk) 14:13, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Support Edit 2, Oppose original and Edit 1 - per the comments from Shoemaker&#39;s Holiday above, I have rerestored the image from scratch (using the original TIFF), this time setting the white point, black point, and gray point according to the color keys in the original Library of Congress photo. This means there should be no real data missing and the photo should be as close to how the original photographer saw it as possible. Kaldari (talk) 21:49, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment: quite a few dirt specks are present in edit 2 that I had removed from the original. I saved a version post-that phase of cleanup and pre-histogram adjustment; if you'd like it please e-mail me. Durova Charge! 22:00, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I just went through and removed a few more dirt spots and specs. Try reloading the image and see what you think. I don't think I can find any more. To answer your question about the "noise", I've uploaded a graphic to demonstrate. It has the brightness boosted so that you can better see the "noisiness" of the background. I don't know if it's analog, digital, or a combination of both. Kaldari (talk) 22:19, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * OK, I just saved a new version of Edit 2 (Image:Beethoven death mask4.jpg) that uses your master TIFF as the basis. How does that look? Kaldari (talk) 21:48, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Oppose not very sharp (any version) —Pengo 13:23, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
 * It's 2350×3500 pixels. Would you prefer it be downsampled? It's looks very sharp at 1175x1750 (which is still well within the size requirement). Kaldari (talk) 21:59, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment Thanks very much for the hard work, Kaldari! I'd support either edit 2 or the original.  Durova Charge! 00:03, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Additional input: can contributors please indicate their preference. With no further clarity it will be the Original. --jjron (talk) 13:04, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Preference to the final edit Intothewoods29 (talk) 03:21, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

--jjron (talk) 08:22, 9 September 2008 (UTC)