Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Mespelbrunn Castle

Mespelbrunn Castle
Voting period ends on 19 Sep 2010 at 13:24:51 (UTC)
 * Reason:Another beautiful piece of historical architecture. Clear EV, very eyecatching, wonderfully composed and high quality. Already featured on Commons.
 * Articles in which this image appears:Mespelbrunn Castle
 * FP category for this image:Architecture
 * Creator:Rainer Lippert


 * Support as nominator --J Milburn (talk) 13:24, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Support, just gawjuss. --Golbez (talk) 14:03, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Support True 'dat Golbez... gaz hiley .co.uk  15:25, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Support I think this probably as good a photo as you're going to get of Mespelbrunn Castle without an elevated position. Comparing the image to Google maps, it looks like it places the building in context; it's in a wooded area and although there's a town nearby I don't think it would be possible to have both in the same shot from ground level because of all the trees. It's sharp, eye-catching, and shows the site's most interesting features. I can't think of a reason not to support an excellent photo. Nev1 (talk) 15:42, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Support Flawless lighting, exposure, composition, interesting subject. Very eye-catching. Greg L (talk) 22:30, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment This is overexposed with highlights completely blown in parts. Makeemlighter (talk) 00:16, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
 * So?? This “blown highlights” issue has gotten so out of hand it has taken on ‘urban legend’ proportions on FPC. If you want to see a properly illuminated image in the shadows of the building and in the trees and the other portions of the image that average about 18% reflectivity, then clouds are going to appear precisely as they ought to: white. That’s a Well… DUH sorta thing. It happened in silver-based photography (like this Ansel Adams shot) and in this image of Mt. Ranier. And it happens with properly exposed digital photography that appears here too. Try looking at a normal scene just like this one with your own eyeballs without staring and squinting at the clouds; see how much detail is visible in sun-lit clouds when they are just at the edge of your central vision and your eye is adapted to see a normal scene. People just need to stop looking at histograms and they’ll (hopefully) stop having a cow when they see information crowded over against the right-hand side on histograms. Pure whites happen all the time when an image has wide dynamic range (clouds, snow, reflections off of water, etc.) and the answer isn’t to reject such images until people learn how to put their cameras on a tripod and make bracketed exposures and get HDR plug-ins for Photoshop. Greg L (talk) 06:08, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Please refer to the FP criteria. Specifically, the image "has good contrast, accurate exposure and neutral colour balance" and "shows no significant compression artifacts, burned-out highlights, image noise ("graininess") or other processing anomalies." Makeemlighter (talk) 02:09, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I think what Greg notes is that "accurate exposure" does sometimes show burned-out highlights, and the appearance in the middle of that cloud hardly constitues "significant". J Milburn (talk) 06:30, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Like J Milburn said. Read what I wrote above about high-dynamic-range pictures that have light sources and white clouds and snow and whatnot in the image. It doesn’t matter if clouds in the sky are white unless the focal point of the picture is the clouds themselves. No one worries about clouds looking white any more than they worry about the blown highlights in this droplet of water, which are also supposed to be white. Nor does it matter if the sunlit side of a pure-white building or boat is “blown out”, as you say; not unless the subject of the picture is “specular reflections of titanium dioxide pigment in white paint in sunlight.” The result of this absurd focus on not having white look white has been utterly-worthless nominations like MV Queenscliff ferry boat, which had everything way too dark just so Makeemlighter could see detail in the white paint. Greg L (talk) 16:22, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The details in the clouds and buildings are not lost. A tried a quick shadow/highlight adjustment in PS and the result was much better than the image seen here. Can anybody put up and edit? --Muhammad (talk) 07:30, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose Original (In case alts get put up this is may change) The overexposure is too much, the building on the left is the best example of this. I feel a much better picture could be taken of this. A 3 shot HDR would've been enough to sort it out really. Can probably be saved with some PS work which is why I've stated vote is for original. JFitch   (talk)  10:18, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Edit 1 Uploaded --Muhammad (talk) 11:39, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment Edit 1 is fine. In the edit, the brightly lit building to the left looks better to me but the one in the middle that is in the shade has now lost a beautiful note of a glow. Furthermore we ought not establish a precedent here that properly exposed images must have special tricks applied in Photoshop to show detail in sunlit clouds of all things. The only way to have pulled this off with film back in the old days would be by using a polarizing filter or to burn & dodge the image if one was working in black & white. Greg L (talk) 16:22, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I think Greg's talking a lot of sense here. J Milburn (talk) 17:08, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, there aren't any special tricks applied. It was just a few minutes job with only one major PS edit that the photographer himself could have made. The fact that details can now be seen means they were never lost. --Muhammad (talk) 18:39, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Seems a lot of fuss over nothing. I hadn't noticed the clouds were slightly over exposed because clouds are often white, and the subject of the photograph is the castle, not the weather. Nev1 (talk) 17:16, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Dodging and burning Images like this is common practice, your not going to settle for parts of the image being badly exposed, you are going to work at getting the entire picture exposed. As for 'special tricks' post processing digital photographs is as much part of digital photography as developing is for film. In my opinion we 100% should set a precedent that to become a Featured Picture it has to be processed correctly. You wouldn't accept badly developed film photographs so you shouldn't accept badly proccessed digital photographs. JFitch   (talk)  19:42, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I think you are missing the point Jfitch. Yes, FPCs should be exposed correctly. Expecting that a light source (sunlit clouds actually add fill light into shadows on the ground) not appear pure white over large portions of them, and photos in which clouds are visible in the sky should be processed to bring out all available detail in them seems utterly absurd to me. As I mentioned above, the only way a film-based image could look like the above edit would be to use a polarizing filter. Your reasoning is therefore akin to “no FPC candidate should be allowed here unless film-based photographs showing sunlit clouds were shot using a polarizing filter.” And the workaround to this sort of mentality has resulted in total abortions like the MV Queenscliff ferry boat nom. The work-around for that nomination (“get better photo-editing software so I can see detail in the side of the white ship”) is unrealistic and unnecessary—just like polarizing filters on film cameras. Greg L (talk) 15:15, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, it's you that has missed the point. The clouds were never the issue. The building on the left is. Makeemlighter (talk) 21:20, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * ^^ This exactly. I'm not complaning about clouds here, the fact is the building on the left was overexposed. You then didn't like someone's fix because whilst fixing the buidling on the left, you felt it took away from the building on the right, well that's bad processing. Simply put with a photograph like this it isn't asking too much to have all of the buildings exposed correctly. JFitch   (talk)  22:06, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Quoting you: Simply put with a photograph like this it isn't asking too much to have all of the buildings exposed correctly. Uhhhhhm… some buildings are in the sun, and others are in the shade. And you want them all *properly* exposed at the same time?? And the remedy—in your view—to sun/shade situations like this is to require 100% post-photo processing (per your 19:42, 12 September post)? Yeaaaaah… Greg L (talk) 12:38, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
 * In short, Yes. If your not going to develop/process an image to the highest quality that it can be at, then why should we have it as a FP.  JFitch   (talk)  16:32, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Edit is better but still not great. This probably needs to be re-shot at a different time of day. Makeemlighter (talk) 21:20, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Support either looks fine to me.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 13:08, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Support either very pretty.  WackyWace  converse 13:23, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose both Pretty clearly fails criterion 1. Considering the standard of the other architecture images we promote, it wouldn't make sense to pass this one. This is definitely a shot that can be re-taken, so it's fair to insist upon better quality. Makeemlighter (talk) 03:14, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Support either - Edit 1 is an improvement but both are top-notch. Tim Pierce (talk) 03:19, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

8 to 2, 6 (nom included) stating the edit is preferred. -- I'ḏ ♥  One  14:17, 19 September 2010 (UTC)