Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/St. Isaac's Square

St. Isaac's Square
St Isaac's Square in St. Petersburg, Russia is a major city square sprawling between Marie Palace and St. Isaac's Cathedral, which separates it from Decembrists Square. The square is dominated by the equestrian Monument to Nicholas I.

This photochrom from the 1890s displays a view of the square from the dome of St. Isaac's Cathedral towards Marie Palace. Behind the palace, the capital of the Russian Empire is seen all they way to the Trinity Cathedral.

Photochrome is a colorizing process combining photography and color lithography. It was especially popular in the 1890s, when the technique was used to create a color print from a black and white photo negative, using between four and fourteen lithograph stones, made from rocklike substances, to colorize the print with several different inks.

I believe the image significantly improves our article about St. Isaac's Square. It is downloaded from the website of the Library of Congress. As my previous nomination was criticized for small resolution (150 K), I downloaded 27 M image, but Commons would not allow me to upload the image that big :( All reasonable edits to the picture are welcome.


 * Nominate and support. -- Ghirla -трёп-  16:48, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Weak support if the size (and possibly detail) can be improved. Anyone want to download the original image and do a better job at scaling it? (and compress it with jpeg to help the file size) --⁪froth T C  20:33, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment This is also part of a whole batch of images at the LoC. I'll try post a link to a quick survey later. (Here is a nice one from Versailles). Although I think this one is pretty solid and representative of the collection. I also think size is ok. The original is twice as big but also has a lot of grain we don't need. ~ trialsanderrors 23:27, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Set of clickable thumbnails here. This might be partial though, there doesn't seem to be a portal to this set. ~ trialsanderrors 05:36, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
 * It was me who uploaded most of these images to Wikimedia in 2004 and 2005. At the time, it appeared to me that the nominated image was the most impressive. -- Ghirla -трёп-  08:27, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Those are the direct links to the Library of Congress originals. I was looking for a description of the set at the LoC website but couldn't find one. Do you know the provenance? ~ trialsanderrors 19:44, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Only from the "notes" section of the image description on the LoC website: "Title from the Detroit Publishing Co., catalogue J--foreign section, Detroit, Mich. : Detroit Publishing Company, 1905." -- Ghirla -трёп-  19:52, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
 * They have some information in the overview of the Detroit Publishing Company Collection, which contains all these coloured photochrom pictures. "The company obtained the exclusive rights to use the Swiss "Photochrom" process, later known as Aäc, for converting black-and-white photographs to color prints. Photochroms were made by a photomechanical process using multiple lithographic stones. A separate lithographic stone was required for each color in the final print. A minimum of four stones were used for each print, and occasionally as many as fourteen stones were used. This process permitted the mass production of color postcards, prints, and albums for sale to the American market." I couldn't find anything more specific than that. On Commons they should be in the photochrom pictures category, where most need a lot more colour adjustment than this one. --Para 20:08, 8 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Support per nom. [[Image:EtruscanS-01.png|15px]] [[Image:PhoenicianD-01.png|15px]] [[Image:Greek lc pi icon.svg|15px]] ( User •  Talk ) 03:52, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Support. - Mailer Diablo 09:12, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Support per above. ~ trialsanderrors 21:13, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Weak oppose. It's nice, but if it is meant to illustrate photochrom, there are a number of others on Commons where I like the composition much better (like this one).  As an example of photochrom, I also think the larger sizes (with grain intact) are better; being lithograph-based, it's a different kind of grain than in old photographs (at least, it seems that way to me) and it brings out the character of the medium.  As an image of St. Isaac's Square, it's not outstanding and probably wouldn't pass muster without the exotic photochrom aspect.--ragesoss 03:47, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Support-That's all I have to say. Booksworm Talk to me! 18:35, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Support It's a good picture. The nomination really sums it up. Sharkface217 19:35, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Support Wow, over 100 years old, and a wonderful image. Depicts subject well, has historical value. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 23:23, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Support - Seems like a pretty good example of photochrom, and not a bad illustration either. --YFB ¿  02:07, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Support. Encyclopedic, historical, interesting, and relatively good quality. Nautica Shad e  s  13:58, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Support. Agree with nom. Wikiolap 19:23, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Raven4x4x 07:15, 13 December 2006 (UTC)