Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Mulberry Street (Manhattan)

Mulberry Street (Manhattan)

Voting period is over. Please don't add any new votes. Voting period ends on 14 Sep 2015 at 23:57:58 (UTC)

Original – A c. 1900 view of Mulberry Street. It is a principal thoroughfare in Manhattan in New York City. It is heavily associated with Italian-American culture and history and is often considered the heart of Manhattan's Little Italy.

CURRENTLY FEATURED VERSION (not used)

Reason: High quality. Nice historical view.
Articles in which this image appears: Mulberry Street (Manhattan) +2
FP category for this image: Wikipedia:Featured pictures/Places/Urban
Creator: Detroit Publishing Company

Support as nominator – — Chris Woodrich (talk) 23:57, 4 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
- D&R - Old featured version has size and tilt issues. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 01:59, 7 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
~~Support~~ What a fantastic image. I will support it. Ask your friends in the neighborhood about me. They'll tell you I know how to return a favor. Belle (talk) 00:05, 5 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
- Small problem: Wikipedia:Featured_pictures/Places/Urban, Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Mulberry Street, New York City. Belle (talk) 00:51, 7 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  - Belle, Why not support a delist and replace? Why is it every time I go out, I always seem to get in trouble. I guess I made an impression on somebody, north of Hester and South of grand... Ðiliff «» (Talk) 15:44, 7 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    - ~~D&R~~ It wasn't a delist and replace when I stuck my support, that's all; afterwards I was so so busy pinging everybody else I forgot to change my vote. Belle (talk) 21:31, 7 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
~~Support~~ - Doesn't quite look like that anymore. Great historical image.--Godot13 (talk) 07:44, 5 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

D&R--Godot13 (talk) 19:15, 7 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comment The retouching probably went a bit too far compared to LoC's original where colors are more vibrant (since it's a color film I assume the colors are the real ones). The faces, for example, are pale and whitened akin to geishas. Brandmeister^talk 13:18, 5 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It isn't colour film, is it? I was sure this was a hand-coloured black-and-white image which is why the palette and grading is so limited and half the people and objects are still in monochrome. Admittedly the LOC seem to be claiming that this is colour film but surely they have their heads up a place their heads shouldn't be. Whether the colours need adjusting is another question; I'd say probably not as stupid unrealistic colours are part of the glory of hand-colouring. Belle (talk) 23:14, 5 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
- @Belle and Brandmeister: The LoC often uses high-quality colour film as a proxy towards certain scans - take a photo of the object, scan the photo. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 12:00, 6 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  - That could be the case... but it's a slightly confusing file description in that case. It's more important to know the original format than that of the reproduction. Furthermore, it's rather silly to photograph a photograph, if you have any interest whatsoever in keeping maximum fidelity. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 15:44, 7 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

* Support – For historical EV, human detail. History may seem dry to some, but it's good to remember that real people went before us. (I like the lineup of eight kids near the vegetable cart. And who's that dude in the vest on the balcony?) Sca (talk) 14:16, 5 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose I'm uncomfortable with the colours. I've done a few of these, and have generally gotten better results than this... Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 19:33, 5 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Resummoning @Godot13, Brandmeister, Sca, and Adam Cuerden: now this has become a D&R. (who do I send the FPC clerking bill to? What??? Voluntary!?!?) Belle (talk) 13:01, 7 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
- What is called "original" here also looks retouched. I think it should be overwritten with cropped and straightened LoC version linked above, that would be the true original. Brandmeister^talk 13:06, 7 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  - @Brandmeister: Except the LoC are known to have low colour fidelity. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 13:59, 7 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    - @Adam Cuerden: Is their color reference ruler for this useful? Brandmeister^talk 14:22, 7 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      - Should be, if properly used. I may well have a go, but am getting over a cold. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 15:24, 7 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comment – No opinion re D&R. Sca (talk) 13:20, 7 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Delist and replace. The colours are obviously not 'realistic' in the sense that they've been coloured in a fairly average way, but it's historically valuable all the same IMO if we can take on board the fact that they are not the original colours (as with any Photochrom). Ðiliff «» (Talk) 15:44, 7 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
~~Delist and Replace~~ Per Nominator. I love the conversation above. I don't see the need for a huge discussion on this one. :) Dusty777 18:15, 7 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
- Extended irrelevant discussion is usually necessary to maintain sufficient interest in otherwise staid nominations. ;-) Ðiliff «» (Talk) 19:24, 7 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  - Or monkeys in hats (What? I don't mention them in a couple of weeks and everybody thinks it is OK to forget about this important part of the FP criteria? Shame on you.) Belle (talk) 21:31, 7 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Do not replace - Seriously?! The currently featured one surely has better colours. Quite garish in the proposed version. Fix the other issues, but this mess of a nom is likely to cause an awful version of the image to be promoted. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 22:25, 7 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral There are good reasons for both ways, so everyone should better think twice. --Tremonist (talk) 14:12, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The original photo seems to be a b&w, only colored later. --Tremonist (talk) 14:14, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Tremonist: But, compared even to the LoC original, the suggested version has significant degredation and has lost a huge amount of detail due to overprocessing. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 14:27, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Oh yes, thank you, Adam. It's clearly overprocessed, I agree. I'm wondering why this hasn't been pointed out earlier... No, the new version can't be accepted in its current form. No replacement until the suggested version has undergone significant changes. --Tremonist (talk) 14:41, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hold on... You need to be more specific than that it needs 'significant changes'. You need to say what changes it needs. Also, can you explain what you mean @Adam Cuerden:? Could you be specific about which image you're referring to when you say 'compared to the LoC original'? I haven't looked into it deeply as there are simply too many versions floating around here and on the LoC site. I've only directly compared the two versions thumbnailed here, and there's not a significant difference in colour between them. The only major difference I see is the tilt, resolution and contrast. Other than that they seem largely identical. What I would say, if I was being picky, is that there seems to be some interesting artefacts in the 'original' nominated image that I generally only see when an image has been upsampled using algorithms that attempt to preserve details (ie the Photoshop CC 'preserve details' resampling and a number of others). The telltale signs of this are areas that have unnaturally smooth and sharp lines and seem a bit 'hollow' and lacking texture (the algorithm attempts to guess the path of object edges and lines but doesn't have the necessary information to preserve texture while upscaling and leaves it overly smooth). Some examples of it in this image is the rear of the second-from-right horse and cart, the belt of the man just below and to the left of it with the red cloth over his shoulder, and the green shutters just above the lamp post on the right side of the image. But anyway, that's beside the point as I'm pretty sure it's unrelated to the issue you mention above. I'm curious about what is so wrong about the colours in this proposed image compared to the current featured version. I suspect it's just the higher contrast that makes some of the colours appear more saturated than they actually are. They otherwise look pretty similar to me. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 15:58, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Left: The image proposed
Right: Library of Congress Original TIFF

@Diliff, Crisco 1492, Godot13, Belle, Brandmeister, Tremonist, and Dusty777: Think this makes it clear. There's a ton of detail thrown away by the bad colour adjustment. I've also uploaded File:Detroit Publishing Co. - Mulberry Street, New York City (1900) - Original.tif - the actual original Library of Congress image. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 17:36, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This is a common issue with Trialsanderrors, I fear - their colour adjustments can what is otherwise excellent work, and sometimes can't be recovered from. Once detail's lost, there's no way to put it back. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 17:51, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

OK, agreed. I suppose at the very least I think we should suspend the nomination. I think we all agree that there's potential in the LoC original file to replace the current FP - whether we promote the file now and someone (Adam?) volunteers to give it a better restoration without the loss of fidelity to improve it further, or we close the nomination as a fail and renominate a new image later, I think it's fairly clear that we should be able to delist and replace the current FP and the question that remains is what process do we follow to get the best result? Ðiliff «» (Talk) 17:59, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Oh dear.... When looking the pictures over, I was under the impression the over saturated one was the current FP, and the other was the new... I think a speedy close should be in order. It's obvious the nomination is just a mess at this point. Dusty777 00:03, 9 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Adam makes a good case against the proposed replacement; I think we should probably retire this nom as it is quite a muddle now. Belle (talk) 08:10, 9 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. Good work, Adam. --Tremonist (talk) 12:56, 9 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'll do a restoration. It's just... not a quick one if you're doing it right. Lots of specks. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 00:48, 10 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Not Promoted --Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 02:48, 15 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]