Wikipedia:Picture peer review/Haeckel's Stephoidea

Haeckel's Stephoidea

The 71st plate from Ernst Haeckel's Kunstformen der Natur, showing radiolarians of the order Stephoidea. Radiolarians form intricate mineral skeletons, usually with a central capsule dividing the cell into inner and outer portions. Radiolarians are found as zooplankton throughout the ocean and are important diagnostic fossils, found from the Cambrian period onwards.

I was browsing through WP:FPC earlier today and somehow - I'm not sure how - ended up at the radiolarian page, where I discovered this image. I'm aware that a number of other Haeckel drawings have been featured (there seemed to be something of a vogue for them a while back), but I thought I'd give this one a shot here first. Image can be found in the radiolarians article, and also the Kunstformen der Natur article.

I'm aware the caption could probably use some work - as it's basically a rehash of the image description page plus a bit of the article - but it's my first try at this, so I'm not entirely sure what works best here..

Nominated by: shas^Yarr!/_T|C 20:31, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

This is very beautiful! Does anyone know why the background is scratchy and not all that black? I can't tell if its scratches and dust or Haeckel's idea of what a good sea-like background should be. If it's the former, this image could some cleaning up, if it's the latter, it needs to stay as is, but I honestly have no idea if it would pass FP. It's probably worth a shot, though. -Enuja (talk) 04:44, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Seconder

I'd nominate this. One of the series is already a FP and IMO isn't as strong, interesting or colourful as this. The others are also good; you might find there's even scope for a featured set. Personally, I've downloaded myself a copy to print out. Really lovely stuff, thanks for posting it up. --mikaul^talk 00:23, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
oh, if you'd like me to clean it up, just let me know. --mikaul^talk 00:24, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- A cleanup would be most appreciated. The credit belongs entirely to User:Ragesoss, who scanned and uploaded the images, I just happened to get lucky in finding it : ) (I hope I haven't misunderstood your comment there, sorry if I have). I'll go and nominate this image over at FPC now - thank you for the second. A little bit off-topic, is there any form of free picture editing software that you could recommend for image manipulation of this sort? I'm a little hamstrung in actually editing myself as all I have is Paint.. shas^Yarr!/_T|C 00:29, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - The commons upload server seems to be down, worse luck. I'll post up the clean version later. You need GIMP; I've never used it but a lot of editors here really rate it. --mikaul^talk 16:23, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    - I'll take a look at it, thanks. shas^Yarr!/_T|C 17:03, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nominated at FPC as Radiolarians of the order Stephoidea, by Ernst Haeckel by shas on 24 Jan, 2008. --jjron (talk) 08:06, 30 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]