Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Lotus flower (978659).jpg

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File:Lotus flower (978659).jpg, featured[edit]

Voting period is over. Please don't add any new votes.Voting period ends on 6 Feb 2016 at 10:49:52 (UTC)
Visit the nomination page to add or modify image notes.

Lotus flower
@Ikan Kekek: I wanted to take some time to 'really look at it' before voting, because from as aesthetic point of view I really like the image. There are a couple of issues tho... first, and briefly, looking at the histogram and colocube confirms my impression that parts of the image are completely burned in. The bigger problem I have is that, to be honest, Colin is correct. The bokeh effect here does not appear to be the result of the actual photography, but the result of extensive post-processing. When viewed at 'native resolution' on a large LCD, the posterization is really, really obvious, even on parts of the flower itself. This is a 8 bit jpeg, so has a 'theoretical' color depth of about 16 million colors... the actual file here has about 230k, less than 2% of that.
Also, looking at an 'error level analysis' confirms my impression.... the flower appears to have been masked out, and processed separately from the rest of the image. I think Colin is slightly mistaken on one point though... the image is saved at 94%, which is not a particularly high level of compression... it's not a small file or posterized from being overcompressed, it's just small because so much detail was removed while processing that it compresses really well... meh. I think I have to  Oppose it as a FP, even though I 'like it', because it's a better example of photoshop use than of photography. Sorry. Revent (talk) 18:52, 30 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for that in-depth analysis. However, I have one small thing to point out. The is a nomination for "Featured picture" not "Featured photograph" ;) Josve05a (talk) 19:00, 30 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
 Question What's the difference? Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:40, 30 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Nothing really, just that if you think it is a beautiful picture then it is beautiful and should be promoted as such. Then if it may not be the best photography you can take, that's a difference story. Post-processing might have made it look good and it's not in it's natural form, but that doesn't make it a less beautiful picture. Josve05a (talk) 21:42, 30 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Good point. I agree with this, and what's more, so does pretty much everyone who votes here, at least in the sense that people ask for things that were actually there to be removed from the photo for aesthetic reasons. Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:00, 31 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Ikan Kekek: Maybe I could have phrased myself better. I think it's a beautiful photograph, when viewed as a thumbnail, and that if the creator had managed the exact same effect 'without' reducing the image quality so much, I would not oppose it. I just think that, when viewed at full size (or, probably, when printed) the flaws created in the processing are distractingly obvious, to the point that it's not really usable unless scaled down significantly. Revent (talk) 06:12, 3 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate the explanation, but I'm not sure I understand. Does this have to do with the bokeh? Because bokeh typically is a big blur, and I find this blur pleasant, which is not usually the case. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:29, 3 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Ikan Kekek: Only in that the bokeh was not created in the 'photographic process' (i.e., not through the use of settings on the camera), but through postprocessing. That would itself be fine, if well done. However... I temporarily cropped out a small section of the background, specifically so that it would appear at full resolution (and then reverted myself)... it's in the history on the file page. If you look at it closely, it's not just 'blurred', but significantly posterized as a result of the amount of digital processing done in order to create the bokeh effect. To my eye, at least, it's really obvious when looking at the full image instead of a scaled down thumbnail. Revent (talk) 06:57, 3 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate your response, but I would further respond that I don't care if it's posterized, because it's a deliberately blurred background, anyway. If you find the result aesthetically displeasing, then I can completely understand why you'd object to it, regardless of the process used to achieve the result. However, I'm not fully clear on whether that's the issue or whether you are objecting based on the idea that posterization is a technical fault in how the bokeh effect is achieved, rather than based on aesthetic criteria. If that's the case, it wouldn't make any sense to me because a blur is a blur, not (generally speaking) an attempt at a realistic depiction of how our eyes would actually see a scene, and the only basis that makes sense to me to use in judging bokeh is a resort to aesthetic, not technical, criteria. Ikan Kekek (talk) 11:45, 3 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Ikan Kekek: I, indeed, think the image is technically flawed, and to a high enough degree that the flaws are obvious at full resolution. I think it's aesthetically pleasing (it's pretty) but we have far better images with similar content. I don't think it's 'one of the best images on Commons', at all. I think someone took a good photo and broke it so that it only works as a thumbnail. Revent (talk) 15:21, 3 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
If there are many better images with similar content, that's certainly a valid reason to oppose featuring this. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:23, 3 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Confirmed results:
Result: 9 support, 3 oppose, 1 neutral → featured. /Yann (talk) 18:33, 6 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This image will be added to the FP gallery: Plants
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