User talk:Slaunger/Archives/2014/9

Photo challenge

Hi Slaunger. I am really sorry but I have had to remove this entry of yours as it was first uploaded in July, not newly uploaded in the challenge period of August. HelenOnline 14:41, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Dear HelenOnline: , you are right! I went through my upload stream for August and found this picture from August 14. Thought: Hey, that fits pretty good with the "Hair" competition, and nominated it. I was actually surprised to find it in the August stream, as I seemed to recall that it was uploaded a longer time ago. NOW, I realize (stupid me), that it was an improved version I uploaded in response to some review comments at COM:QIC on August 14. But the upload of the original version was July 30 (it was close though), so it is clearly not eligable for the competition. Thanks for noticing it, and for bringing it to my attention! And thanks for taking your time to do these chores, for which there is seldom the appreciation it deserves. --Slaunger (talk) 18:31, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for being so gracious about it. It is a pity as I wanted to vote for it. HelenOnline 20:51, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

HelenOnline, I am glad you like my photo, and would have voted on it, if it was eligable for the competition. --Slaunger (talk) 21:09, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Lightroom quality

I noticed you'd saved a recent photo at 98% quality. Lightroom has a misleading range of quality options (0-100) when in fact there are only 13 levels (which are similar to Photoshop's 0-12. See the chart on this page and have a play with Jeffrey Friedl's interactive web page. I did some experiments a while back and settled on using 90 (i.e. 1 step less than max) because I couldn't really see the difference gained from 100, even when blown up. I may have another experiment, but there is no actual difference in the file generated between 98 and 100. -- Colin (talk) 12:24, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Colin, thanks for the heads up on the jpeg quality setting. I had not studied in detail how it impacted the quality and file size, and sort of assumed it used the same scale as in GIMP, where the resolution is on a 1% scale, and there I had found that I could see no difference between 98% and 100%, but with a noticeable decrease in file size. But I checked your references, and the interactive web page was particularly instructive. Without having done more testing myself, I agree that setting it to 90% would appear to be a sweet spot, not really compromising quality in any noticeable way. --Slaunger (talk) 15:25, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

But of course, anything less that 100% loses information! IIRC when I last experimented, I saw a difference in noisy pictures where (when magnified 200 or 300%) the noise "grains" moved around. I guess noise is impossible to compress with fidelity. But if it merely substitutes one random arrangement of pixels with another, the overall effect isn't really importantly different. -- Colin (talk) 17:27, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Higher resolution

Hi Slaunger.... very sorry for my delay in replying, been travelling... in fact, I arrived yesterday, and leave again today. I was photographing bears and wolves in the north of Spain, now off to Kenya. I have been thinking about the higher res, and I think I will not upload higher res. The reason is that I am a photographer, and try to make a living out of my images. Whilst I am very happy to share my images in wikimedia, and I am in fact very proud of participating in such a magnificent project of free universal knowledge (which I really admire, since may years ago), I am afraid that if I make my images available at maximum resolution this will sooner or later affect my profession. I don't like the idea of a newspaper or magazine or any other client coming to me one day and saying Hey Arturo I just saw all your images are in wikimedia at max res for free - why should I buy them from you?

I love the idea of other people enjoying/using my images absolutely for free, but for learning, or for personal joy, not for commercial purposes. And for personal purposes I think 1920px at 300dpi should be enough.

I really hope you understand my motivation, it is not a lack of trust in wikimedia, or you, or anything like that... I have to say, I honestly admire you for having started with the featured images project long ago. But intellectual property in the internet is really difficult to control. Happy to discuss further in any case. Best regards, Arturo

Hi Arturo de Frias Marques,

Welcome back from the realm of wolves and and bears, and good luck in Kenya!

Contributing to Commons is voluntary, and you are not forced in any way to upload in full resolution. I completely understand if you do not want to upload in full resolution for the reasons you specify. You can upload in whatever resolution you want. I also agree with you that 1920px gives good value for many purposes and is good enough most of the time for online use, which is the most frequent use of our images. When you participate in the featured pictures program, where we feature the very best one in a thousand image, resolution is an issue thugh, and you can generally expect that it is harder to get a picture promoted with marginal pixel resolution as compared to full resolution. It will often lead to me not supporting an image, albeit the content appears featurable. For many others, as you saw with nice icebear pic (and it really is a very nice pic), this does not have as much weight. I just personally think that if you want to have the honor and exposure by getting a picture of the day, you shall have gone all in. This is just a personal preference and not stated anywhere ion the guidelines.

And one thing which is generally frowned upon on Commons is also to use Commons as a marketing platform for the full resolution versions of the same images. Like using your user page to advertise prominently for your own commercial site (I think you could tone it down a bit), or prominantly use templates on the file pages for directing re-users to your own site for full resolution images. Nothing wrong in discretely on file pages to add some contact information and tell re-users that in case they would like to re-use the photo under other conditions than the stated license, i.e., without attribution, they can contact you to negotiate terms. See, for example File:Banaue Philippines Handmade-brooms-01.jpg by Cccefalon for an IMO balanced example. For another example, where I think the commercial angle has gotten a bit too dominant, see File:Wedge tail eagle flight Jan13.jpg.

Finally, a correction of a misunderstanding. I did not start the FP project! When I first joined Commons in 2007, the FP project was very much alive. You may be mistaking the FP project from the less prominent valued image project, which I had active role in establishing. --Slaunger (talk) 08:14, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Hi Slaunger, Good points, well made. I am glad you understand my motives. And I fully understand your personal preference for "all in" images. I looked at your examples and yes I agree in the eagle image the commercial angle is a bit over the top. I don't pretend to use Commons as a marketing platform... In reality, I upload my images as a kind of thank you, because I use Wikipedia an awful lot for species identification, latin names, etc. I will have a look at my user page, I was not aware of a strong commercial angle. By the way, your Alhambra pano is outstanding!! :-)

Hi again Arturo,

Thanks for dropping by. It appears that we understand each other, and each others objectives completely. Nice! Regarding your user page, and your commercial angle, it is just my personal view, that it should be toned down, especially the links in capital letters. People have different opinions on that, and just because I think so, you are in no way obliged to change anything due to that. Other users would find it is just fine.

I am very honored regarding the appraisal you have for my Alhambra pano, thanks!

By the way, did you know that you can sign your posts on talk pages by adding -- ~~~~ at the end of your posts? It will automatically expand into a signature and datetime when saved. -- Slaunger (talk) 08:44, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Hi Slaunger. Talking about "all in" images,... I just saw your vote in my cheetah... First and foremost, thank you for your comment, which from a technical point, is flawless. It is clear that you are an expert in photography technique. The settings are not the most adequate, as you correctly point out. However, I have to say, I am slightly surprised by it. By definition, a picture of a wild predator after sunset has important technical challenges, mainly the almost inexistent light, and the fact that a cheetah on the prowl will stay on top of the termite mound for a second, not even two. You are lucky if you see it, compose and fire. There is no time to change settings. Honestly, I think this image is unbelievably atmospheric, one of the most powerful in my portfolio - you can almost hear the crickets, smell the savannah, feel the determination of the hunter. And as such, I expected it to be evaluated on its artistic strength, the story it tells, the feelings it conveys, not by the sharpness you would expect in an arquitectural image. Please don't get me wrong, I fully respect your view, and accept the comment. I am fairly new to Commons as you know... but I just expected different types of images to be evaluated with different criteria. You sent me back to my drawing board, scratching my head....

(And I have tried to do the signature but I must be doing something wrong, as I only get some "special contributions" mention)

Hi again Arturo,

First of all thanks for not attacking me for the oppose vote, but for calmly approaching me on my talk page and raise you relevant questions and comments. You are overestimating my proficiency level in the technical aspects of photography by the way. I dare to say what I think and vote accordingly, but I also know, that I may be wrong, and I am most often susceptible for reasonable arguments. I do see your point regarding the exceptional character of the shot and the timing and atmosphere, and you are correct that in reviewing FPCs we should consider the the difficulty of the shot. I do acknowledge that for this type of shot you really do not have the time to carefully consider the camera settings. I have thus changed my vote to neutral. Sorry, but I cannot really support due to quality issues and low resolution. As I have told previously I completely understand your objectives for not uploading in full resolution. It just does not give points at FPC. If you promise not to tell anyone, (shhhh), I can also reveal that in fact I have an FP from the same year (2009) of a photographically much, much simpler static object, with a hopeless f/20 aperture giving an overall soft and washed out appearance in the final image. At that time it was simply because I had no idea of what "diffraction limited" meant, and I had very little feeling for how small the aperture should be to get good DOF for such a subject, so I just chose a very small one to be sure DOF would not be an issue.

Concerning your problems with signing your previous post, it is most likely because you had forgotten to log in:)-- Slaunger (talk) 14:13, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Arturo, I note that you are releasing a low resolution image under CC licence while retaining a higher resolution image for paid clients. This is not unusual among professional photographers. However, I should warn you that Creative Commons regard their licence as applying to the "work of copyright" and not the particular file you upload to Commons or Flickr. Therefore, if the high resolution image were to appear online (for example, on your own website), someone might consider this fair to use under the CC licence you have indicated here. While we would strongly discourage anyone uploading this high resolution image to Commons, you should be aware that using a CC licence for these images potentially weakens your ability to restrict use of the high resolution images if they become publicly available. I suggest you keep your high resolution images offline and only supply them to trusted clients with a carefully worded contract. Of course, I would love it if you offered higher resolution images here but understand your need to earn money from your work. Perhaps there are images in your portfolio that are second-best or no longer making money for you. In addition to the Featured Picture forum on Commons, there are similar forums on Wikipedia (which consider also the value of the image to the article) and also the Quality Images forum on Commons. -- Colin (talk) 20:01, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Morning Slaunger, thanks a lot for changing your mind! I do appreciate your flexibility. I thought it would be better to discuss in your talk page rather than on the vote page - I hate it when somebody becomes confrontational so for me rule number one is never be confrontational! Life is too short to go around creating bad vibes, much less about a FPC. I have uploaded a full res image, at 4000px. I think it improves the overall resolution somewhat, although there remind some softness. Best, --Arturo de Frias Marques (talk)

Arturo, no problem. You are right that the full resolution has so much softness that the overall gain in information as compared to the original "thumbnail" is rather small. I still appreciate you upload it though. Now, that you have 'opened the gates' with the number of pixels, bait is also laid out for the pixel peepers to start complaining that it is 'not sharp at 100%'. That is the downside of it. Reviewers not seeing the image in its entirety and balancing resolution with pixel fidelity. -- Slaunger (talk) 07:09, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Colin, thanks a lot for your comments, very pertinent, and very useful. I will take them into account. I have uploaded a higher res cheetah though. Best, --Arturo de Frias Marques (talk)

Evening Slaunger... I had not realised, you changed again your vote to Support !! Wow, that was really unexpected... :-) Well not really, I thought you might, if I increased the pixel count.... :-) Thanks a lot, really appreciated. You know, I think you are an opinion former/leader in FP... I noticed a thick silence amongst voters when you first voted "oppose", and then a quick series of positives when you changed to "support"... Coincidence? Not sure... Now, I will really need to think carefully, what to do with the size of my next FP candidate... Food for thought. Anyway, have a great evening... --Arturo de Frias Marques (talk)

Buenos noches Arturo!

Ha, ha, you overestimate my influence on Commons, I am afraid!!

Buuut, I think you are right in some way insofar, that there is a sort of group psychology influencing voting patterns on FPCs. If the first reviewer on an FPC (and this is not specific for which reviewer in my experience) starts out by making some kind of comment, raise a concern about a nomination or outright oppose, I do think it is true, that there is a tendency for other reviewers to not engage in voting on them or to have a bias in having the same opinion (or sometimes the reverse, if you think: 'ah, this reviewer I normally disagree with').

Maybe reviewers think: "Oh, my, this looks a bit complicated, and I do not have the time to look at this in detail now, or whatever the reason may be, and they skip by it for now. Other reviewers are I think only very little influenced by what other do, so it depends a lot about who happens to "drop by". A second thing, which I often feel happens, is that if a significant number of support votes (say five) have been placed in a row without opposition, there is a tendency to receive an 'avalance' of support votes and perhaps one or two opposes. Again, I am not sure exactly what happens, but maybe some reviewers think, ahh, this and that user have supported, they are normally carefull in their reviews, and I normally agree with them, so I make a quick "I like" support, or perhaps, the many support votes attarct attention leading people to think they they will be pleased and wow'ed when opening the image in full resolution (and subsequently vote). And sometimes a few then get dissapointed and oppose. -- Slaunger (talk) 20:30, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

FP Promotion

★ This image has been promoted to Featured picture! ★ The image File:Alhambra evening panorama Mirador San Nicolas sRGB-1.jpg, that you nominated on Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Alhambra evening panorama Mirador San Nicolas sRGB-1.jpg has been promoted. Thank you for your contribution. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so.

/FPCBot (talk) 21:01, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Ooooh! What a nice pano ! For sure you used a very good and strong tripod for such a extraordinary result !:)))--Jebulon (talk) 22:51, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Indeed I did. Thanks again for lending it to me! :))) -- Slaunger (talk) 05:07, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

And the point to learn: Never ever rent your tripod to any! :) Jee 02:36, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

About portrait of Jean Cocteau

Thanks for your attention : I vey scarcely have a look at the FP promotion page on the English Wikipedia. Even though it isn't my photo, I worked on it a bit, and the unknown photographer who took it did well imo. I'll thank the nominator soon. Cheers. --JLPC (talk) 21:03, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

FPC - Fischerboot vor Bodø

With the help of Lauro I have found some basic information on the boat. You are right, the internet knows everything. Please have a look:[1]--CHK46 (talk) 14:18, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Nice teamwork! I have now voted. -- Slaunger (talk) 20:02, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for the vote. The immatriculation number N 110 ME is on the top of the steering house next to the name of the ship.--CHK46 (talk) 21:19, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

CHK46: It was not the immatriculation number I was after, but the IMO number, but I have been silly because such small vessels do not have an IMO number. Sorry for the confusion. -- Slaunger (talk) 18:46, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Aleppo Pines grove, Pinet, Hérault 02.jpg

Hi Slaunger, the last time during this nomination, you were enthusiast. Any feedbacks, even an oppose, for this similar nomination is welcome. Have a nice day. -- Christian Ferrer ^Talk 12:35, 30 September 2014 (UTC)