Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Charles Baudelaire

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[edit] Charles Baudelaire

This 1863 Woodburytype shows French poet Charles Baudelaire just before his health began to decline. Baudelaire famously declared photography to be "the refuge of every would-be painter, every painter too ill-endowed or too lazy to complete his studies."[1]

Detail showing typical offset printing halftone screen

Edit 1: despeckled, downsampled, lightly retouched

Reason

This is a wonderful portrait with high encyclopedic value.

Articles this image appears in

Charles Baudelaire

Creator

Étienne Carjat, 1863

• Support as nominator — Cacophony 07:43, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
• Support, superb photograph with undoubted historic and encyclopaedic value. Chris Buttigieg 11:40, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
• Comment Are those speckles artifacts of halftoning, or are they on the original? J Are you green? 16:13, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
• Comment. What's the source of this image? The previous version was uploaded from sv.wiki, but that's a different picture. The Met image is sepia and lower-res. The other one is lower-res with spots. Where does this one come from? Chick Bowen 18:23, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Woops, I forgot to fill out the source field when I uploaded it. This is an image that I scanned from a book. It has somewhat less dust and scratches than the other image, though it is not nearly as clean as the low-res version from The Met. It is a Woodburytype print, so there are likely many different versions that exist. The nominated version is the same quality as appears in the book. I'm hesitant to do any touching up because I know that is often frowned upon. Cacophony 19:34, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

OK, I'll support. The texture of the paper is apparent in the scan, but my understanding is that since Woodburytypes are not printed on photo paper, that would usually be true anyway. I also added the image to Woodburytype. Chick Bowen 21:36, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I really don't think that it's the texture of the paper. It looks like halftoning, and seeing that it is a scan from a book as well as comparing it to the image that Cacophony linked, I'd say it probably is. However, until I'm sure, I'll refrain from voting. J Are you green? 22:01, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Looks like a hexagonal pattern rather than random speckling to me. But I don't know either. See right. Chick Bowen 23:31, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, it's halftoning that is somewhat visiable on the image from the book. I'm not sure how to improve it other than finding another source. It is really too bad because it is going to be difficult finding another image that large (it's about 8"x6" in the book). Cacophony 23:59, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

You can remove halftoning quite accurately without loss of detail with reverse fourier analysis, plugins available for gimp and photoshop on the internet, but when I use it I find it messes up the corners sometimes, another option is using smoothing tools like NL filter in gimp or gaussian blur but there will be some loss of detail Bleh999 11:51, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

• Support sharp and historic --Hadseys 12:02, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I have to oppose this version. I can't look at the Met one and not wish it was here instead; the halftone conversion has blown almost all of the subtlety of the original print. It's a bit ironic that the technique this shot is partly notable for is obscured by the halftone of the book it was scanned from. The Woodburytype was specifically developed for book repro and remains (I believe) the only way of rendering a gray in offset printing without using halftone dots! As a shot of the subject, it's a fine portrait and judged on that basis I'd support, but no matter how hi-res this version is, it'll be horrible in repro and isn't very nice to look at unless heavily downsampled. Nonetheless I've uploaded a despeckled, downsampled version (with the worst of the dust removed) for consideration. mikaul^talk15:17, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

• Support edit Great comment by the person above me - if you read this, go back and sign your post. You did a great job editing the image; it improves it enough for me to support it. Zakolantern 21:55, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I guess I dropped a tilda. Glad you like the edit :o) mikaul

^talk 22:54, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose both Sorry, but the halftoning means that this is an inferior and inaccurate reproduction of a wonderful portrait. The edit is significantly better, but the seeming texture caused by halftoning remains. Although this is a wonderful picture, the halftoning artifacts are misleading and show that this is not the best that Wikipedia can offer. J Are you green? 15:16, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
• Question: has anyone e-mailed the Met and asked for a high-res version of their scan? It's not beyond the realm of possibility. Chick Bowen 15:41, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose I got so excited when I saw the thumbnail. This is such a wonderful, haunting portrait. However, the halftoning issue at 100% bothered me, and the edit just looks too soft/artificial. I'll see if I can't find a better version.-Andrew c ^[talk] 17:14, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose Per above. ^8thstar 03:57, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

No consensus MER-C 06:27, 14 July 2007 (UTC)