Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Palace of Westminster Twilight

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[edit] The Palace of Westminster in London

The Palace of Westminster at twilight from the South Bank. On the right is Big Ben and Westminster Bridge.

Reason

I had never really been particularly satisfied with the existing FP of the Palace Of Westminster but had not had the chance to take a photo of it at an atmospheric time of evening until recently. The old FP is a bit dated by current standards and I think is due for a delisting. This image is a 2 x 6 segment panorama so the detail is excellent. As Fir0002 has done previously, I have decided that I will probably upload only lower resolution images in future as the licencing arrangements are not very photographer-friendly. In any case, here is not the place for a soapbox, but this image is actually downsampled from 14000 by 7600 pixels so sharpness is excellent. You may be concerned that the lighting of the Palace is bit patchy. This is actually by design, as the portions that are not lit are actually on the water, so there is no way for it to be lit up from below - unfortunate, but this is the reality of the scene!

Articles this image appears in

England, House of Lords, Parliament of the United Kingdom, London, Palace of Westminster, City of Westminster and Reform of the House of Lords.

Creator

Diliff

Nominator

Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs)

• Support — Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 23:02, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose — I like it, but it seems like the building details are very odd due to JPEG artifacts. How about uploading the full 14000x7600 version at JPEG-100? ♠ SG →Talk 23:34, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
  • You evidently didn't read why I didn't upload a higher resolution image in the first place. I don't think whatever issues you are seeing with building details are due to JPEG artifacts. What exactly are you seeing? I've looked at it up close and I think you'll find the detail is about as good as it can get for this resolution. There are some very slight artifacts around the towers but nothing that you wouldn't see on any other image out there. If you like, I can upload a copy of it saved at the lowest compression setting available (resulting in a 250% increase in file size for virtually no benefit!)... Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 23:49, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
    • It looks more like the details have been cramped together. I would like to see it at a higher resolution, so that I could actually see if there are missing details. I don't see why it would be a problem, unless you are on a slow connection which wouldn't allow you to upload the file in a reasonable amount of time. ♠ SG →Talk 16:42, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
      • Well, I downsampled it by a factor of 4 so there shouldn't be any artifacts introduced by downsampling it at a peculiar ratio. The reason for not uploading a higher resolution image is not for practical reasons (such as having a slow connection), it is because I am not happy with the situation where others may take very high resolution images and use them outside the reasonable boundaries of Wikipedia. Ie I don't want others to take my pictures and use them commercially for their own benefit which is something that can happen under the present licencing. Keeping the resolution sub-optimal is one way of limiting this use, although certainly this image is still more than high enough resolution for commercial use :/.. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 17:08, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
        • Not an idle threat either... I would definitely steal your pictures and sell them if I wasn't such a nice guy. they are, of course, good enough : ) -Fcb981 06:23, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
        • If you don't want commercial reusers to benefit, wikipedia isn't the place for you... Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 06:39, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
          • I'd like to think that Wikipedia is whatever the community wants it to be. We're the ones that fund its existence, we're the ones that contribute to it. As it stands with regard to licencing, you're right that perhaps it isn't, but that is a shame because it isn't that I'm being greedy and I don't want to share - I do, and I think photographers in general have an innate need to share their art. What I don't want is people who have contributed nothing to the website to benefit financially from contributors' hard work. Presented this way, I'm sure the vast majority of contributors would agree with this sentiment. I'm confident that at the heart of Wikipedia's goals is the idea that the writhing masses, the Average Joes, the proletariat, etc (call them what you will) will have access to our combined knowledge. I don't see how limiting use of the contributed images to the project or at most non-commercial use is in contradiction to the purpose of Wikipedia... Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 10:19, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
            • Absolutely, you shouldn't be forced to chose between not contributing and contributing and getting ripped off. I'm sure the lisencing wasn't intended that way but it shouldn't be the effect. -Fcb981 04:35, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
• Neutral Support I shouldn't hold diliff to a higher standard... Needless to say (this is diliff after all) the clarity and stiching are fantastic. It also may be true that this is better than the existing FP however there are some things that could be better. the dark areas on the subject are distracting and not ideal. Diliff, maybe you could try adjusting the levels with the RAW files although you know better than I what the limitations on that are. you should crop the right side a bit more so that we arn't blessed with a close up of some randome bridge, maybe to the first fully visable pillar. other than that it looks pretty good. -Fcb981 01:06, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Fair enough, but as I explained, the dark areas cannot be helped at this time of the evening (and during the day the building isn't nearly as visually impressive.. a no-win situation in that respect I suppose). The shadows have already been lifted as far as they will go before it starts to look a bit nasty. This scene may be more suitable for some HDR tone mapping or something as the luminance range required is too high for a single exposure but I didn't bracket exposures. As for the bridge, I thought it added a little to the composition but tastes vary. :-) Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 01:20, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
• Support A great image, and definitely better than the current FP. Separately, the thumbnail looks incredibly blurry for some reason (e.g., on the clock face). TotoBaggins 02:04, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
• Neutral. Good composition and extremely well-stitched. But the dark areas are just so grainy.. By the way, does the clock tower actually look like that? It looks kind of distorted, especially near the top --froth^T 08:18, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
• Weak support Nice image, very sharp. I guess people seeing "jpg artifacts" are using LCD monitors, which can bring out things in the shadows that aren't there on a CRT... BTW, is that the ISS, a star, a plane(t), (or Superman?) close to the left top corner of the tall left tower - or do you actually have a hot pixel in you camera, Diliff... ;-) --Janke | Talk 09:45, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I believe it is Venus, Janke. :-) Suddenly everyone's an expert! You're not the first person to confuse stars/planets with various other phenomena! Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 10:12, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
• Support I would prefer a larger resolution (ca. 5000 px should be enough to bring out the details) but looking at what we have now it's almost laughable that we find error in this one. ~ trialsanderrors 05:16, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
• Neutral, I'ts an awesome image, but there's something weird on the full res. It looks like it's been downscaled suboptimally, leaving some harsh edges and aliasing, rough pixels, etc. Do you have a higher res? Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 05:24, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I don't believe it has been downsampled suboptimally. It was bicubically downsampled (reliable smooth downsampling - the default in Photoshop) by a factor of 4 from the original. Perhaps you're confusing aliasing with the fact that it is pretty close to actual pixel detail. This sort of phenomenon is minimised when an image is not sharp but I wouldn't say they're artifacts you're seeing either. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 17:55, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
    • Look at the roofline in the middle, there's practically alternating pixels of sky and roof there. It's clear here's additional fine detail being hidden, and it just leaves the image looking excessively sharp, because there are harsh transitions, but you can't actually make out the details. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 19:39, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
      • Yes, I see them. They look about as good as they could look given the resolution. Would you prefer a straight roof without that detail? How do you figure that detail is 'hidden'? Its there, just at the pixel level. I've attached a 100% size crop of the roof to show you what the roof actually looks like. Downsampled by a factor of 4, you get the kind of detail visible on that image. See if you can downsample it and get a better result if you like, but I'm not sure you will.. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 20:44, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
    • Did you try to downsample in multiple steps? ~ trialsanderrors 23:55, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
    • Could you upload the full size of the original resolution? All the extra details would be a wow factor for me; as it is "pixel level" detail doesn't do anything for me, because I can't actually derive any information about it from the alternating pixels. Seeing those things along the roofline is much better. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 02:20, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
      • As I've said over and over in this nomination, I'm not prepared to upload a higher resolution image due to the licencing allowing commercial use. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 10:28, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
      • See nomination. ~ trialsanderrors 02:38, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
• Support Too bad some places aren't lit though. :-( · AndonicO ^{Talk · Sign Here} 18:02, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
• Very Very Weakish Oppose - Perhaps it's not the best work of David. And I agree with him that the licensing is seriously not photographer-friendly. But as mentioned above, the Clock Tower looks seriously flat (IMHO) and sort of distorted. And the black areas are annoying (in contrast with light areas). In addition this is not much superior than the existing FP, except that it has more resolution. And for a building of this detail, I think this resolution is a bit low. I was hoping for a bit bigger one, at least something more than 4000px on the longest side. And I think the image is too much down-sampled, the details look weirdly sharp. But still it's good image. I might reconsider my vote in a later time, because right now maybe I'm not in the mood to support. --Arad
• Weak oppose. Given the level of detail that's available in the full-size version, it just seems cruel to tease us with it. In comparison, the smaller size is lacking. When I know there's something better out there, it doesn't seem right to settle for a less-worthy edition. howcheng {chat} 07:13, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
  • The thing is, the larger version isn't 'out there'. I'm reserving my right to keep my best work for non-commercial use (or commercial use at my choosing). In my opinion, the fact that uploading it to wikipedia instantly revokes my right to control its commercial use outside its boundaries is a big problem for an encyclopedia that presents itself as a non profit by-the-community-for-the-community website. I didn't tease you with it either, Night Gyr was bugging me to show him the full 100% version and I wasn't prepared to so I uploaded a crop as an example... ;-) Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 10:01, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
    • I know this is OT but you DO realize that GFDL and CC-BY-SA require that the resulting product have the same license right? This is usually unacceptable to almost all companies. Additionally, there's nothing keeping you from uploading the same photo at the same resolution to both here and iStockPhoto, for example. Then you kind of have the best of both worlds -- the image is available for free as long as users keep it free, or they pay a small fee for its use instead and keep their resulting work copyrighted. howcheng {chat} 17:08, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
      • Also can't you just upload it with your own restrictive license and just live with it not being featured? Wikipedia prefers content that's commercially-usable but it by no means has to be. --froth^T 08:40, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
        • Actually, for user-created content it does. We can only use fair use images under a limited set of circumstances, and this would not qualify. howcheng {chat} 17:14, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose.--Absar 13:19, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
• Support Beautiful, high enough resolution to see any detail I'd ever want to see, but of a size and cropped that it's actually also fun to look at in "full" size. It's the image one thinks of when one thinks of London, but it's better than any other image of the subject I've ever seen. Enuja 09:09, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
• Support Better than current, and as per Enuja this captures the iconic way I see London in my mind's eye.Pedro |  Talk  09:17, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
• Support Very good view, highly encyclopedic, and beautiful. S h a r k f a c e 2 1 7 20:14, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Promoted Image:Palace of Westminster, London - Feb 2007.jpg Raven4x4x 01:20, 13 February 2007 (UTC)