Voting period is over. Please don't add any new votes. Voting period ends on 11 Jan 2016 at 23:34:46 (UTC)
Original – As our article says: "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte – 1884 (French: Un dimanche après-midi à l'Île de la Grande Jatte – 1884) is one of Georges Seurat's most famous works, and is an example of pointillism."ALT -Take this as an alt. By the way, this is a png. (2,990 × 2,009 pixels)ALT " - this is a .jpg - 2,991 × 2,012 pixels
Reason
Scan is 30,000 × 19,970 pixels. Georges Seurat - French post-Impressionist painter's rather famous painting, from 1884. He was a and pointillist - he made his painings with dots. Frame is painted too.
Support as nominator (any) – Hafspajen (talk) 23:34, 29 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Support (wavering) – Support Alt. (jpg) – Early pointilism. (In effect, a sort of precursor of pixels?) Sca (talk) 01:13, 30 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Support - A little dark at thumbnail, but that's mostly because we're seeing it in contrast with the pure white of the website. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 01:41, 30 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I think the contrast is a bit off. There's a photo of the painting in context in the article]], and, although that's hardly a perfect representation, since we know it's in a white frame, we can reasonably say that the bright spots of the painting are reasonably bright, and contrast with the dark parts. Here, it looks dull. Seurat isn't dull. Adam Cuerden(talk) 08:37, 30 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I agree with Adam. The dress of the girl in the middle appears to be almost white compared to the frame in the small photo, here it is a dull, 65% grey. Check the histogram - it is quite skewed to the left. Fix the brightness/contrast/gamma, and I'll most certainly support. --Janke | Talk 09:59, 30 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
PS: On Seurat's page, there's a lighter, but smaller version that has much better colors: --Janke | Talk 10:11, 30 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Wavering – Must agree with Adam and Janke re colors. Interesting that both the nominated image and the brighter one Janke cites are credited to the Art Institute of Chicago. Sca (talk) 14:14, 30 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - I'm increasingly inclined to think that the reason these very highly detailed scans are often perceived as dull or lacking contrast is not because they are inaccurate per se. More that the extremely neutral microscopic capture does not reflect well the way the human eye perceives the painting in situ, especially from a more typical viewing distance. I've viewed Suarat very close up before and at a similar scale the brush work and the colour in the Art Project capture feels familiar and right, but then again I'd agree that in overview it feels relatively dull and lifeless. I don't think there is a simple solution to this issue other than to observe that it is probably the case that different types of captures are more suited to different uses and simply reducing the scale of very large detailed scans is often unsatisfactory when an overview is required. - Wolftick (talk) 15:10, 30 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - Yep, Wolfie, I did this on purpose. Wolftick, Sca, Crisco 1492, Janke (I am not pinging Adam since he asked me to stay away from his page) - this situation is exactly the same situation that we have here: Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/File:Filippino Lippi 016.jpg - same thing, but the reverse in this case. Now is there a way to settle this? When is the big big scan preffered and when the smaller - or anyway ... as User:Wolftick points out here - "these very highly detailed scans are often perceived as dull or lacking contrast. Yes they are. So, what's the solution? Can we discuss this=? Hafspajen (talk) 16:35, 30 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
If not, that's good news. Was kinda missing you. Hafspajen (talk) 12:50, 31 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
As Yan said, there is a smaller scan,(2,990 × 2,009 pixels) that has probably more lighter colours - though this painting is rather big, compared to the angel, that is tiny, this one is 207.5 × 308.1 cm (81.7 × 121.3 in). Hafspajen (talk) 17:14, 30 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's important to acknowledge that paintings are physical somewhat 3 dimensional subjects and lighting will have a big effect on the look and feel of the image. Therefore the digitisation may be accurate but still not match the look and feel of the painting when seen in person. My personal preference is for detailed, neutral, somewhat analytical images with as much depth of colour as possible as I find this most interesting and objective, even if is does rather sacrifice reproducing the feel of the painting when viewed in overview. I think the latter goal is more subjective and therefore less encyclopaedic. I do have sympathy with both sides though - Wolftick (talk) 19:15, 30 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Lighting does have a large influence on paintings, aye. I think this is basically what the painting would look like in relatively dim lighting. Adam Cuerden(talk) 00:41, 31 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Mmmm. I do have sympathy with both sides - too. Hafspajen (talk) 19:53, 30 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The thing here is, that as such, filling the display screen, the image looks quite OK, since your eyes adapt to the lower brightness very quickly - but as soon as you have a reference white (such as on this, or any other Wiki page), the painting looks very dull. The histogram tells it all - it is virtually flat on the right one third. It shouldn't be a problem to fix this, I would do it, but the file is a little too big for my already old(ish) merely 4GB RAM computer to handle... (Oh, I remember my very first computer, it had a whopping 16 KB of RAM - note: kilo, not mega, nor giga... ;-) --Janke | Talk 09:14, 31 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly, so ... I have no real solution. Maybe this should be discussed on the project page. Hafspajen (talk) 12:51, 31 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Adam, I posted Jankes's suggested scan as an alt. Or shall we go with the Fix the brightness/contrast/gamma as Janke suggested? Why do I have a feeling Wolfie won't like that (:)) Hafspajen (talk) 16:32, 31 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Think the alt's a little too light. I'd like to help, but these massive files are beyond the computers I have. Adam Cuerden(talk) 16:39, 31 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Let's drop the Sunday on La Grande Jatte then. Hafspajen (talk) 17:34, 31 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Hafspajen Not necessarily :) I do think editing scans directly sourced from museums has WP:V issues though, so maybe you're correct.
Would suggest keep Original and Alt as is and promote or not according to vote. Currently (Per Adam Cuerden I think) I don't think either is quite right. - Wolftick (talk) 17:36, 31 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
OK, Wolfie, as you say. Unfortunatelly there is nothing in the middle. (That ping was not working, Wolfie..., by the way)Hafspajen (talk) 17:34, 31 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose original - I'm glad to see other people acknowledging the contrast and brightness issues with these hi-res scans. I feel like we have often ignored it in the past. In response to Wolftick's comments, I think the reason the hi-res scans are dark and low contrast is a simple matter of optics. As anyone who's done photography through a microscope can attest, you have to flood the subject with blinding amounts of light to get anything approaching "normal" contrast in the photograph (as you are spreading a single pinpoint across the entire sensor). Exposing paint to extremely intense light is a bad idea, so I imagine they try to make due with just enough light to get an acceptable exposure. Personally, I prefer lower-res images that have closer to "normal" contrast, i.e. what you would experience without a camera in typical gallery lighting. Kaldari (talk) 23:37, 31 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
