Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Maison Kammerzell

Maison Kammerzell

Reason: Mesdames et messieurs, voilà: la maison Kammerzell (or technically, Meine Damen und Herren, hier sehen Sie: das Haus Kammerzell, since in 1900 Alsace-Lorraine was German).

Maison Kammerzell, adjacent to Strasbourg Cathedral, is one of the best known examples of Renaissance architecture and one of the few secular buildings that has survived intact until today. Built in 1427 and transformed twice since, the current version dates back to 1589. This photochrom image by the Detroit Publishing Co. from the late 19th Century shows the façade virtually identical to its current state, exempting the restaurant sign, which is now in French.

Oh, and if anyone gets a chance to eat there, I recommend the choucroute aux poissons – fish on sauerkraut...
Articles this image appears in: Strasbourg, Maison Kammerzell
Creator: Detroit Publishing Co.
Nominator: trialsanderrors

Support — trialsanderrors 09:37, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment, I definitely would support this but... is this version the best we can get from th TIFF? This version looks rather dull even compared to this lower resolution version. gren グレン 09:58, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I think you're falling prey to the "bigger images create muddier thumbnails" effect here. The edit has significantly more contrast than the original. ~ trialsanderrors 10:14, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - To make clear what I intended with my edits (other than to remove the dust and some rather pesky discolorization): most of the changes were done to enhance the photochrom effect of the picture. So I didn't go for sharpness as much as for the impression of a very detailed watercolor that creates most of the visual appeal of photochromes. I could've pushed for more sharpness, but between the two it was more important for me to show that this is not, in fact, a photograph. (Well, technically it's a hybrid.) ~ trialsanderrors 10:41, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. I don't think the Unsharp Mask looks good. The sharpness is nothing like the original and gives a distinctly different impression from the original. It does not look like a photochrom at high resolution at all, nor does it look like a watercolor — it looks like a digital image that someone ill-advisedly ran an Unsharp Mask filter on. If another edit was made from the original TIF which did not look so digitally manipulated (esp. in terms of sharpness), I would be happy to support. In this case though I prefer the original TIF to the edited version, primarily for the sharpness reason. --Fastfission 14:55, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I think you're talking about the median filter. The unsharp mask doesn't do any of the things you say (at a setting of 150%, the unsharp mask actually sharpens the picture, but at a 0.5px radius the effect is very localized). I'll see if fading the median does anything interesting to the picture. ~ trialsanderrors 17:02, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support well, in any case very impressive and great for 1900 especially since there is an article about the building. gren グレン 23:17, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
oppose first ~~tentative~~ support second - I don't like the photosopping of the first. The second shows much more detail, but it too has been filtered? Can we get a link to the original file from which these versions have been made? Debivort 09:25, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- It's in the edit history of the alt version. direct link ~ trialsanderrors 09:30, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - Thanks for the link, but gosh, now I'm more confused than before. Edit 1 with the median filter looks just like the original. Also, what does the panel of crops illustrate? Debivort 18:17, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - Yeah, 90% of the photoshop effort went into stamping out dust and cleaning up discolorization. The contrast enhancement really isn't that big a deal, and I'm not sure why it's being made such an issue here. I believe the crop panels signify "I'm one of the wealthiest citizens of Strasbourg and I can afford to have my house decorated with the finest of woodcarvings". ~ trialsanderrors 19:16, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      - I see. I like that I can more easily read the sign in the alternative than the original nom, by the way, more than I worry about the specks present in the original. I dunno. tough call. Debivort 03:20, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        I can withdraw the first edit, if that makes the process easier. I don't think the difference is that big, and I corrected some minor mistakes in the alternative edit, so I prefer that myself. ~ trialsanderrors 06:10, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not promoted This has gone on for long enough. MER-C 03:52, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]