Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Naadam Horse Race

Naadam Horse Race

Edit 2 re-uploaded image after reading more about jpeg artifacts - attempts made through photoshop to increase quality

This is an image of a child and his horse participating in the yearly Naadam festival in Mongolia. Naadam is a huge celebration of sporting events which draws participants from throughout the country. Part of the festival involves long-distance horse races across the steppes. The jockeys are children age 5-13. Death among the horses is not uncommon, as seen in the picture. This child is leading his horse past another horse which had died minutes earlier. This picture appears in the Naadam article, which I plan on greatly expanding in the near future.

PONIES!!!!!!!! XD!!!! (*o*)!!!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Meatballofdeath (talk • contribs) 21:00, 28 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think that this picture illustrates the major components of the Naadam horse races: 1) its location on the wide-open grasslands of the Mongolian steppes, 2) the young age of its participants, and 3) the danger involved to the participants

This is my first attempt at a featured picture - I have been reading the page for a month and this picture seems to be relevant, large enough, etc. I don't see any blown-out highlights or jpeg artifacts, but I must admit that I'm a novice! I have cropped the original to limit the amount of sky and to increase the size of the horse/rider. I can provide the original in any format requested. I also have less illustrative pictures (without the dead horse) which offer closer views of the riders, etc. if that is desired.

This picture was taken by me earlier this month and has been released into the public domain.

Nominate and support. - InvictaHOG 01:59, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Support. Although the clouds are blurred (suffering from JPEG artifacting) and the young jockey's face and some of the horse's body are unclear, the image is of great intrinsic value. The significance greatly outweighs the faults of the image quality. Images such as this will bring insight and provoke further research. -- AJ24 02:10, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure that I understand the jpeg artifacting thing, even after looking at the examples provided. Is it something which is related to the camera that I can't change or is there something that I can do with photoshop, etc. to make sure that the images I submit are of higher quality? InvictaHOG 02:14, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I believe a compressing algorithm is usually at fault in cases such as this, but im not completely certain. You may want to consult one of the users with greater knowledge on image quality. However, I strongly believe and hope that the image will be accepted as-is. -- AJ24 02:21, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

On certain cameras, there's a difference between "medium quality" and "high quality" compression - the latter typically takes twice as much space for a pretty small gain in quality. I'm presuming you're already shooting on highest possible resolution. Other than that, some programs like Photoshop have a "remove JPEG artefacts" de-noisifier which may work a bit. I don't see a huge problem in this image. Note that *every* JPEG image has "JPEG artefacts" - the only question is, how much of a problem are they. Stevage 11:25, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have uploaded another edit after reading more about jpeg artifacts on photoshop. Hopefully this has improved - I was able to fix the tilt, but was not able to recreate the brightened shadows as in edit #1. InvictaHOG 20:08, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Support - Wonderful. HighInBC 02:04, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. The original is tilted, I uploaded an edit which also brightens the shadows very slightly. --Dschwen 06:17, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose An amazing subject (made me want to read more about it), the picture quality really lets it down. --Fir0002 09:08, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per Fir --Glaurung 14:30, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Extremely moving (the things humans make animals do is sometimes horrendous), however there are to many picture quality issues. I would probably support a similar photo of better quality. --Pharaoh Hound (talk) 19:48, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose The Subject is quite good though. I could not find the article this phot is in.--Pedit 03:05, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral Though I am leaning towards support, the subject is not quite big enough, but it is a good picture. Viva La V i e Boheme 22:03, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support Support edit 3 (my edit) with better focus on the subject. -Ravedave 00:33, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not promoted Raven4x4x 05:42, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]