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Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/San Francisco earthquake

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Panorama of San Francisco in ruins from Lawrence Captive Airship, 2000 feet above San Francisco Bay overlooking water front. Sunset over Golden Gate. May 1906.
Edit 1 by Vanderdecken. I can also remove the text at the bottom left, if nobody objects.
Edit 2 by User:Janke
Edit 3 by Fir0002

Excellent view of San Francisco after the earthquake of 1906, with the sun setting over the Golden Gate. I've cleaned up some of the dust/scratches in the image, but it could use a bit more work (maybe even contrast and white level changes), which is easy to do. Consider this a first draft until specific concerns are proposed and addressed.

  • Support. Incredible detail(7000px across). Very interesting. erikD 17:55, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • The original is 11000x4500, but I was hesitant to force such a large file on everyone (10 or 20 MB). — BRIAN0918 • 2006-06-02 18:40
      • I understand your motivation, but I think that in this case, where the photo is of great historical interest, the added detail available would be invaluable. I think you should upload the full-sized version. --Dante Alighieri | Talk 18:53, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • I don't think any detail is really lost, though. The full size is blurry close-up. I applied a sharpen filter to bring out the detail, so that should be enough. What's the largest FP we have? — BRIAN0918 • 2006-06-02 18:56
          • If it's true that no detail is lost (I'll trust your judgment here), then I have no objection to the reduction in file size to create a fully sharp image. --Dante Alighieri | Talk 19:06, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
            • If people want to get the fullsize version, it's linked right on the image page (although it's 157MB in size). — BRIAN0918 • 2006-06-02 19:14
  • Support Enormous historical significance. (And personal, too - my great-grandmother's sister was in San Francisco at that time - did she have stories to tell, back home in Finland - she lived to be 99!) BTW: If no-one else does it, I volunteer to enhance the levels & contrast a bit in a day or two. --Janke | Talk 18:36, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • This was the original version before I applied level/contrast/gamma changes, but I'm all for improvements. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-06-02 18:43

Promoted Image:San Francisco in ruin edit2.jpg ~ VeledanTalk 09:35, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Probably worth noting none of the images here are the Library of Congress version, which has a brown sepia tint and is also somewhat faded. George Lawrence did see a black and white photo when he developed a print (had to be a contact print, no 4 ft. wide enlargers). But then he added a sepia tint, which was fashionable at the time. And the LofC copy is also faded with time. So these black and white (grayscale) versions are actually probably closer to what Lawrence saw, even if different in appearance from the LofC copy.
  • Another point: the resolution of an original contact print is substantially greater than any of these images. For example, the Whittell building on Geary St. was under construction. The steel skeleton is blurred in these versions, but the individual girders are sharp and distinct on a contact print. These images are from the LofC 300 dpi scan, would be great to see this photo scanned at 2400 dpi when we might get all the detail it contains.

Flashpedia (talk) 19:00, 21 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]