Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/All Gizah Pyramids.jpg

Giza Pyramids

Reason: Crisp, large, encyclopedic.
Proposed caption: The main pyramids of the Giza Necropolis (front to back): Pyramids of the Queens, Pyramid of Menkaure, Pyramid of Khafre, and Pyramid of Khufu. The pyramids are the sole remaining of the Seven Wonders of the World, and, along with the ancient city of Memphis and the pyramids of Dahshur, are listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Articles this image appears in: Egyptian pyramids, Giza pyramid complex
Creator: Ricardo Liberato

Support as nominator trialsanderrors 03:35, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Very well done. Cacophony 05:50, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support great composition and technically good too --Childzy ^{(Talk|Images)} 13:44, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support I'm surprised we don't have a pyramid FP already.--HereToHelp 15:33, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- We have this one, but that's of course from a very different vantage point. ~ trialsanderrors 16:23, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support looks good. Matt Deres 16:09, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support Wow, this kind of sharpness at this size without the need to stitch. wow. -Fcb981^{(talk:contribs)} 17:36, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Question The image has a weird speckled or "pointilized" look (see crop above). Pardon my ignorance but can somebody explain what this is? CillaИ X♦C [dic] 23:07, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Part gravel, part undulations. The picture was possibly sharpened, but only moderately so, or otherwise one would see a halo on the horizon. A similar issue came up during this discusssion on Commons, where the photographer provided the raw file to show that image was not sharpened. In any case, I contacted the photographer and asked him to comment here. ~ trialsanderrors 04:12, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - Having been there a few years back, it's likely gravel - there are dark small stones on top of the sand over a lot of the area there. Debivort 17:53, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - It shows every sign of being quite heavily but selectively unsharp masked. The sky is super-smooth while the edges of the pyramids, foreground figures (there are even some jaggies there) and anything with any detail display that distinctive high-contrast edge. This is why the otherwise fairly subtle shade of the pebbles and rocks makes them darker and more noticeable. I still think it's a good photo; perfect lighting means lots of visible information, just enough people to give some scale, etc. A downsampled version would look much better full size on screen, just as this version would look in print. mikaul^talk 20:13, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
~~Oppose~~ I also notice the localized blurs spotted all over the picture (It fits the description in the question above), and it takes away from the picture. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.75.90.35 (talk • contribs) ← You need to sign in to opine. ~ trialsanderrors 04:12, 14 August 2007 (UTC) ← not technically true, guidelines say "however that anonymous votes are generally disregarded" Debivort 17:53, 14 August 2007 (UTC) [reply]
Oppose. Needs to be heavily downsampled, and light levels need to be played with. Lighting on the pyramids is so harsh it's practically 2-color (obviously this is a problem in the desert but maybe the picture could be taken in the evening?) and there are speckles on almost half the image. Look at the horses- some kind of digital operation has been done on this image and it's negatively affected quality. Horses and people don't naturally look like oil paintings. --⁪froth^t 17:45, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

An evening shot might get you a nicer colour palette, but I think you'd lose out on clarity and contrast. The sharp light is almost clinical, but it allows us to see pretty much each individual block. Matt Deres 20:46, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support Debivort 17:53, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support Great composition. – sgeureka ^t•c 09:56, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per froth. CillaИ X♦C [dic] 12:36, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Brilliant shot, good composition and very encyclopaedic. Chris.B 15:59, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - Unpleasant black pixels, apparently artefacts (compression, not ancient!), dot the Khafre's Pyramid, especially the casing at the top, the right-most of the lesser pyramids appears to merge with the background, dreadful speckling (probably heat haze; I don't think it is the result of a sharpen or any other digital editing process); sides that face the sun appear almost burnt out. Also, as Froth says, image appears two-tone in places (just see the rubble at the base of the pyramids). Having the skyscrapers of Cairo in the bottom right hand corner is also a tad distracting, but this probably can't be avoided. Laïka 19:44, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support per my comments above. Valuable image with forgivable flaws.mikaul ^talk 20:13, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support Speckle here or there... with 12.7 million sharp pixels, I don't care. I disagree about downsampling - with this as detailed as is, downsampling would delete precious information. If a user wants to downsample to remove the speckles, that's his business, but downampling really can do no good. Lighting is a little harsh, but illustrates the pyramids well. The picture is illustrative and well done. thegreen J Are you green? 20:23, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Sounds to me as if several of the complaints are not with the picture, but with the subject; but the subject is portrayed faithfully and is worthy of FP status, methinks.Unschool 01:26, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Encyclopedic, sharp, great quality. —dima /talk/ 19:47, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support . Blieusong 10:26, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support. This is not the best Giza photograph I have seen, but they are among the most photographed structures in the world. This is a very good photograph that shows the multiple-pyramid arrangement reasonably well. I'm not myself bothered by the Cairo skyline to the right, as this shows the context of the site today. (In fact, many professional photos come from the other direction, as much for getting the Great Pyramid in better view as for obscuring the modern intrusions.) I can't comment on the technical minutia except to say they didn't particularly bother this non-photographer. --Dhartung | Talk 06:08, 20 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support Simply gorgeous, and there's nothing on the technical side that's so blatantly wrong that the image could not be featured. I'd say this fits into "WP's best work". -- Kicking222 02:47, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Promoted Image:All Gizah Pyramids.jpg MER-C 09:26, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]