Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Image:Asteracea poster.jpg

A poster of Asteraceae flowers

Cutting out issues - poor cutting out resulting in a loss of detail

Reason: A high quality and detailed depiction of some well-known flowers, in the style of the old encyclopedias. This time, almost all images are FP or Quality Images. Let me answer two questions before someone asks: the disposition of the flowers in the poster was driven by aesthetics only; and yes, it will be nice to have a poster with all Asteracea subfamilies if and when there are suitable pictures available.
Articles this image appears in: Asteraceae, Poster
Creator: Alvesgaspar. Photos by Alvesgaspar, Tony Wills and Dori

Support as nominator (prefer alternative) Alvesgaspar (talk) 09:45, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I agree that this will be nice to do when those pictures become available, and when that time comes, I hope it will be possible to use Latin names rather than numbered labels, for usability. Meanwhile, I'm sure this will do well on Commons, but I'm doubtful of its encyclopaedic value, just as I was of the other recent nomination (Syrphids, iirc). Specifically, this one is not comprehensive as an illustration of Asteracean diversity because it doesn't show a variant lacking ray florets altogether. I also suspect (without checking each one) that this poster includes only species growing in Mediterranean climates (of which admittedly there are many more than in other climates), so it would seem more suited to articles about Mediterranean Asteraceae, or perhaps, at a slight stretch, Mediterranean flora as a whole. I'm also surprised that the Glebionis has only been keyed to genus level. Is it a troublesome taxon? What I do like is that the flower colours seem roughly representative of the family (lots of yellows, quite a few whites, other colours possible but rarer). Samsara (talk • contribs) 11:29, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment Well, let’s try to defend my lady. First, I’ll answer the questions. Yes, most of the flowers are growing wild in Mediterranean climates, but not all. For example, #8 is from Central America and #12 from South Africa. That is right, I could not get a complete identification for the garden cultivar Chrysanthemum in #4, maybe someone will be able to help. Yes, I could have included a flower of the Carduoideae subfamiliy, but I wasn’t able to adapt the available photos (like this one) to this kind of representation, with a black background. And now for the enc value of the poster. I think there are various levels of enc interest in a picture, from the “entry level”, where the main objective is to catch the attention of the reader for the most relevant aspects of the subject (just like with the coloured plates of old encyclopaedias), to the “specialist level”, where scientific accuracy and fine detail should prevail. In the entry level, aesthetics, simplicity and high graphical quality are important elements. And I really believe this poster is among the best “entry-level” illustrations Wikipedia can offer. I’m sure it is possible to design a poster, or a set of posters, which show the family in a more comprehensive way. But, as I said above, we are here limited by the available good quality photos, and the oportunity of doing it might never arrive. - Alvesgaspar (talk) 15:02, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - Maybe this will help. You may have to recover some of the green parts of the flower. Samsara (talk • contribs) 15:49, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - Thank you, Samsara. I have arrived this far, but the quality of the masking is not as good as the other ones -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 15:59, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    - I found it helped me to create a duplicate of the original layer that had the green channel blacked out. Samsara (talk • contribs) 16:05, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support - nice masking etc. As for conveying the full diversity, I don't worry too much. It is reminiscent of the Haeckel posters that show morphological diversity rather than cladistic diversity. de Bivort 15:55, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Well, I respect your opinion. I still think if morphological diversity is the point, we should include a flower that lacks ray florets. Samsara (talk • contribs) 16:03, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Something like Carlina vulgaris might be a reasonable compromise, which has bracts instead of ray florets. Samsara (talk • contribs) 16:42, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support - very enc. An image like this can never be comprehensive - but even in thumb size, this has the eye-catching effect that I feel is one of the most important features of a FP. And WOW, it looks good in full size! --Janke | Talk 17:07, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Per Alvesgaspar defending his lady. Lycaon (talk) 17:52, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Pretty and encyclopedic what more could you want from an FP support --Hadseys Chat_Contribs 23:57, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Better than your last composite but still not up to scratch IMO. Some of the flowers exhibit very good sharpness however there are several with poor sharpness; #1 in particular, and to a lesser degree #3, #4, #8 #9 and #12. Also though the black background is a good idea, a lot of the cutting out is shoddy - this is detrimental to both aesthetics and enc. In particular image #11 (no. 6 in the examples file) is terribly cut out with the background strongly coming through, and #6 has lost a lot of hair detail resulting in an unenc representation of the flower. --Fir0002 01:41, 15 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Thank you for the hard work in noticing those masking impefections. They are now corrected to the best of my skills. That took maybe less time than doing all those nice illustrations of the flaws -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 11:07, 15 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Fir, well done for examining the detail of the cut-outs and noting the loss of hairs in #6. This is an encyclopedia not a picture book, so the detail, even at the level of the hairs, should be accurate. So, reluctantly, I oppose - Adrian Pingstone (talk) 09:31, 15 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment - I agree this is not only a picture book. That is why all high resolution versions (with the "fundamental" hair details) are easily available through the links in the picture file. According to my reasoning above, that is what I would call a "second-level" enc layer. With such a negative comment, one keeps wondering if the oppose vote (sorry, "opinion") was indeed reluctant... -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 13:30, 15 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Info - Alternative added, with a representative of the Carduoideae subfamily, containing about 11% of all Asteracea plants (special for Samsara) ;-) -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 01:04, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Ooooh, you removed the only bright spot... :-( Seriously, I support either version per consensus. Re. small technical errors vs. enc: This is a compilation, the originals are available - so what's the problem? --Janke | Talk 07:34, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - The problem is that as a compilation it isn't very good and hence shouldn't be an FP IMO --Fir0002 11:07, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I dont like the black background otherwise great work :-) --Richard Bartz (talk) 13:54, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support, obviously a lot of work gone into it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Samasnookerfan (talk • contribs) 18:22, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support all. Very nice image. Juliancolton (Talk) 15:46, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support alternative. Samsara (FA • FP) 17:55, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support either image, whichever most editors prefer. I think they're both great. нмŵוτн τ 01:56, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Promoted Image:Asteracea poster 3.jpg MER-C 06:46, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]