Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/File:Downtown Pittsburgh from Duquesne Incline in the morning.jpg

Voting period is over. Please don't add any new votes. Voting period ends on 5 Dec 2015 at 08:10:55 (UTC)

Reason: This is an iconic composition which has been on postcards for over 100 years (if you just search on google, you'll find many pictures taken from the same spot). Out of the 5+ pictures we have of this location on Wikimedia Commons, this one has by far the highest resolution, and the early morning light is quite pleasing to behold. The sharpness is okay (it is a Quality Image on Wikimedia Commons), and it is perspective- and distortion-corrected.
Articles in which this image appears: Duquesne Incline, Pittsburgh, Transportation in Pittsburgh
FP category for this image: Wikipedia:Featured pictures/Vehicles/Land or Wikipedia:Featured pictures/Places/Urban
Creator: dllu

Support as nominator – dllu (t,c) 08:10, 25 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
~~Oppose~~ A touch too grainy for me sorry - ~~and the sky is blown top right.~~ Otherwise it's a lovely picture - looks a lovely place. gazhiley 09:33, 25 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I have addressed your concerns by applying a simulated graduated neutral density filter of 3 EV and applying wavelet denoising. Please take another look. Thanks! dllu (t,c) 10:50, 25 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Changed vote to Weak Support - still grainy but lighting issue resolved. For example, when I look at the rail tram it almost appears like a watercolour painting, so still a little too grainy for me. gazhiley 11:52, 25 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support – Yann (talk) 11:11, 25 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Support --Tremonist (talk) 15:33, 25 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Weak support - I'm likewise surprised at how much noise there is here. For ISO 400, that's a fair bit. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 23:53, 25 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The reason for the noise is due to the shadows being underexposed (so that the sky is not blown out). I increased the shadow brightness significantly using curves, leading to the noise. If anyone wants to take a look at the raw file, here it is. Thanks! dllu (t,c) 02:32, 26 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - Irrespective of the noise and blown out sky, I'd still prefer a more faithful edit of the original shot. The current version looks like a painting with blocks of colour when viewed even reasonably close up, the heavy filter changes the atmosphere of the shot and it looks like it has been stretched vertically for some reason. Compare them back to back and you'll see what I mean: Original Edit - Wolftick (talk) 19:47, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The original has been compressed vertically because I made a mistake when correcting perspective distortion. The new version is more accurate. The "colour blocks" seem to be a byproduct of the noise reduction, I'll look into reducing that. Thanks. dllu (t,c) 04:45, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Promoted File:Downtown Pittsburgh from Duquesne Incline in the morning.jpg --Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 08:54, 5 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]