Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Shaftesbury Avenue

Shaftesbury Avenue, London. Kodachrome by Chalmers Butterfield

Reason: Good
Proposed caption: Piccadilly Circus, London, c. 1949. The Circus, a famous traffic intersection and public space of London's West End in the City of Westminster was built in 1819 to connect Regent Street with the major shopping street of Piccadilly. Its status as a major traffic intersection has made Piccadilly Circus a busy meeting point and a tourist attraction in its own right.
Articles this image appears in

Creator: Chalmers Butterfield

Support as nominator Ajuk 23:45, 30 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support, I've always liked this image, though it is a bit out of focus. It's especially cool having it side by side with this one taken last year. Really shows the passage of time. -- Grandpafootsoldier 04:33, 31 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

**Piccadilly Circus in 2006** (for comparison)

Support, It shows a rich history of London. Shaizakopf 05:58, 31 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support, super interesting picture Mcrawford620 06:05, 31 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support, focus is an issue at higher resolution (perhaps it's oversampled? what does a downsized version look like?) and you haven't written a caption . I added the article in which it appears for you. --Dhartung | Talk 09:12, 31 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support Very high in WP:ENC value and attractive to boot. The kind of thing that should appear on the main page. Pedro | Chat 11:18, 31 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support. --Golbez 11:44, 31 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Charming, but needs a caption, and probably downsampling, and perhaps a crop or something to take care of those ugly missing corners. Spikebrennan 14:08, 31 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support Exquisite shot. It's caught the archetypical hustle and busle of London perfectly. -- Chris.B 15:22, 31 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment where is caption? Also, can someone sharpen it?--Svetovid 17:53, 31 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have added a caption - that should have been the nominator's job though, tut-tut. -- Chris.B 17:19, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Very encyclopedic and nice old picture. Mikeo 22:34, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support You can even see the old tram lines in the road! Encyclopedic value compensates for slightly blurry shot. One thing we have to be clear on though is has this been false coloured? it looks like original colour to me but just to be sure. WikipedianProlific ^(Talk) 11:20, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment It's Kodachrome, famous for "nice bright colors" and "greens of summers". It is (almost always?) a slide film format. I have no reason to suspect alteration. --Dhartung | Talk 05:11, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Kodachrome is ALWAYS slide film and ALWAYS has been colour, this image is slightly improved if you do auto levels in PS.Ajuk 09:56, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The uploader and his father (the photographer) have some other pics that may be worth a nomination. I don't want to nominate too much, as it will most likely be me who has to close them. MER-C 09:57, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Probably a bit late, but I've added edit1 which is hopefully not too savage a treatment. As requested, it's been sharpened a bit but the main thing it needed was a rotation to bring the verticals upright, which has lost some of the original info at the edges, although nothing (IMO) that would be missed. I've removed a fair bit of dust, hair and scratches but haven't touched the colour or tonal balance as it seems fairly true to 60-year old Kodachrome to me. I have downsampled from the original 50Mb (!) though. mikaul^talk 16:37, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- ??? Your edit is twice the size of the 5MB original. thegreen J Are you green? 00:27, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support edit1 or whatever. mikaul^talk 16:37, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support edit 1 looks good, though I don't know that sharpening was warrented - it mostly seems to have brought out grain. thegreen J Are you green? 00:27, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Hmm. The usual aim of edge enhancement that you go for with digital shots would be no use with this scan. I made a point of sharpening the original file before downsampling so that the grain (which is usually really fine: this would probably have been 10ASA film) could be expressed as "pixels per particle", which I think is always the best way of scanning film if you have the resolution. This article goes into a bit more. The grain is actually the dye particles of the film (although there is also some scanner noise) which contains all of the detail in the image. The sharpening has brought out two issues: first, there is a fair bit of camera shake (10ASA..) which you can't really see in the soft original, and second, the scan has left some banding and chroma in the shadows which is a little unfortunate but which is correctable and would probably not be so visible in print. I've taken it to the point where you can just see some halos around the non-spectral highlights (ie where there is no grain) which means we can now see only original detail and no more. I still love it, as I love that fabulous random Kodachrome texture.. mikaul^talk 08:59, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support edit 1 Why not?--Kryobot 18:24, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Promoted Image:London , Kodachrome by Chalmers Butterfield edit.jpg MER-C 08:36, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]