Commons:Featured picture candidates/Image:USA 10439 Arches National Park Luca Galuzzi 2007.jpg

Image:USA 10439 Arches National Park Luca Galuzzi 2007.jpg, featured

•  Info created and uploaded by User:Lucag - nominated by --Tomascastelazo 18:20, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
•  Support Luga manages to get great images from sometmes adverse lighting, and that is part of his talent. The desert light is harsh to begin with and it is difficult to manage light/shadows in the digital medium, but he manages it well. The inclusion of the human figure as a referent for scale is great, even looking at the photo in screen size one "feels" the scale of the site. Congratulations! --Tomascastelazo 18:20, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
•  Support Ack Tomascastelazo. Calibas 19:14, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
•  Support --MichaelMaggs 20:26, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
•  Support yes --Karelj 23:06, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
•  Support --Thermos 06:27, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
•  Support agree with Tomas --Simonizer 09:11, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
•  Support -- Walké 19:18, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
•  Neutral I'm not sure. Tomascastelazo is right: The problem of shadows and lights ist really difficult to manage at this arch. I've been there in September and I've had this problem. As I also take pictures with the Canon 400D I think there is no way to get a good result only by your camera - you also need a little photoshopping trip. I suppose Luca has either completely changed the sky or has made such corrections on it that it has nothing common with the original picture any more. That's not bad at all. I also try to do corrections of this kind. But I'm not sure if a picture with such corrections should be FP. If I'm not right about the changes of the sky I apologize. But it seems to be to unreal to me. By the way: There should be made a perspective correction. --Flicka 19:53, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

•  Comment Flicka - I think Luca used a polarizing filter, hence the sky. That has happened to me, and you get the blue grading especially when the sun is not perpendicular to the film plane. The further the sky (left side) from the sun the darker the blue, consistent with the way polarizing works (look at the shadow direction). What I would have done, in any case, is like you suggest, photoshop it a little, burning in the bottom left area of the picture, bringing it down to about 50%, or a little less. Digital manipulatons are no different than dark room manipulations, therefore, I do not see why an image of this type should be disqualified on that basis. On top of that, digital cameras have a very limited dynamic range, therefore, photoshop is a valid and must resource. Ansel Adams's final photographs looked nothing like his negatives, he manipulated heavily and look what he left us. Regards, --Tomascastelazo 20:50, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

• I also think he used a pol filter, but I'm not sure if this was enough to get this kind of dark sky at noon behind a rock that is half in the shadow. I agree personally that it shouldn't matter whether the picture is great from the beginning or great after working on it on photoshop. But I remember I read some guidelines about digital manipulations on FP candidates and maybe this one should be mentioned in the image text. --Flicka 21:12, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

• Hi Flicka, yes I did. I used a pol filter. I shot this one at 10:30am to have the sun at 45° both in heigh and side to enhance the effect of the polarizing filter. And yes, I always shoot in RAW so I need PS to develop my pictures but I'm not so keen in the digital darkroom to "change the sky". In PS I work only on levels and curves and here I slightly increased contrast. I think this sort of blu sky is not so rare. You too have an amazing picture of Double Arc with a beautiful blu sky. --LucaG 22:09, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

• Thanks! :) But unfortunately my pic is just acceptable and I HAD to do all the digital manipulations that where possible to get a picture with blue sky and without black or overexposed rocks. But you have convinced me that it's possible to manage that all. So at least I have learned from that discussion three things: to go to the double arch in the morning next time when I spend my vacation in Utah (what maybe in about 20 years...), to use my 150-Euro-kaesemann-pol-filter instead of carrying it with me in my photo bag and to do more pictures on the RAW mode ;-). And after all I'd like to say sorry for being such doubtful. --Flicka 17:35, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

• Nevermind ;). Even if you don't want to manipulate your photos, RAW format can save an image. How many pictures we take with wrong color temperature? With RAW you can change temperature without loss of quality, but I'm sure you know that :)) --LucaG 20:25, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

•  Support Merlijn 12:00, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
•  Support --Böhringer 12:46, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
•  Support Nice colours and composition ^_^ - Noumenon _talk 05:09, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
•  Support --Urban 14:37, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
•  Support WOW factor and I´m happy that there is the person like a geological scale for circa height assesment. --Chmee2 20:32, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
•  Oppose I really don't like the sky, it looks like it was either done in photoshop or with a polarizer. In any case, it doesn't look natural and/or photogenic. I much prefer this image. -- Ram-Man 23:12, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

result: 12 support, 1 oppose, 1 neutral => featured. Simonizer 16:14, 30 November 2007 (UTC)