Commons talk:Library of Congress

This is a great initiative, here are some suggestions--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 17:38, 18 August 2010 (UTC) Suggestions:

1. Find a good category to put this page in.
2. Providing external links to the various collections in the library of congress next to the respective templates.
3. Providing category links for the collections.
4. Making a main section about the collections where each allowed collection is described and its various links and categories are put.

Technical aspects

Hi folks, I work with picture of the Library of Congress quite often and have reasonable concern about technical specs used on Commons and other projects. This is my attempt on unification:

Upload .jpg files created from .tiff. Use the photo software of your choice to do so. GIMP or Photoshop are most common, using them assures a huge community supporting your projects. The LoC provides high resolution .tiff up to 300mb of size or even higher, do not be afraid of using them. .jpg files with several mb of size are not unusual and obey Commons policies. The LoC provides .jpg access images - these have several hundreds of kilobytes in size and are widespread on Commons - they could be replaced by higher resolution .jpg created from .tiff. Upload original and edited files seperately Many files of the LoC need to be cropped or restorated/retouched. Although you could upload every upload on the "original file" and replace it you should consider uploading it seperately. Altered versions are not authentic. Seperate uploads could help comparing in galleries, projects and other pages.

There is more to follow... Feel free to comment and add your own opinion here. Would be great if we could achieve unification for all uploads one day. Regards.--Peter Weis (talk) 20:12, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Why converting the TIFF to JPG ? Commons now (nearly) support TIFF (see the prototype). Jean-Fred (talk) 00:05, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I am aware of this new feature. Though it is a breakthrough in displaying and usability its technical aspects are disputable. First of all the 100mb upload limit remains - so not all imagery of interest could be uploaded. Secondly don't think of Commons as a mere displaying area. Users also tend to download and work with the items we provide. Starting from a simple wallpaper up to a presentation. Not all applications use .tiff, so .jpg is considered to be more widespread and therefore useful. Since there is no limitation besides the 100mb barrier, uploading several file formats seems reasonable here. Thirdly the .tiff support has neither been reviewed nor tested under proper conditions. My fourth and last point is about usability again - users who do not have access to photo software or enough hdd space would not benefit of a single format. So my conclusion is:

Upload .tiff and .jpg if possible Uploading both formats will help all users, irrespective of their individual needs. Commons does not limit its servers in question of space, so providing both versions will do no harm to anyone.

Regards. --Peter Weis (talk) 19:09, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I probably have misunderstood your text above, but you told nothing about uploading the TIFF versions at all, which I found problematic. Of course, uploading alternative JPG versions cannot really hurt. I fully agree with your conclusion (which I took the liberty to highlight).

You do make good points. Overall, I believe it would be better if MediaWiki/Toolserver would convert TIFF images on the fly. Either for the user to download, or for the editor to easily upload an alternative version. I do not think it would be very difficult.

3rd point : I think we can trust devs to review and test the feature ;-) (there must be a good reason why it is not deployed yet).

4th point, as for size : users can already download JPEG files at the resolution they want, it will surely be possible as well with TIFF (the format problem remains though)

Jean-Fred (talk) 19:45, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

another

quickly jotting these ideas down.

• "i found an error" -> contact page of LoC (good experiences, remember durova)  Done
• "how do i find the digital id" link it from "missing" in LOC-meta...

TheDJ (talk) 16:37, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

I informed LOC via "Contacting" that http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2004672088/ / https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Adolf_Hitler_in_Nuremberg_1923_cph.3a15028.jpg is from 1935, not 1923:

"the image is from november 1935, parade of SA troops past Hitler in Nuremberg

Compare with this picture from National Archives (same standard bearer)

http://research.archives.gov/description/558779

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Reichsparteitag._Der_Vorbeimarsch_der_SA_am_Fhrer._Parade_of_SA_troops_past_Hitler._Nuremberg,_november_1935._-_NARA_-_558779.tif " -- Cherubino (talk) 08:26, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

High res images

Do we have a LoC contact for requesting high res images (tiff scans)? Or are we expected to go through the standard request/pricing? czar 06:14, 25 December 2019 (UTC)