File talk:Nuevo mapa de la Republica Argentina (1914).djvu

Comments

(Copied from Commons:Graphic_Lab/Photography_workshop)

1. The "folding marks" aren't folding marks at all. This type of pocket map consists of rectangular tiles of printed paper glued onto a linen cloth backing. Gaps are deliberately left between the tiles to facilitate folding. Unfortunately, the tiles in this example don't line up very well. Because of the labor-intensive nature of such maps, they are rarely, if ever, produced nowadays. Theoretically, it may be possible to digitally cut the tiles out into a collection of 36 images and try to assemble them without gaps, assuming the printer cut the tiles correctly and no information is missing. If cutting was inaccurate, gaps will still be there in the final version. (The original map was presumably printed as a single sheet, cut into tiles with a sharp blade, then glued onto the linen backing.)
2. The map has been defaced with pencil and pen markings. Are they historically important for Wikipedia purposes? Should they be left in or should they be retouched-out? They may only be there because this was the best or only surviving example of this map at the time Cartography Associates (davidrumsey.com) scanned the original.
3. The paper is very yellowed, especially along the edges of tiles. This means that the printed colors have probably also shifted over time. Should attempts be made to reverse aging, or should the image be left with its "vintage look"? At the very least, the mottled appearance of the aged paper significantly increases file size and replacing unprinted areas with a uniform, single color can significantly reduce the file size if RLL compression is used in the file.
4. If you just need a map of political boundaries in South America in 1914, would it not be better to use this map as the basis for tracing an all-new, simplified SVG rendering with 90% of the details taken out, so it uses less storage space and can be displayed quickly? As it is, the map is excessively detailed and the file size is huge, even by Wikimedia standards: It takes several minutes to download on my broadband connection and several more minutes for a fast (3 GHz) AMD Athlon processor with 1 GB of RAM and hardware-accelerated video card to render the image. Most people will never see the image in full resolution due to Internet connection speed, hardware limitations, or simply lack of patience. It may be better to use a simpler graphic on Wikimedia and just provide an external link to the David Rumsey Map Collection site. The David Rumsey Map Collection uses specialized software that Wikimedia and the various Wikipedias will probably never have, making the experience here aggravating, not enlightening.
5. If editing with GIMP, the intermediate format of choice is GIMP's native XCF format, not PNG, as it uses lossless compression, produces reasonably small files on disk, supports 24-bit color, transparency and layers, and loads faster. The original DjVu file can be converted to uncompressed TIFF on Linux systems with DjView4, slurped into GIMP, then saved as XCF while work progresses.
6. Uploading the file in DjVu format to begin with, then reverting Richardprins' marking of that file as "superseded" after the JPEG version was made available seems to amount to a contest of wills. Sure, Wikimedia supports the DjVu format, but many operating systems and browsers don't (mine certainly doesn't), unless the user knows how to install special viewers and plug-ins; most Wikimedia and Wikipedia visitors don't know how and/or can't be bothered.
7. For a full clean-up, restoration or simplified derivative work, this image should probably be submitted at the Commons Map Workshop. —Quicksilver^@ 19:39, 29 February 2012 (UTC)