User talk:Preslethe

English: Welcome to Wikimedia Commons, Preslethe!

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--Legobot^Operator_talk 21:05, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Louis Ducos du Hauron photo

I have reverted your recent change. Please do NOT change to your "better color" version again. It is artificially saturated, shows print through the sky, and omits the edges, which are crucial in understanding the three-color subtractive process. I repeat, do NOT change to that version again. Thanks, --Janke | Talk 19:40, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Hello, Janke.

The faults in the version you've reverted from have been acknowledged.

I disagree that the edges "are crucial in understanding the three-color subtractive process": I, for example, had understood it for many years without ever seeing the edge of that photo (or indeed any version of the photo).

Every reproduction of the original print has 'artificial' saturation: man, or a man-made machine, makes a decision about saturation, both the saturation overall and that of the component colors.

Whereas the intention behind displaying what I'll call 'your' version might be to display the edges, to avoid halftone artefacts, &c., we should remember that there may also be specific intentions behind the display of what you've called 'my' version, such as showing just how much color fidelity captured in the 1870s was technologically accessible many decades later. (For example, 'my' version has obvious greens, yellows, blues, and reds in most of the foliage, whereas the foliage in the other version is mostly gray (even when overall or individual-channel saturation in the JPEG is raised very high.) We should remember that the answer to "Which of these traits deserve the most emphasis?" is subjective.

Perhaps, in some displays of this image (e.g., in Wikipedia's "Color photography" article), there is reason to include both versions, so that the strengths of each can complement the shortcomings of the other. The one version shows us more about the original printing process, has more detail (e.g., in the church windows), and gives us a better idea of how that print would look to the unaided eye in the 21st century; the other, despite the shortcomings of halftone reproduction, text showing through the paper, and a darker left end, demonstrates that Louis Ducos du Hauron, more than 130 years ago, captured a fuller range of colors than a naked-eye look at the original print would suggest.

— Preslethe (talk) 21:21, 29 August 2010 (UTC)