Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Lt Mike Hunter, aviator

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[edit] Lt Mike Hunter, aviator

1. U.S. Army test pilot Lt. F.W. "Mike" Hunter wearing a flight suit. Image from the Office of War Information, 1942.

2. U.S. Army test pilot F.W. "Mike" Hunter wearing aviator sunglasses, October 1942

3 edit of 1 by Fir0002

Reason

Two of my longstanding favorites from the Office of War Information archives at the Library of Congress. Lt. Hunter was to my knowledge not notable in the Wikipedic sense, but with his flight suit, aviators, and general demeanor he's the archetype of a military pilot. These versions are taken from the original large-sized tiffs, cropped, downsampled and cleaned up manually. The focus of the first image is on the propeller of the airplane, so it has some slight OOF issues which are only visible in full size. I selectively sharpened some details, but I'm in two minds about this and would like to hear some feedback (see unsharpened version in the edit history). An alternative would be to downsample the images by another 50%, in which case it would be sharp and still above size requirements.

Note: Those are two separate pictures, only the photographer and the subject are the same (and apparently the facial expression, which seems to create some confusion). Originals are here and here. ~ trialsanderrors 00:47, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Articles these images appear in: Aviator, Aviator sunglasses
Creator: Alfred T. Palmer (1942)
Nominator: trialsanderrors

Support originals , oppose Fir's edits. I'm not against removing dirt and fixing deficiencies, but I'm not in favor of changing the hue of a historical image unless there is reason to believe it changed over time. ~ trialsanderrors 08:56, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Support - as you note, the focus on the propellor is gorgeous, whereas the pilot himself is slightly blurry. A pity. The other odd thing is the photo doesn't look genuine somehow. Until I saw the October 1942 I thought it was a modern guy posing in retro gear. But yeah, illustrates Aviator well. Stevage 11:34, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Support the propeller version. Rather nice picture. --Lewk_of_S e rthic _contrib ^talk 13:55, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Support — SINFUL OCTOPUS You gotta admit, with those sunglasses and ring, this guys got styles. 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Support original only I was kindof surprised to see these up here. But in all honesty it is a very high quality pic. ~ Arjun 02:20, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
- What does "original only" mean? ~ trialsanderrors 03:40, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
  - It probably means "first image only". Multiple images usually mean the original image plus some edits, so that's probably why Arjun said "original". Raven4x4x 04:17, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
Oppose... I'm not sure it represents an aviator well... a lot of his body and gear are out of focus... he's not the center of the image... it's not that having a plane in the picture is bad (since it's pretty essential to an aviator) but it should add to the fact that the person pictured is an aviator... not be a large behemoth sitting over his shoulder. Good picture for commons, maybe. gren グレン 11:57, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
- All of this would be solvable by cropping Picture #2 (which is perfectly in focus btw). Although I don't think it will get majority support, and I'm loath to do it myself, since the backgrounds add enc context. ~ trialsanderrors 18:10, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
Support all Very good, encyclopedic pictures. S h a r k f a c e 2 1 7 01:18, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
OpposeI do not like photos that have been flipped. Please note the text on the prop. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 204.153.52.2 (talk • contribs).
- It's rotated, not flipped - look at the right prop. Totally legible Debivort 23:38, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
support either. Debivort 23:38, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Support Fir's changes (#3) --tomf688 (talk - email) 20:17, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Strong support Fir's edit The original looks great, but not as clear as the touched up version. The pic is historical, but not historical in the sense of photography advancement. If the photo was the first color photo ever taken, then it would make sense to promote the original. However, this particular pic has no major significance in the development of photography. Plus, the clean-up version is more pleasing to the eye. =)
Oh...and the pic is encyclopedic and unique. Jumping cheese ^Cont@ct 08:56, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
- It's not photographically unique, but it's early photographic stock with its own characteristic properties, and any Photoshop manipualtion reduces historical accuracy, so it should be reserved for obvious deficiencies. I played with the saturation and contrast levels myself, but in the end the loss in accuracy isn't outweighed by the increase in prettiness. We're trying to be enc here, prettiness is for Commons. ~ trialsanderrors 20:58, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
  - What's wrong with having a prettier pic? When an edited version exists, users usually prefer the cleaned up version: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. An exception is when the type of photo is by itself historical: 1. Jumping cheese ^Cont@ct 22:07, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
    - To repeat: making things prettier should by itself not be a reason to photoshop if it lowers accuracy. Correcting deficiencies might be, but it should be done conservatively, or it could end up as photomanipulation. JMHO, YMMV. ~ trialsanderrors 22:25, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
      - What does JMHO and YMMV stand for?!? I'm not that good with acronyms. =)
        Anyways, I think sharpening the pic is only a minor manipulation with far greater benefits. It'll be a problem if the edits take out scratches or other major blemishes. Fortunately, this pic doesn't have any flaws, only being a shade too dark in my opinion. Jumping cheese ^Cont@ct 07:12, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
        
        Reread my nomination. It's already been sharpened. The only changes I see in Fir's edit are downsampling (which I've offered to do, but I haven't even seen a request for it), reduced jpg quality, and increased saturation/brightness. JMHO, YMMV = Just my humble opinion, your mileage might vary. ~ trialsanderrors 08:23, 20 February 2007 (UTC)