Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Lousy picture

Head louse

Voting period is over. Please don't add any new votes. Voting period ends on 9 Feb 2013 at 05:43:17 (UTC)

Reason: A stunningly-well-done microscopic shot, about as good as you could expect. Shows the typical behaviour of the louse gripping the hairs. Saw this on WT:FPC, and had to nominate this, despite it being a lousy picture (ba-dum-TISH).
Articles in which this image appears: Head louse, Parasitism, Pediculus humanus (This latter article mainly serves to distinguish the subspecies, as the body louse is very closely related.)
FP category for this image: Wikipedia:Featured_pictures/Animals/Insects
Creator: Gilles San Martin, from Flickr

Support as nominator --Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 05:43, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Reluctant oppose A decent picture but the focus stacking is not done well so there are quite a few parallax errors on the louse and the hair. --Muhammad(talk) 06:02, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support — Yes, there are focus stack errors. But it is still a beautiful image with lots of EV. Linear features like hairs are difficult to deal with in focus stacking. Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 13:27, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- Would me editing this to fix the hairs be acceptable editing? Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 18:56, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  - The two to four ghost images of various hairs don't bother me at all, although they obviously bother some others. Eliminating the ghosts wouldn't bother me either, since your object would be to enhance the truth of the image, rather than trying to add something which is not there. I would definitely hesitate at adding hair extensions to connect hair fragments that apparently do not connect to the louse. That form of editing would go into the category of "imaginative extrapolation" which is not acceptable. Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 06:54, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    - I meant more the ones that are obviously meant to go *under* the louse, but fade out as they approach it due to poor masking of the focus stack. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 21:52, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      - I don't think it's necessary. It is a beautiful image one way or another. Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 10:25, 2 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support I don't see significant errors on the beastie itself. I can ignore the issues with the hair. The EV is very high. Perhaps a slight crop off the LHS would lose the worst of the errors there. Adam, I don't see how the hair can be "fixed" as the main odd effect seems (to me) to be the abrupt loss of focus in front of and behind the animal, making hairs "disappear". Colin°^Talk 19:11, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- I think I could extend the hair up to the animal, so it didn't disappear. I'd have to try it to see how good the effect was, but I'd like to know whether doing so would be considered problematic first. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 20:05, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support Looks like an EV to me. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 21:06, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Per overwhelming EV and general awesomeness! ceranthor 22:20, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support - --LlamaAl (talk) 23:40, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment EV is not as high as it could be without any form of size indication. Lycaon (talk) 08:00, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- They're about 2.5 to 3 mm long. Since this image is from Flickr, we kind of have to take it as it comes, however. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 08:29, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support This is epic. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 21:46, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support : Its awesome Mydreamsparrow (talk) 10:14, 2 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support : It's gross but rather amazing. ProfDEH (talk) 21:31, 4 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support I'm very glad we have a free image like this. --99of9 (talk) 11:01, 8 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Promoted File:Male human head louse.jpg --Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 06:42, 9 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]