Diliff

Unless you specifically ask for me to reply on your talk page, I will reply here and assume that you will remember to check for the reply. :-)

Archive:
Archive 1 - (26th September 2005 to 21st April 2006)
Archive 2 - (22nd April 2006 to 29th August 2006)
Archive 3 - (30th August 2006 to 17th May 2007)
Archive 4 - (18th May 2007 to 18th April 2008)
Archive 5 - (18th April 2008 to 26th February 2009)
Archive 6 - (28th February 2009 to 18th June 2009)
Archive 7 - (30th June 2009 to 31st January 2010)
Archive 8 - (1st February 2010 to 21st January 2011)
Archive 9 - (22nd January 2011 to 1st February 2012)

Hadji Ali

Hi Diliff, this is just to let you know that I have uploaded a restored version of the image nominated at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Hadji Ali. This notice is being delivered to you as you previously voted / commented at the nomination page. Crisco 1492 (talk) 09:30, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Image usage

Hello David.

I have just used two of your photographs and wanted to double check I am using them correctly and with your full permission. I have not used wiki commons before so I'm new to all the terminology. I have attributed the photos to you along with the license number and if you click on the photo I have linked it with the url link given when downloading the file. Please let me know if there is anything else I need to do. I have used two of your stunning photographs, Westminster palace at sunset and Winsdor castle at dusk. Thanks so much for the use of these great images. Please find your images on the scrolling slides on my homepage. www.englandculturalhomestay.com

Yours Gratefully Charlie Seary — Preceding unsigned comment added by Englandhomestay (talk • contribs) 00:18, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

POTD notification

POTD

Hi David,

Just to let you know that the Featured Picture File:Sydney Ferry Collaroy 1 - Nov 2008.jpg is due to make an appearance as Picture of the Day on March 9, 2012. If you get a chance, you can check and improve the caption at Template:POTD/2012-03-09. —howcheng {chat} 07:11, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

POTD notification

POTD

Hi David,

Just to let you know that the Featured Picture File:Freiburg Schlossbergturm Panorama 2010.jpg is due to make an appearance as Picture of the Day on March 18, 2012. If you get a chance, you can check and improve the caption at Template:POTD/2012-03-18. —howcheng {chat} 00:49, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

New York Skyline - urgent request for usage on website

Dear Diliff,

can you please contact me urgently regarding your NY Skyline shot (Empire State / North, which is amazing). I would love to use this picture for my website and I like to discuss some details with you. I don´t want to leave my email for public viewing here - is there any option to reach you in a more private area or an option to send you a message?. Thanks in advance and best regards Michael — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.171.108.167 (talk) 10:57, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

New York Skyline - urgent request for usage on website

Dear Diliff,

can you please contact me urgently regarding your NY Skyline shot (Empire State / North, which is amazing). I would love to use this picture for my website and I like to discuss some details with you. Please contact me soon - I need to finish my project urgently (have bought a similar shot on fotolia but yours is farfar better).

My wiki user name is mickyspecks

Thanks so much and best regards Michael

Mickyspecks (talk) 11:06, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Kings Cross

Hi Diliff, I replied to your message on my talk page. Cheers, Colin.

Melbourne Panoramic

Hi Diliff

I work for R-Co, a design agency in Melbourne, and we are working on a project for the Rialto.

We saw your image here and would love to use it for the project. We would be happy to purchase the image if the client gives us the go ahead - can you please let me know how much it would cost? and how high the resolution is.

you can email me dirctly at petern@r-co.com.au

Thanks Peter Nedanovski — Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.245.205.113 (talk) 23:55, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Dispute resolution survey

Dispute Resolution – Survey Invite Hello Diliff. I am currently conducting a study on the dispute resolution processes on the English Wikipedia, in the hope that the results will help improve these processes in the future. Whether you have used dispute resolution a little or a lot, now we need to know about your experience. The survey takes around five minutes, and the information you provide will not be shared with third parties other than to assist in analyzing the results of the survey. No personally identifiable information will be released. Please click HERE to participate. Many thanks in advance for your comments and thoughts. You are receiving this invitation because you have had some activity in dispute resolution over the past year. For more information, please see the associated research page. Steven Zhang DR goes to Wikimania! 02:36, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

David:

I came across some of your work on Globerex.com. I am revamping the website for my agency, the Texas Facilities Commission and would like to speak with you in that regard. Please call me at your convenience.

Aundre Dukes 512-936-9984 aundre.dukes@tfc.state.tx.us 204.64.23.35 (talk) 15:56, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

UltraWide

Is File:St. Andrew's Church, Jevington, UK - April 2012.jpg a result of you playing with your new Samyang wide angle? How do you find it? Is that image corrected for perspective distortion: the building looks a wee bit unnatural like you get when you correct an image vertically but it is still an angled-shot. I'm finding that with my fish eye on a sunny day, in these months where the sun is low, it can sometimes be difficult to keep my shadow out of the picture. Colin°^Talk 12:02, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

• Hi Colin, indeed it is me playing around with the Samyang. :-) It's actually a three segment panorama shot in portrait format so both the vertical and horizontal angles are pretty immense. I had the same problem with my shadow, I had to crop the foreground grass slightly (but it wasn't needed anyway) to eliminate it.

I know it's not really a great example of what the lens can do, and it's definitely not one of my most flattering photos, but I thought it was slightly better than the existing one. I'll probably shoot it more appropriately another time if I'm ever in the area again.

As far as the lens goes, I'm enjoying it though. It needs a bit of distortion correction, but thankfully there's a Lightroom profile already, and does a good job of correcting the moustache distortion that it exhibits. It's very sharp, although not always as sharp in the corners as I was hoping for, but it seems to depend greatly on aperture. Strangely enough though, from what little experience I have with it so far, it's not so much because the corners themselves are not sharp, it's more to do with the fact that it's manual focus and any misfocussing results in the OOF areas being distorted by the angle of view, so they're not only unsharp, but also stretched. Hope that makes sense. So it's definitely a beast best stopped down (for DOF reasons), even though it's actually pretty sharp wide open.

I might have a go at improving/imitating (the sincerest form of flattery, after all) your Kings Cross St Pancras interior photos sometime in the near future. At least I'll be able to compare the performance/view. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 12:23, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Did you find the manual focus scale calibration was accurate? What do you use to stitch? I've tried Hugin and PTGui. The former is rather buggy but sometimes works ok. I've experimented a little with PTGui but not yet produced something I'm so happy with that I'm prepared to shell out the money yet. I think it is possible to stitch fish eye pictures to get a 360 view. Weird.

Hm, so my hard-won FP will be replaced and demoted soon eh? Don't worry. I will be sad if it goes but if WP gets a better picture then that's fine. If you do replace it, could you upload a full-size one rather than a 6MP downsized one. I suffered from pixel-peeping comments that would never have occurred if I'd uploaded a 6MP version, so it would rub salt if its replacement had any such flaws eliminated by virtue of only having half the pixels.

Have you visited the new station yet? Although it is a semi-circular dome, the edge of the mezzanine floor bisects the middle of that hemisphere so you end up with a very long narrow space. If you stand in the middle then capturing the full width of the hall requires a very wide angle and little depth. See File:King's Cross Western Concourse - central position.jpg. I wondered about trying a stitched panorama for that but reckon I'd have to go when it was quiet. There's an architecturally-correct panorama for that view somewhere on the web (forget where) but it was taken during construction and I think the camera could have been further back and/or higher up than anyone can stand today. I'm planning to go back and take some new pictures of the outside -- when I went last time the sun cast most of the new stuff in shadow, though it lit the inside of the station nicely. Colin°^Talk 14:04, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

I'd say for the most part, the manual focus scale was accurate. I haven't done any tests though, just guessed the hyperfocal distance, looked through the lens, made microadjustments if needed and snapped. I didn't always get the focus exactly right when the subject was close up, but it was usually pretty good. I use PTGui to stitch, it always works pretty well for me, but I suppose I know its limitations. What weren't you happy with exactly? I use a third party blender called Smartblend that does a better job IMO. Well, it won't necessarily replace yours, and we're still working on the assumption that I can actually improve on it. I'm not sure I can necessarily, but it's worth a try.

As for full size vs downsampled, it's not always as simple as that. I often take panoramas with large numbers of segments primarily so that I CAN downsample and still retain high resolution and detail. Especially when the act of stitching a panorama involves bending the image one way or the other, one way to retain good sharpness throughout the image is to downsample. Although I definitely sympathise with you on the pixelpeeping, my technique (well it's hardly mine, but I suppose I use it more than most people here) allows me to have the best of both worlds, as long as the subject matter isn't moving around too much. ;-)

I haven't visited the station yet, no. Maybe soon. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 15:55, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

The images I've tried with PTGui should look good but ultimately I wasn't happy with the shot I had taken. Usually people are the problem and they won't keep still. How do you plan to deal with that at the station? Go there at 5am? Btw, the walkway vibrates a bit when people walk on it. I think I got lucky but it could affect a longish exposure. The walkway isn't high-traffic, though, so you should be able to wait for a steady moment. The station should look quite different depending on the time of day, because it has natural lighting as well as artificial.

My Samyang was very far out of calibration but once adjusted is fine. The problem is that once you set it to 3m, and f8, the whole world is in focus. You get so used to not having to adjust the focus ring that it is easy to forget to check it when taking it out the bag.

I agree with you wrt downsampling a large stiched pano. After the tool stretches and rotates the source images, you're not always left with great pixel-level detail over the whole image. And I think panos are something people enjoy exploring full size so it is worth reducing a bit provided no significant detail is lost. It is just frustrating when folk support some unsharp distinctly average sub-HDTV-sized downsampled image yet pick faults with a straight-from-the-camera one. Having said that, the shots I'm getting from my little £120 Sony plastic-fantastic macro lens stand up to pixel-peeping scrutiny no problem at all. Colin°^Talk 16:37, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, I dropped by Kings Cross station this afternoon and experimented. I'm not sure if I prefer the the view in your photo or the central view. I figured I would go for a centred view though as it would benefit more from stitching. It actually wasn't until I got home tonight and had another look at your photo that I realise where you took yours from, so I didn't get an equivalent shot. In any case, here's my attempt. I think I can do better with slightly more ambient light, although then I might have to raise the ISO or open up the aperture (I took this at ISO 400, f/8 and 1/60 sec I think). As you requested, it's unprocessed (except for slight shadow lifting) and at the native resolution. As you can imagine, it looks substantially better downsampled and with a bit of sharpening applied. Also, coincidentally, while taking the photos, a German girl who was sitting at one the cafe table nearest to me asked me what I was doing, and it turns out she was one of the structural engineers working on the project. Unfortunately not the steel work though, just the brick pillars holding it up. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 18:32, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

You might have a picture of me on your camera. Your pic was taken at 17:10 and I caught the 17:14 train on platform 9. I think I was already on the train at 17:10 but if you have earlier shots you may have me leaving the up-escalator on the far left and having a wee look around before catching my train :-). Looking at both central views full screen, it is actually weird how similar they are. Mine was taken at 17:23 a month ago, though that wasn't summer-time yet, and seems to be relying much more on the artificial lighting vs daylight compared to yours and based on the exposure would be about a stop darker. So the colours are a bit different. Perhaps mine needs a tweak, or perhaps it is faithful to the pink lighting? Your picture seems to be about 30% larger pixel-wise, when I measure in the centre, which isn't as much as I was expecting from a stitch. Mine has about a third greater vertical angle of view (I'm guessing here, I haven't measured), and it is a shame you haven't got the top of the central flower portion. However, yours is 180-degree width, and the widescreen 2:1 view is more pleasing than the 3:2. The way you've caught the handrail/barrier on the extreme left/right is similar to my other picture and provides a nice frame. Yours has straight verticals but also has bendy horizontals like mine. What projection did you use? I'm interested to know how many shots this is composed from (I assume they are portrait) and what focal length. Plus, how did you handle stitching all those moving people? Please tell. If I reduce your picture to 75% and apply a little sharpening, we get a similar sized picture with yours clearly in the lead in terms of crispness. Though remember mine was taken at 1/15s rather than 1/60s and the lighting isn't as contrasty on the brickwork. I think it would be interesting to see what it looked like at a completely different time of day (e.g., morning and after-dark).

If you do nominate this for FP, I shall of course strongly oppose for the horrendous perspective distortion, and the fact that there is a child's helium balloon caught up in the ceiling that just spoils the whole picture :-) -- Colin°^Talk 22:25, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Funny to think I almost caught you. If you had just looked around a bit more, you would almost certainly have spotted me as I was there for a good 20-30 minutes, including chatting with the engineer. I'm not sure whether to upload the photo to Wikipedia. I'd like to hold on until I take a better, more moody and encompassing shot, as you rightly point out that I cropped the top of the 'dome' off. On the other hand, it is slightly better than the existing 'central' photo of yours, and you still have your FP. :-) I tried a couple of different panoramic stitching methods: both portrait and landscape. I also tried to avoid people straddling the two frames, which meant a slow and time consuming process of waiting and keeping an eye out for pedestrians. Some of my attempts were also not entire successful for other reasons. I tried to rotate the camera around the nodal point but without a tripod, I found that some of the photos would not align very well so they were binned. So yes, all this extra faffing for not much additional detail. But I did correct the vertical distortion and the noise levels are a little better. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 16:39, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

If you want some inspiration, have a look at this and this from e-architect. In particular, this picture shows the architecturally correct version I mentioned earlier. Can you manage that? I'm sure it was taken from higher up. I'd love to be able to take the aerial shots on that website.

I popped in yesterday with my camera. I wanted to take more pictures of the outside and only had my 30mm lens. I went up to the mezzanine floor to have another look and took some pictures anyway. I haven't processed them yet and suspect they won't be that useful because of the narrow view. Plus, no matter which way I swept across the floor with the shots, somebody was following me and probably ended up in every shot. I was just experimenting to see what the 30mm view would look like if stitched a bit. The top of the 'dome' is pretty high. In the morning the sun shines in through the vertical windows you see at the top right of the picture - though you can position yourself to avoid seeing the actual sun directly. So that's probably not ideal and an evening light better. I haven't tried going when dark outside. Hope I get a chance to process and upload some more pics of KC tonight. I agree your photo is better than my central one, but there's no rush and you might improve it on another try. I'm certain you'd have to ask permission for a tripod but fortunately the "viewpoint" isn't in a high-traffic area. I'd buy a cup of tea from the cafe owner perhaps :-). For non-tripod use, there doesn't seem to be much problem photographing there -- especially as it is now a tourist attraction. Colin°^Talk 12:38, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm certain that the architecturally correct version is taken from much higher. You can compare the position of the train time displays in it compared to ours. It appears to be taken from about the height of the top floor of the building behind the steel structure, so perhaps about 4 metres higher, and probably further back too, maybe before the safety barrier was installed. Doesn't seem possible to replicate it without even greater distortion. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 14:58, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

As for the tripod, I think I could probably get away with it, but the problem is that you really need to 'hang' it over the edge of the barrier to avoid it getting in the way of the panorama. I had to lean over it at least 20cm in order to take the panorama I showed you, which made avoiding parallax that much more difficult. ;-) Ðiliff «» (Talk) 15:01, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

So you need to stand on the top of a 4m tall stepladder and lean out over the safety barrier. I'll hold onto the ladder legs for you! Or strap your camera to one of those remote control helicopters. Or a helium balloon. :-). Rather than take an image from a fixed point, what would be the effect of taking shots at several points along the barrier, all perpendicular to the big wall. Could the stiching software handle that sort of translation? If enough points were used, the angle-of-view change might be subtle and it would solve the problem where the image gets smaller (and so needs more stretching) at the extremes of the two corners. Or is that just never going to work... Colin°^Talk 15:48, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

I've seen it done before (eg this, but it's fundamentally very problematic because parallax is unavoidable. As per PTGui's advice, it is possible when the subject is close to two dimensional (removing parallax from the scenario), but in this case it simply would not stitch properly because the subject is very much three dimensional. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 16:52, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

Well I didn't expect to get anything usable from the interior shots I took the day before. The 30mm seemed to have such a narrow view and I just casually swept from side to side three times, at increasing heights. I popped it into Hugin last night, without adjusting levels and only at 8-bit to speed things up. I was rather surprised at the result. Very similar to your view, with the 180-degree width but I've got less height -- it stops at the arch rather than including the clear bulb at the top, and doesn't go as near on the floor. But I've got higher resolution and better detail. That's my best lens for sharpness, though using ISO 400 isn't ideal for me. IIRC I only used f5.6 so there's less DoF too. I just chose equirectangular projection -- is that what you picked or something else? If I get enough free time tonight, I'll process it some more and try out your smartblend tool to see if that handles the people better. Do you still end up making masks? Provided it is not a disaster, I'm going to upload it to WP. It isn't near feature level I think because the lighting has caused the daylight portions to blow (they were "Ou! ou! my eyes hurt" bright in real life) and I should have turned the exposure down a stop or so, but it has some use showing what the interior looks like on a sunny morning. So the answer to your doubts are: yes you can do better. And I will also try to get a better shot. I supect you'll have the edge, though :-) Colin°^Talk 08:04, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

File:King's Cross Western Concourse - central position - 2012-05-02.75.jpg. My second attempt, taking it in the evening. Smartblend does indeed do a much better job of handling people and slight parallax errors. It isn't perfect, though. I've tried tweaking this with some masks in Hugin but that just shifted the problem. This upload is a first draft. I haven't spent a lot of time ensuring it is completely level and all the ghosts are eliminated. I reduced it 75% with a little sharpening, as I found this didn't remove any detail and helps it look better at 100%. Even so, it is 2x the vertical resolution of your version, though yours has a greater vertical angle of view and lots more people. I found that to capture the top of the "bulb" was really very high and didn't have enough shots at the left and right to achieve greater height -- and even if it did, the projection might not cope so well. What do you think? Is it worth working some more on processing this picture, or is it flawed such that another shot would help. I think it is very difficult to capture the full dynamic range from skylights to shadows. If you put your FPC hat on, what issues would you raise? Colin°^Talk 23:13, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Very nice work actually, you've raised the bar again. :-) You're right that detail is much better, but that's to be expected with 36 component images! I'm quite impressed that it's as clean and error-free as it is, because often with that many images and especially with such a wide view, lining them up, avoiding any gaps and avoiding cut off people is a challenge. It's ok if there is sufficient empty space between conflicting frames to remove the offending person, but when they both contain different cropped people, there's nothing for a mask or smartblend to work with. I had the same problem trying to get all of the 'bulb' in the image. Mine from memory was just 2 x 3 images though, not 3 x 12! I'm quite surprised that it was taken in the evening too, as it actually looks brighter, not darker. I assume you took it in RAW? I find that Lightroom 4 does a great job of rescuing blown highlights, but of course there's no real substitute for avoiding them in the first place. As for masks, I very rarely use them, as it's usually possible to fix any problems with just the single layer in Photoshop afterwards, and masks are fairly time consuming. Occasionally I do resort to them though, when all else fails. In any case, with my FPC hat on, I'd support it, no question. I haven't scanned it in detail to find any of the blending errors that you mention, but it looks very good. We're really duelling banjos here, or DSLRS in this case. I suspect that in order to substantially improve on your image, I'd have to revisit with my tripod, my panoramic head and a 50-80mm prime lens (30mm on your Sony is roughly equivalent to 50mm full frame). Which I may do, and hopefully avoid the Health and Safety jobsworths in the process. :-) The trick will be to somehow lean the camera sufficiently over the railing. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 11:05, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the praise. It is possible I took and/or used too many shots. I suspect the generous overlapping will have helped me with paralax and moving people issues, as there may be several frames to choose from. The set of shots I took in the morning were ultimately hampered by having two blurred frames from handshake - I did take it rather quickly as a test. This time round, I waited for the steadyshot indicator to drop and fired two shots of everything. I only used half of them and, as it turned out, there were no blurred frames this time. I didn't bother worrying about people being cut in the edge of the frame and just hoped there was a suitable join somewhere in the overlap.

I've just upgraded to LR4 from LR3. I'm hoping to get Photoshop soon, on an educational discount (the offspring are good for something!). So that's a huge learning curve for me to climb. In terms of using Photoshop, were you just patching up the mistakes with a clone tool, or were you overlaying a piece from an alternative frame, or something else? As I said, the masks just shifted the join error sometimes, but possibly the two alternative outputs could be blended in Photoshop by hand, rather than relying on what the blend tool chose.

I agree Lightroom is great at recovering blown hightlights from RAW, which I used. The originals hit the extremes at both ends. Do you fix the originals or the 16-bit tiff you end up with? All I did on my originals was apply NR and the lens profile. Would it be possible to shoot the upper half at a stop or two lower, and then rely on the stitching tools exposure matching capability to merge these? That might extend the DR a couple of stops?

I've got some other shots of other parts of the station to play with too. BTW, my fisheye shot was pic of the day on Commons yesterday: here's the blog posting about it.

In terms of duelling banjos, yours costs 10x mine and the player is just a tad more experienced. I'll see what I can do with this one. How many shots would you need at 80mm! Colin°^Talk 12:25, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

I should have some new photos to post over the weekend. Been too busy IRL. I've improved the central photo and just have to make a few more tweaks before uploading it. But I've also got one that was taken from the same place as the FP fisheye. Similar story to the other stitched versions: fantastic detail, wider but not as tall. I'm still kind of fond of my first shot, though. And my daughter likes the people turned into smudges too. Colin°^Talk 22:17, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

I got the new Photoshop on Saturday. A lot to learn! I think I've figured out what you meant by using a layer -- getting Hugin to save the intermediate files and manually merging bits of it in Photoshop. As I studied the picture, I realised I had lots of twins. Quads actually. It took a bit of work to eliminate them. I think the narrow field of view of the lens helped with the paralax issues because each image's rectilinear plane is only about 10° off from its neighbour rather than say 40° for the wide-angle view using only a few images. I've uploaded the new version to Commons and nominated it as an FPC there. -- Colin°^Talk 22:10, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Well, yes, I don't use Hugin but I assume it works the same way. PTGui saves a .PSD file containing each of the layers (including the blend masks) and you can add and remove from the masks as you like, thus revealing more or less of the segments as you like. It's fiddly, and a bit like rubbing your tubby and patting your head at the same time, I find. But when I get my head around the masks and what effect it will have, I find it invaluable for rescuing panoramas with dodgy stitching. You could be right about the parallax issues being minimised by more segments and less deviation per segment, but on the other hand, I usually find that the panorama software tends to bend all the segments into position until the point where suddenly something has to give and out comes a major stitching error, rather than each stitch line having minor faults. It's a bit of black magic though really, I don't know what algorithms it uses to determine how to blend. I just know Smartblend usually does a far better job of it. :-) As for your nomination, I've voted support as promised.

Actually, while browsing the commons images, I stumbled across Paola Costa's images. I'd seen them before, of course, but never paid much attention as I'm not that active on Commons. As he has a nice portfolio, I had a proper browse and found his somewhat similar image of Montreal's skyline at dusk, and then your defence of mine in comparison to it. I have to say I completely agree with you - I struggle to see how Carsten could find it better, but such is life. That guy seems to nitpick all of my photos, coming up with incredibly lame justifications for his opposes. My photos will either be "too soft" at 100% original resolution, or "oversharpened" when downsampled a bit, even if NO ADDITIONAL sharpening has even been applied. And then there's his blunt summaries of poor composition or similar, without any justification or benchmark. Nothing is ever good enough for him, except seemingly inferior photos of the same subject with focus issues. ;-) Ðiliff «» (Talk) 12:10, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I didn't think you were active on Commons FP, so wasn't really expecting your vote there. But thanks-very-much all the same. I'm still figuring out the options on Hugin -- it doesn't help that (as with most free stuff) the "help" is dreadful and out of date. What I got saved were all 36 warped/aligned tiffs with transparency (little clam-shell-shaped snippets) but no blend masks, along with the final blended tiff. I took this and ended up adding three of the intermediates as layers and then hand-blending a little bit of each in order to make someone disappear or appear. Even with my brand new PC, I don't think it would have coped with a PSD file of 36 of those huge files. I then used another layer or so to fix remaining problems with the clone stamp tool. My brother gave me a Bamboo tablet last Christmas and it was great to use for this.

It is a shame that Montreal nomination pick got bogged down in comparisons with your version. There's a similarity here with my original fisheye FP and the ones we can make by stitching. I think if my original had been a static high-shutter-speed shot then I'd replace it with the stitched version no issue. But it has different qualities even though not nearly as sharp or detailed. Hopefully later this week I'll upload the alternative and you can judge for yourself.

I'm not sure what you are hoping for with "more atmospheric lighting conditions". Installing lasers, dry ice and getting a dance group to perform in the middle? I still haven't been there after dark, and that's getting much later these days -- they might even close that floor off in the late evening. An alternative might be to try taking a shot from ground level looking up -- you'd get the sweeping-over-your-head effect and concentrate more on the lighting on the steelwork than the fairly dull concourse floor. Certainly a disadvantage of the many-images approach is that it multiplies the stitching issues wrt people. I think I was fairly lucky there was a clear path through many of the commuters where a join could go, but got unlucky with several of them walking across the scene and appearing in every bloody photograph.

There doesn't seem to be a problem with duplicate/similar FPs on Commons. What is the situation on WP (other than it has to be in the article)? Colin°^Talk 13:00, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

As promised: File:King's Cross Western Concourse - side position - 2012-05-02 - vcrop.jpg. The version I first created/uploaded (here) used as much vertical height as the three rows of stitched images provided. But I thought it was unbalanced and prefer the vertical crop, which also aligns roughly with thirds. As a result of the crop, it drops from 101 MP to merely 85 MP :-). Two of the details I like are (1) At the very left, through the arch, you can clearly see the small sign for platforms 0 to 7. (2) In the very centre, there's a dad carrying his sleeping boy through the station. I never would have thought it possible to create a panorama of such a crowded scene with so many shots. Smartblend did a fantastic job, leaving me to only have to worry about the twins. What do you think? At the weekend, I hope to upload new pictures of the main station building interior, shot from the walkway. I've got both high-resolution shots and a fisheye shot. They look promising so far, but I suspect can be improved by going back on a day with a blue sky outside. Colin°^Talk 07:58, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Very nice. I haven't had a chance to look at it in detail but as it looks to be very high res, I'm sure the detail is excellent. I do think that both this one and the original sans crop are still a little unbalanced though. I would prefer to see more of the lower foreground and that would also help with being able to show more of the roof structure without it looking unbalanced. That's my immediate reaction anyway. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 08:25, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Featured Picture

Your Featured picture candidate has been promoted Your nomination for featured picture status, File:Hammersmith Bridge 1, London, UK - April 2012.jpg, gained a consensus of support, and has been promoted. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates. Dusty777 18:02, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

"Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0"

Hello, I would like to clarify the terms of the license or negotiate less restrictive commercial licensing outside of the bounds of GFDL/CC-BY-SA.

Thanks, Regards, Sebestyen Sandor

Email:transp@web.de — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.84.2.211 (talk) 12:20, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/File:Abbotsbury, Dorset, UK - May 2012.jpg

An image created by you has been promoted to featured picture status Your image, File:Abbotsbury, Dorset, UK - May 2012.jpg, was nominated on Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates, gained a consensus of support, and has been promoted. If you would like to nominate an image, please do so at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates. Thank you for your contribution! Makeemlighter (talk) 20:05, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/File:Kimmeridge, Dorset, UK - May 2012.jpg

An image created by you has been promoted to featured picture status Your image, File:Kimmeridge, Dorset, UK - May 2012.jpg, was nominated on Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates, gained a consensus of support, and has been promoted. If you would like to nominate an image, please do so at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates. Thank you for your contribution! Makeemlighter (talk) 20:07, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Usage of the image Colosseum_in_Rome,_Italy_-_April_2007.jpg

Hi David, first of all, sorry for my bad english (i'm german) - but hopefully you understand my purpose for contacting you. We are a non-profit and non-commercial riddler-community in Germany (http://www.raetselnasen.de) and we start a non-commercial riddle in August 2012. In one question we like to use your pretty picture of the colosseum as part of a composition image (with the eiffel tower, the kheops pyramid and some more pictures).

For that reason we would be pleased if you would allow us to use your photo for that purpose and for this single usage. The picture credits could be Photo: DAVID ILIFF – Creative-Commons, Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported respectively the german translation.

The attribution of this image would be placed on the "Impressum"-page. The closest english terms for Impressum are "Site notice", "Legal notice" or "Legal disclosure".

I would be grateful if you could agree to this request and stay hoping to hear from you soon.

Yours sincerely Christian Sander -- mail@christian-sander.de — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.181.145.141 (talk) 14:28, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Use of several of your photographs

Greetings,

I sent you an e-mail through Wikipedia. It occurred to me that I do not recall having ever received any e-mails through my account. I wasn't sure if I would receive any reply you might send. So, I am repeating my message below.

As a hobby, I have created a website dedicated to photos in the "virtual reality" format (VeryBigPhotos.com). While some of the thousands of photos I have modified are mine, most come from people who have released them into the public domain, or made them available through some form of Creative Commons/GNU licensing.

Until today, the formatting of the website had the photos broken down by countries. At the suggestion of one of the included photographers, today I started a "Featured Photographers" section.

Due to the amount of coding involved, it was easiest to start with someone whose pictures I had yet to utilize. So, while I was adding several of your photos to the regular part of the website, I also added you as the first of the Featured Photographers.

I believe I have followed your posted licensing requirements. The master page lists your Attribution: "Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0". Each of the individual photo pages also lists your name, user name, your requested attribution, a copyright warning, a link to the CC-BY-SA 3.0 License page, and a link to your Wikipedia page.

If I have failed to meet any of your requirements, please let me know.

You have a wonderful body of work. The quality of the depth of field and focusing in excellent. While I have enjoyed all of your photos, I am particularly impressed with the one of the Notre-Dame Basilica in Montreal. It is beautiful in composition and execution.

The software I am using to generate the pages is Kolor's Panotour Pro 1.8.

The website's main page is at: http://verybigphotos.com.

Your page is at: http://verybigphotos.com/indexDavidIliff-Diliff.html

Wado (Cherokee for "Thanks"),

Phil Konstantin Phil Konstantin (talk) 03:39, 20 June 2012 (UTC) http://americanindian.net

Your next camera?

• Gigapixel camera catches the smallest details Nature News. Katherine Bourzac. 20 June 2012
• AWARE2 Multiscale Gigapixel Camera

I haven't managed to see any pictures from this yet. The links seem broken. Perhaps the website is down due to overload. -- Colin°^Talk 07:38, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/L'Umbracle

An image created by you has been promoted to featured picture status Your image, File:L'Umbracle, Valencia, Spain - Jan 2007.jpg, was nominated on Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates, gained a consensus of support, and has been promoted. If you would like to nominate an image, please do so at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates. Thank you for your contribution! Makeemlighter (talk) 01:34, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/L'Oceanografic

An image created by you has been promoted to featured picture status Your image, File:L'Oceanografic, Valencia, Spain 2 - Jan 07-cropped.jpg, was nominated on Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates, gained a consensus of support, and has been promoted. If you would like to nominate an image, please do so at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates. Thank you for your contribution! Julia\talk 21:40, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Star Trails

I read about taking star trails in a photo mag a while back and thought about giving it a try. From where I live, I'd have to travel a long way to escape the pollution, though. I've got the same wireless timer I see you have in your gear list: only used it so far to take close-up shots of squirrels in my garden helping themselves to nuts from the bird feeder. On my summer holiday, I'll be in Scotland and hope to get some clean air in my lungs for a change. Finger crossed I might get a clear sky too. There seem to be several techniques and software solutions for capturing star trails. What have you had success with? Any tips would be greatfully received. Would my Samyang fisheye be useful for this or am I best sticking with a standard lens (e.g., my 17-50mm 2.8 Tamron at 17mm)? -- Colin°^Talk 13:34, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

• Scotland would probably be a good opportunity, if you get a clear night. We're a little spoilt in the southern hemisphere, as more of the Milk Way is visible from down there. You're right that there are different techniques, the most common and easiest being the stacking of multiple images together to form a long trail. The downside is that you get the signature 'stops' in the star trails when you look carefully at them. I've seen software that purports to correct this in software but I haven't really been keen enough to look into it, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't free. I think you would have some success with the 17mm end of your standard lens, as you don't have to be ultrawide, although it helps to get the wider arcs if you do shoot for the nodal point. The key for me, and something that lets down the nominated image IMO, is the need for a compelling foreground. That's what makes it difficult. And of course you'll probably find that it's difficult to find a location that sufficiently lights up the landscape. I've been meaning to revisit a location that I last visited in 2004 in Utah. It was a view directly down a canyon in Zion National Park just after sunset. Similar to this photo I also took on the same trip, but from a bit further into the canyon on the right, so that the two canyon walls encompass the view a bit more than they do in this one. Between the canyon walls, the nodal point of the star trails is in front of you (the exact height above the canyon varies by the season I suppose, but it was a little too low when I visited in September). I tried to take a long exposure from a lookout, but didn't have a tripod with me, and of course trying to hold the shutter while resting the camera on a ledge is just never going to work. So ever since then, I've been really keen to go back and 'do the scene justice'. Alas, not yet. :) Oh, for what it's worth, here's my poor attempt. It was a hand-held exposure of about four minutes, and shot in JPEG rather than raw, so processing options are very limited in such a high dynamic range scene such as this. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 14:13, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. I will have to think about how the landscape is lit too. I would have liked the chance to practice before I go but the weather is so dire just now. I suspect in the short time I have, my chances of a good shot will be slim. I'm bound to end up with cloudy skys or a huge moon in front of my lens. Colin°^Talk 07:47, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

The moon will tend to impact the clarity of the sky unless it's exceptionally clear, no matter whether it's in the middle of your shot or not, but you will have the benefit of it lighting up the landscape around you. It's worth checking in advance where in the sky and how full it will be on the days you'll be in Scotland. I suppose this kind of research is what separates the lucky amateurs from the professional landscape photographers who can be quite meticulous about their planning to get the perfect shot. I'd love to have the time to do that, but sadly I fall squarely into the lucky amateur category. :-) Ðiliff «» (Talk) 08:11, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Well I didn't get any star trail photos on my holiday. The only clear night forecast (and in reality) was the first night, when I could really have done with sitting down with a glass of red wine. This was the night before the Perseid meteor shower was due in full. So I resisted and drove out at midnight to a viewpoint where I hoped it would be dark and with a good view across the bay to some nearby mountains I thought might add some ground interest. It would also be in the right direction to include the nodal point you mention. The moon was small and out of view (hidden by a hill). The sky straight above was wonderfully clear and full of stars but down about half-way towards the horizon the stars disappeared. I don't know why. I thought I was well clear of any towns and cities. Perhaps the sky wasn't as clear as it needs to be. Or just doesn't get dark enough at this time of year up north. Anyway, the mountains weren't going to silhouette any stars unless I was already climbing half-way up one. I took a few photos of the stars above but despite practice runs with my timer, it was playing up on me and gave up trying to get a sequence of shots to make trails. With the aid of a coating of midge repellent, I stayed out for about 40 mins, and was rewarded with a solitary meteor. Not on camera, though. If it had been clear the next day, then perhaps I'd have a star trail + meteors photo to show off. I'll need to practice more with my timer to be ready next time. :-( Colin°^Talk 21:04, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

• Aha! I'd forgotten about your star trail photography aspirations. :-) I was also walking in the Pyrenees the day after the prime Perseid meteor shower evening, and camped by a lake that night. Photography wasn't really the priority of the trip, but I managed to drag my tripod and three lenses up to 2600m along with all the camping gear and tried my luck with a bit of night photography. It was actually so dark that I didn't really get any of the foreground/mountains lit up, and they were more silhouettes than anything else. Here's an attempt with two Perseid meteors, and another of the Milky Way with onetwo Perseids. Here's the lake the next morning. As for your sky being devoid of stars near the horizon, it sounds like it was probably just clouds getting in the way...? When it's really dark, it's difficult to tell exactly what is obscuring the sky, but clouds are the most likely cause I think. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 21:54, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Great pictures. I'm jealous: your mountains are a wee bit bigger than mine were. And your daytime shot is so clear. I generally didn't get such clear views when out walking, and on the mountain climb I did, I was in-the-clouds at the top. I got some nice family photos, though. Colin°^Talk 11:50, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

I've been working through my holiday photos and had another look at the star photos I attempted. Just out of interest, I pressed the "Auto" button on Lightroom, knowing it wouldn't handle the scene but might show up something. And there was a meteor in my photo. Plus many more stars than I thought I'd caught. I guess the camera can see fainter meteors than the eye. I won't post it as it doesn't stand comparison to yours, but it was a nice surprise. Colin°^Talk 17:11, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Ask for licensee for the picture of skyline of Hong Kong

Dear Diliff

I would like to use your picture for our meeting website, which will be hold in Hong Kong. Is there anything I should do? Do I need to pay you or anything else?

Please contact me when you see it. My email is sunshinebelinda@gmail.com It's a little urgent. Thank you very much!

Best, Belinda — Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.8.248.106 (talk) 02:54, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Photo usage

Hi, I've been working on a small game built around animal quizzes and I wanted to let you know I've used one of your pictures.

I found your picture here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pristis_pectinata_-_Georgia_Aquarium_Jan_2006.jpg

And I attributed the picture like this: David Iliff with this link: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Diliff and also added a link to the license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

I hope you're happy with it, please let me know if this is not the case. You can find the game here: http://apps.facebook.com/animalalbum Or through here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/AnimalAlbum/156339584490672

Kind regards, Garfunkel Jansen (talk) 10:43, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

P.S. Thanks for taking the picture and making it available.

FPCR

Hi Diliff. In this edit did you mean to rollback my change? If so, what was your reasoning? Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 17:38, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

• Apologies, I didn't see you'd made an edit after mine. I suspect it happened because I had linked to the diff of my last edit when discussing the change on FPC Talk, and in making a further change, I simply clicked the diff link and edited further, not aware that it was no longer the current version. On a page with such infrequent edits, what were the chances of that? Please feel free to re-add your change. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 18:10, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Shard London Bridge picture

I would have to beg to differ with your assertion regarding the image. The current image shows the Bridge more prominently and the lights feature seems a fairly incidental in it. The previous image shows much more of the light show. Rather than engage in an edit war, I would suggest seeking alternative consensus. Any objections? 17:28, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

• Happy to discuss on the talk page. I tried to explain my reasoning in the edit summary but was limited by space. Of course the bridge is more prominent in the current image because it's completely absent from the old one, but that doesn't mean that the prominence means it loses value. As I mentioned, the old image has an equal prominence of HMS Belfast and office buildings. At least London Bridge has some relevance to the Shard opening, because it is full of people who have come to watch the display. And that doesn't even factor in the image quality comparison. The old image's quality is quite awful when viewed in detail. Anyway, to discuss further, it's probably best to do so on the article talk page, where others can voice their opinion. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 17:37, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
  • I agree the old image lacks the technical merit of the new one. We have technically 'very good' pictures of the building in an abundance on this page already. I think it is more important to show the light show, which is better illustrated in the old image. Mtaylor848 (talk) 23:57, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Consensus

Hi Diliff,

I thought you had been around long enough to understand what consensus entails. I'll just quote from the relevant WP namespace document: decision-making involves an effort to incorporate all editors' legitimate concerns. This has not happened in the discussion at hand. I did not initially revert your edit as I trusted that concerns would be addressed. But it now transpires that there is inertia against a genuine and honest exchange along these lines. So I would ask anyone that still wants this proposal to go ahead, to come back to the table and address the remaining issues, of which there are many.

Regards,

Samsara (FA • FP) 11:28, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

• It was discussed at length. Issues were raised on both sides, responses to these issues were given and we made a considerable effort to respond to each of the concerns. Did you miss the replies we gave breathe, for example? Discussion eventually ceased, we waited, no further discussion was forthcoming. You may cite Wikipedia:There is no deadline but there are any number of guidelines that conflict with each other. That guideline contradicts itself, in fact. It's a talking point, not gospel. The point is, things still have to move forward. There was vigorous discussion, then it died down. As far as I can see, we had a straw poll, and there were just two people opposing the change. Both of which are not even active contributors to the project, and both of which we discussed the issues with at length, to the extent that the opposers gave us any dialog (none). There were eight people supporting the change. What more did you honestly expect us to do? Ðiliff «» (Talk) 11:45, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Wasn't this a Featured Picture

Hello! Wasn't this a featured picture a few years ago? ElVeracruzano (talk) 23:55, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

File:Notre-Dame de Montréal Basilica Rectilinear Jan 2006.jpg

Women olympic road race picture

Hi, Thank you for the picture of the three winners in the rain. It is a great picture. I will try to make it "Featured Picture" in the Hebrew Wikipedia.Tushyk (talk) 11:23, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks, I got quite lucky, it was really pouring with rain and I was worried that the photos would be ruined, but with the race car following behind and the slow shutter speed, the lighting was quite dramatic with the water spraying everywhere. Glad you liked it. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 12:05, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Special Barnstar
	Damn. I do not know how I ended up in your page but I saw your pictures and your recent contributions and I had to give you a barnstar. Your work is among the best I've seen in Wikipedia. You are vital for this project, and I'm glad you're a recurrent editor. Anyways, keep up the good work! Take care! ComputerJA (talk) 18:46, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

POTD notification

POTD

Hi David,

Just to let you know that the Featured Picture File:Prague Panorama - Oct 2010.jpg is due to make an appearance as Picture of the Day on August 6, 2012. If you get a chance, you can check and improve the caption at Template:POTD/2012-08-06. —howcheng {chat} 16:43, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

√ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.170.137.63 (talk) 05:55, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Permission

Dear David, from the German Wikipedia site "Koalabär" I want to use the figure of the bear in the upper right corner. I want to ask you to give me the permission to use this figure for my book about Charles Darwin. It will be a student textbook.

Best regards Paul

Paul Wrede Charite-Universitätsmedizin Berlin Molekularbiologie und Bioinformatik 14195 Berlin

--Paul wrede (talk) 11:50, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

• Hi Paul, you are welcome to use the photo, you just have to respect the license, which means that you must attribute the photo to me and show the license name. To do this, you should say something similar to "Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0". Hope this helps you. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 11:54, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

POTD notification

POTD

Hi David,

Just to let you know that the Featured Picture File:Eilean Donan Castle, Scotland - Jan 2011.jpg is due to make an appearance as Picture of the Day on August 20, 2012. If you get a chance, you can check and improve the caption at Template:POTD/2012-08-20. —howcheng {chat} 01:35, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Photographer's Barnstar
	I admire the way you take amazing photos from different places in the world. I particularly have appreciated London pictures, cause that's my favourite city. Good job! Best wishes Retignano (talk) 15:35, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi David. You're a really good photographer. I'm gonna ask you a question. London is my favourite city and I'd like to improve London articles on the Italian Wikipedia, which lacks of images and also quality images like yours. Assuming that I'm a newbie in translating articles, I don't even know perfectly how should I behave in using someone's photos. For example. If i wanted to use you're Westminster photo, I simply can add the file source to the Italian page and write in the description "Photo by David Iliff..."? Or this kind of description is to be used only in other projects (for example books, websites...)?
Thanks for your attention PS: For an example use of one of you're photos, look the Olympics section in Italian Tower Bridge article

• Thank you Retignano! Actually you don't need to write anything to credit me in the description. If you use my photos in other Wikipedias then all of this information is already on the image page, so it doesn't need to be added to the Italian article too. You are free to use any of them on the Italian Wikipedia, and I'm glad you're finding them useful. :) Ðiliff «» (Talk) 16:03, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

London Eye at Twilight

Dear David, I have spent some time looking through your pictures and I must say they are fantastic! You have a natural talent for capturing an image! I have been searching for a picture to use as a Corporate Christmas card for my company and was captivated by your London Eye at Twilight image. I have seen a few similar photos but none that match the quality of yours! I would like to discuss this in much more detail as the information I am after is not supplied online. I would greatly appreciate your time and look forward to hearing from you. My email address is kerry_palmeruk@hotmail.com. Many thanks, Kerry Palmer — Preceding unsigned comment added by KerryPalmer (talk • contribs) 11:00, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Authorization to use one of your picture

Hello there,

I like your picture of Hong Kong at dawn from 2008 very much and would like to use it for my commercial website, is there any conditions to fulfil? Please let me know about it.

Thank you,

Best Regards,

Eric.

My e-mail: arievers@hotmail.com

118.172.133.56 (talk) 07:15, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Q

B Hunn — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.180.8.70 (talk) 22:32, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Licensing

hi david,

i did send you an email via wikimedia commons at 3rd august, but never got a reply - so i asume it was lost.

i would like to use some of your great panoramic images for a mobile phone game i've created. the game is about panoramas and until now i used only cc-by licensed pictures. so the current way is that there is a "credits" section with all photographers names and also whenever a picture is displayed in the game the photographers name is also shown.

so i would like to use your cc-by-sa pictures but because i do not know how to SA them from inside a game, i would like to ask for permission to use them BY (cc-by: attribution only).

the game i am talking about is "afternoon world trip" where the goal is to travel around the world http://www.gameprogramming.de/index.php?id=62

please reply to ludocrazy@gameprogramming.de

cheers Sirleto (talk) 11:56, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Eureka Tower

I want to let you know that I've nominated File:Eureka Tower, Melbourne - Nov 2008.jpg as a featured picture. Chris857 (talk) 02:30, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Use image

Hi Diliff, I would like to use some of your image (3 or 4 london photoes )for brochure , can you pls give me permission to do so and what are your condition and charges. Regards My email minmimuk@hotmail.co.uk — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.86.241.222 (talk) 13:31, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Eureka Tower

An image created by you has been promoted to featured picture status Your image, File:Eureka Tower, Melbourne - Nov 2008.jpg, was nominated on Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates, gained a consensus of support, and has been promoted. If you would like to nominate an image, please do so at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates. Thank you for your contribution! King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 07:44, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Help with sky in stitched pano

Diliff, I wonder if you could help a new Commons photographer. See monument photos this discussion, specifically the problem mentioned with the sky at the bottom of the section. The pic is at FPC. Any ideas? Thanks, Colin°^Talk 17:49, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Photographer's Barnstar
	I love your photography. You make it the best I also like in photography and in some day I will be a photographer like you Sorry, If my English bad. I'm Thai. The Saturn 04:14, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Commercial Usages for Calendar

Hi Diliff, my company, NorthgateArinso (www.ngahr.com) would like to use several Creative Commons licensed images (eg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:London_Thames_Sunset_panorama_-_Feb_2008.jpg) for our 2013 calendar.

May I confirm the credit text below is sufficient for us to use them without any charges for commercial purposes?

Image by David Iliff (License: CC-BY-SA 3.0) and courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Thanks!

Regards,

Patrick patrick.tang@ngahr.com

Cheey2003 (talk) 04:43, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Superb! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.97.161.54 (talk) 21:38, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation Blog Feature

Hi Diliff,

My name is Jawad Qadir and I'm a communications intern with the Wikimedia Foundation in San Francisco. We have a feature on the Foundation blog [1] to profile the photographers behind the beautiful photos on Commons. After I saw some of your photos on Commons, I thought I'd love to do a short interview with you either by phone, Skype, or email to discuss your work. Please let me know if you think you'd be interested! The best way to reply back is by email: jqadir@wikimedia.org

Jqadir (WMF) (talk) 22:52, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Matt Bomer discussion

Thank you for participating in the discussion, and for your constructive criticism. It is acknowledged.

One question, though: Were you one of the people I contacted to participate in the discussion directly below the one you posted in, which is called Talk:Matt Bomer#Infobox image consensus discussion? I don't see a message by me on your talk page or in your tp's edit history. Or were you just reacting to SPhilbrick's post in that latter discussion? In any event, if you'd like to offer your opinion on the photo question, please feel free to post in the latter discussion. I know you already provided your opinion in the earlier one, but I didn't think it appropriate to move your post, and I'm not sure if quoting it or copying it would maintain the level of objectivity with which I told Matt Bomer and his representative that I'd open the discussion. And if you don't want to post your opinion again, that's fine. Thanks again. :-) Nightscream (talk) 19:55, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

• No, I wasn't contacted by you directly, but as I'm active in FPC and I noticed you contacted a large number of people who are, it appeared on my watchlist. :-) I followed out of curiosity and thought I'd offer my opinion regardless. As I'm not as involved in the issue as yourself, and only based my thoughts on the immediate discussion that I commented on, I apologise if I've overstepped the mark. Out of interest, are you sure that Sphilbrick is Matt Bomer's representative in any official way? I didn't get that impression from the discussion but it would make sense, and would also explain why you were critical of the intentions. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 20:00, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/File:Olympic Road Race Womens winners, London - July 2012.jpg

An image created by you has been promoted to featured picture status Your image, File:Olympic Road Race Womens winners, London - July 2012.jpg, was nominated on Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates, gained a consensus of support, and has been promoted. If you would like to nominate an image, please do so at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates. Thank you for your contribution! Julia\talk 21:27, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Usage of image

Hi David, I thought I would let you know that I have used your image http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jamison_Valley,_Blue_Mountains,_Australia_-_Nov_2008.jpg as the cover/header photo for Wikimedia Australia's twitter and facebook accounts. I was looking for a high quality Australian image and yours stuck out. I may rotate the images occasionally but yours is the first one - congratulations :) I have credited you as requested - let me know if you have any questions! -- Chuq (talk) 23:23, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Use on web page

Hi, I would like to use your image for an academic conference web page - is there anything I need to do apart from add the suggested text?

Cheers,

Allan Tucker

allan.tucker@brunel.ac.uk

134.83.1.242 (talk) 15:51, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/File:Royal Albert Hall, London - Nov 2012.jpg

An image created by you has been promoted to featured picture status Your image, File:Royal Albert Hall, London - Nov 2012.jpg, was nominated on Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates, gained a consensus of support, and has been promoted. If you would like to nominate an image, please do so at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates. Thank you for your contribution! Julia\talk 15:05, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Image of St. Peter's Square

Hello David, i am living in Wegberg, a small town in germany close to the dutch border. A good friend of mine owns a small pizzeria with the name "Roma" (www.pizzeria-roma-wegberg.de). Since he is also a very religious man i would like to make a nice print of your beautiful St. Peter's Square image as a birthday present. Is he allowed to place it on the wall of his store? Thanks for an answer and Kind Regards - Fritz Buness Geophysicist Beecker Str. 40 41844 Wegberg Germany Tel +49 162 217 6596 Mail buness@t-online.de — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.15.55.164 (talk) 08:38, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Hi! I would like to buy/print this photo and frame it for my son for Christmas- can I do that? Beth Wade, wadee@us.ibm.com 71.163.142.247 (talk) 14:44, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Cordial saludo

        Diciembre          
        08 2012, Pereira  Risaralda Colombia.
        Perddon por la pequeñez del texto.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 186.0.110.170 (talk) 03:35, 9 December 2012 (UTC) 

Thank You for Wikipedia Freeware Pictures

Hello, My name is Duane Hurst and I recently made a free (non-commercial) English web site to share information with people. I added links to several of your Wikipedia/Wikimedia freeware pictures (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:City_of_London_skyline_from_London_City_Hall_-_Oct_2008.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:St_Paul%27s_Cathedral,_London,_England_-_Jan_2010.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:London_Thames_Sunset_panorama_-_Feb_2008.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tower_bridge_London_Twilight_-_November_2006.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Trafalgar_Square,_London_2_-_Jun_2009.jpg). I also gave credit to you on my web pages for your work. Thank you for sharing with the public. My website is:

http://www.freeenglishsite.com/

I add pictures such as yours to one of the following major sections of my site: 1. World section - contains information and over 10,000 images of every world country and territory. Link at: http://www.freeenglishsite.com/world/index.htm

2. USA section - contains information and images of every USA state and territory. Link at: http://www.freeenglishsite.com/world/usa/index.htm

3. English section - "Mel and Wes" lessons in conversation format. Stories are located in various USA states and world countries such as China, England, Germany, Japan, Mexico and Thailand. Each lesson has many slang terms and idioms, which I link to my Slang Dictionary. This eventually will have over 5,000 terms. Currently, it has about 3,000 slang and idioms. I regularly add new lessons and slang terms. Link at: http://www.freeenglishsite.com/english/lessons/index.htm Slang Dictionary link at: http://www.freeenglishsite.com/english/slang/Eslang_a.htm

Prior to retirement, I taught English at several private and public universities in the United States.

Please share this free site with your friends. I hope all will enjoy the pictures and find the English information useful. Sincerely,  Duane Hurst in Utah, USA

Email address: duanerhurst@freeenglishsite.com --65.130.202.239 (talk) 23:16, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Ambleside

An image created by you has been promoted to featured picture status Your image, File:Ambleside & Waterhead Panorama 2, Cumbria, England - Oct 2009.jpg, was nominated on Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates, gained a consensus of support, and has been promoted. If you would like to nominate an image, please do so at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates. Thank you for your contribution! Armbrust The Homunculus 12:17, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Loughrigg Tarn

An image created by you has been promoted to featured picture status Your image, File:Loughrigg Tarn - Oct 2009.jpg, was nominated on Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates, gained a consensus of support, and has been promoted. If you would like to nominate an image, please do so at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates. Thank you for your contribution! Armbrust The Homunculus 12:29, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Non-copyright concerns

I saw your comments on the Olympic pic FP and LOCOG restrictions on commercial photography. I guess if someone photographed a performance like a show, theatre or cinema, then the photograph may breach copyright and your "stolen goods" analogy would hold to our hosting it too. I suspect the Olympics photographs don't fall into that area because personal photographs are allowed. So that leaves the contract between the spectator and LOCOG. That the photographer may have breached his contract (and could be sued) doesn't cause problems for WP/Commons, who have no contract with LOCOG. Indeed, the folk at commons (who seem rather obsessed with ignoring non-copyright concerns) seem keen to capture as many Olympic pics as possible, and verify their free licence, before the Flickr folk realise their mistake and slap an -NC licence on it instead. I don't know whether WP/Commons hosting such images poses any further difficulty for the photographer if they got sued, and whether WP/Commons would even permit the deletion of the image in that case.

The issue of non-commercial restrictions on the photographer (rather than the photographer imposing their own NC restriction on the licence) is a bit of a problem when you dig. I've mentioned before the zoo that charges £200+ per hour for commercial photography. I've also discovered that the Royal Parks and National rail don't permit commercial photography without permission (and there's a hefty fee for the Royal Parks - don't know what the rail charges, if anything). So my latest St James's Park Lake pic could be a problem if the queen decides to sue, as might my other rail station pics. Ignorance is bliss. Colin°^Talk 14:46, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Hi,

I was wanting to use your image (melbourne_skyline_from_rialto_crop_-_nov_2008.jpg) on a sign 505 Little Collins Street which is a business called Brainsells as part of a privacy screen for computer cables etc.

I wanted to check on the licensing. I can email you a signage plan

File:C:\Users\Darrell Jones\Desktop\upload\Signage.jpg

kind regards Darrell darrell@jsj.com.au — Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.230.72.147 (talk) 02:02, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Happy Christmas

Have a Christmas Card of Everest

Pretty amazing photograph. You can see groups of climbers and their tents snaking up the snowy face.

Hope you have a great holiday. -- Colin°^Talk 11:00, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Galina Vishnevskaya

An image created by you has been promoted to featured picture status Your image, File:Galina Vishnevskaya edit 2.jpg, was nominated on Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates, gained a consensus of support, and has been promoted. If you would like to nominate an image, please do so at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates. Thank you for your contribution! Armbrust The Homunculus 13:25, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Canary Wharf Skyline Image

Hi David ,

I was wondering if I could use your skyline image of canary wharf for the background image of a new portfolio website I am creating. I am a final year student at the University of Greenwich and have been looking for a high-res photo of Canary Wharf lit up at night and yours is absolutely ideal. Obviously I would credit you with a recommendation and link to your material if I am given permission. However, if you are protective over your content I understand. Amazing photos by the way. Especially the ones you have of busy cities lit up at night.

I do not actually have an Wikipedia account so you can reach me via lewiswarren2007@yahoo.co.uk

PS. Just thought I'd mention, the Photo would be used purely for the background of my pages underneath all of the content. I would not claim it to be by own work.

Thanks. Lewis. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.243.219.159 (talk) 14:47, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Dear David

I would hope to obtain a permission for the Opera House photos for my company up coming Chinese New Year tour promotion.

Please let me know the outcome and i can be contacted on 0411 182 153 or dnntrinh@yahoo.com.au

Thank you Kind Regards Donna Trinh — Preceding unsigned comment added by Donna Trinh (talk • contribs) 12:53, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

POTD notification

POTD

Hi David,

Just to let you know that the Featured Picture File:Blois Loire Panorama - July 2011.jpg is due to make an appearance as Picture of the Day on January 14, 2013. If you get a chance, you can check and improve the caption at Template:POTD/2013-01-14. —howcheng {chat} 09:27, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Hello

Dear David

I wish to use your image of St James's Square. It will be featured in the Diplomat February/March issue. I would love to send you a copy of the magazine and pdf of the designed page

My email is js@diplomatmagazine.com website is www.diplomatmagazine.com

many thanks

Jeannine — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.196.61.66 (talk) 11:31, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

POTD notification

POTD

Hi David,

Just to let you know that the Featured Picture File:Thames Barrier, London, England - Feb 2010.jpg is due to make an appearance as Picture of the Day on January 25, 2013. If you get a chance, you can check and improve the caption at Template:POTD/2013-01-25. —howcheng {chat} 19:34, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Congratulations!

Congratulations Diliff, your image Image:Colosseum in Rome, Italy - April 2007.jpg was the Random Picture of the Day! It looked like this:

Random picture of the day

The Colosseum

Image credit: Diliff (talk · contribs)

Presidentman talk · contribs (Talkback) 22:14, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Photographer's Barnstar
	Hi David, you are an amazing photographer and keep giving us new shots of surprises. Kh627 (talk) 15:16, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Commons:Featured picture candidates/removal/File:Clock Tower - Palace of Westminster, London - September 2006.jpg

FYI Commons:Featured picture candidates/removal/File:Clock Tower - Palace of Westminster, London - September 2006.jpg :) JKadavoor Jee 16:55, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

The link intended is Commons:Featured picture candidates/removal/File:Clock Tower - Palace of Westminster, London - September 2006.jpg I believe. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 17:37, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes; the message added here (per rule to inform the contributor) because it seems Diliff seems only active here (link fixed). JKadavoor Jee 04:33, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

A beer for you!

A beer for you! Chicken and Cow (talk) 02:42, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Seeking to purchase large photo of Windsor Castle

Hi, David!

I saw your photo of Windsor Castle on the "Heritage is Great Britain" Facebook page today (March 1). My hubby and I lived near Windsor in the late 1990s and have been looking for a large photo of this precise Long Walk view to hang in our home. We have had no luck at all in 15 years!! Do you sell large images of this Windsor Castle picture? We aren't wealthy but would pay a decent price for this photo, nonetheless. It has a special place in our hearts!

(We're in the US, by the way.) I'll watch for any response from you here. Or you can contact me at sandy.fugate@yahoo.com

Thanks very much,

--Sandy Fugate Indyslf (talk) 18:38, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Photographer's Barnstar
	My god, I have never such beautiful photographs! The experience of actually being at those places is 1 trillion times beautiful than what you usually see in photographs, but yours come very close to making the reader who is looking at the photos be at the actual place. Liberalufp (talk) 18:46, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Copyvio

Hey Diliff,

Went to check out the news just now and it was interesting to see this copyvio of an FP candidate you had edited - particularly in context of the whole GFDL/CC debate on FPC at the moment! [Think people in that debate have become a bit disconnected from the reality that for most people a photo becomes "free" simply because it is available online...] --Fir0002 06:45, 17 March 2013 (UTC)