User:A Fellow Editor/sandbox/scalloped distinctions

Reply and explanation

In short, a portion of a live photograph has been transformed into a sort of reference diagram.

... Or at least that's one—I think straightforward—way to frame the issue at hand. More fully, some portion of a digital/digitized original photograph composed, captured, and uploaded to Wikimedia Commons by User:YuryKirienko as a .jpg file under a Public Domain license has been transformed by the efforts and creative choices of User:Kevjonesin within the GNU Image Manipulation Program to produce a reference image uploaded by User:Kevjonesin to Wikimedia Commons as a .png file under a Public Domain license for use as a visual guide on a Wikipedia article's talkpage where it was inserted as relevant to subject matter under discussion. ie. As a photograph transformed by creative choices to produce a reference image.

Some musings on terminology and the digital age

Some musing as to whether 'diagram' (or what) might be a fair term for the resultant .png reference image ... Please consider that if I had made use of a physical photographic print—taken from life of an opened scallop—by making a photo copy, then rotated and cropped it to create a new visual composition, then placed a sheet of transparent film over the print on which to render the the imagery in exaggerated colors by tracing and shading with markers, then had cut a darkened frosted translucent matte and attached it to another transparency layered on top so as to partially mask background detail, and then took another transparent sheet and added reference annotations in red ink to be placed over the preceding layers, then followed by taking my own new photograph of the resultant composite image formed by stacking and aligning the layers under my own lighting and with my own choice of camera settings might then one fairly say I had produced a diagram? An illustration? At least something beyond a mere crop or copy, eh? A new image of my own composition based on/inspired by/derived from a free photograph. The methodology I used in GIMP was very much similar to the physical process I've lain out as an analogy. Though perhaps dodging-and-burning and hand tinting layers and such in a custom photography studio might make for a closer comparative example than hand rendering in this case. Regardless, in GIMP I used multiple transparent layers to willfully combine various, masks, filters, and effects, but instead of doing so with manual pigments and photographic equipment I employed 21st Century tools in the form of using a software application as a digital editing environment on a personal computer. Point being, while the tools may differ much of the creative choices when creating two-dimensional images remain the same regardless of the medium employed to do so. I caution against falling into the trap of trivializing the results of new methods 'just because they're new'. Many once scoffed at the idea that there might be individual creativity involved in taking and developing a photograph or in using electronic and digital performance and production techniques in music. To anyone still on-the-fence, I suggest you 'fire up' your own copy of GIMP (it's a free program) then take a copy of Yury's original file and attempt to precisely recreate recreate a match to the .png image file I uploaded. While certainly not impossible, I think the process should give one not already experienced with GIMP a much better appreciation of the choices involved in doing so.