[WikiEN-l] Wikimedian image restorations exploited on eBay

[Carcharoth]

On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 2:04 PM, Michel Vuijlsteke <wikipedia at zog.org> wrote:
> 2009/9/17 Durova <nadezhda.durova at gmail.com>
>
>> The Louis Brandeis restoration was 20 hours' labor.  Extensive staining and
>> chemical damage required careful reconstruction including large portions of
>> his face.  It is, likewise, shocking to encounter a senior editor--an
>> arbitrator no less--who calmly presumes such work entails no creative input
>> and no share of authorship.
>
> I personally think image restoration is more like painting by numbers than
> creative work.
>
> It's like "creating" an Ikea bookcase: there is some *skill* involved but no
> artistic or creative input. And if it's done properly, there's no way of
> telling who did assembled the bookcase, or indeed restored the image.

There is a lot more skill than 'painting by numbers' involved. One way
to tell is to look at the market for such skills. Look at the salaries
paid to a painter and to a skilled image restorer.

Even if you can't do that, then the time involved is the clincher. It
may not be strictly speaking creative, but it does deserve
recognition. For example, writing some Wikipedia articles can be
formulaic and done "by the numbers". But you don't see people saying
this is not creative or skilful.

And in any cases, some aspects of restoration *are* creative (mainly
the ones that involve filling in missing material), but those can be
controversial.

See this article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation-restoration

In particular:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation-restoration#Preventive_Conservation

And also:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photo_restoration

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photograph_conservation

There has long been a debate between conservation and restoration. Is
it better to conserve something, or to restore it? In the case of
digital photos, you can do digital restoration, while the original has
conservation techniques applied to it, as Durova or someone has
mentioned before.

Carcharoth