[WikiEN-l] Wikimedian image restorations exploited on eBay

[Michel Vuijlsteke]

2009/9/17 Carcharoth <carcharothwp at googlemail.com>

> On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 2:04 PM, Michel Vuijlsteke <wikipedia at zog.org>
> wrote:
> > 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.
>

I'm not disagreeing with you that it deserves recognition, and that it takes
time. But as you say: it's not strictly creative. Assembling a thousand
identical Ikea bookcases also takes time. :)

I had my first FP on Labour Day and that was a restored image. When I
submitted the restoration I knew full well that I was submitting it to a
site that allowsall content to be reused commercially, and that no
attribution was necessary. And I'm fine with that.


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

Matter of interpretation. Take this portrait I restored:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Andrew_Curtin2.jpg
Can you tell what I filled in? This is the original image:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Andrew_Curtin.jpg

Skill involved, sure. But no artistry.

Adding a hand was an order of magnitude easier than adding the missing parts
of his pants, by the way. :)

Michel