Three cheers for Brion Vibber, Erik Möller, and Michael Dale

Say hello to Wikimedia Commons's first TIFF file! It's a restoration of an 1825 hand tinted illustration for the constellations Aries and Musca Borealis. The full version is available here, and as soon as this hurried and happy blog post is complete I'm going to upload the version that really matters: Aries and Musca Borealis1.tif. That's the interim step in restoration just before histogram and color balance.

What this means is that Wikimedia software has become a lot friendlier to serious restoration work. Editors no longer get forced into offsite communications to trade uncompressed files. With an upload limit of 100MB and (I hope) better thumbnailing ability soon, this is a major step forward for image editing.

Many thanks to Gerard Meijssen for his tireless dedication, to Shoemaker's Holiday for his fine restoration work, and to the many editors who have dedicated their volunteer time to this growing effort.