I believe you need to substantially transform a public domain work in order to qualify for copyright on a derived work. If the original image is public domain,

I believe you need to substantially transform a public domain work in order to qualify for copyright on a derived work. If the original image is public domain, it's not clear that cropping and basic editing would qualify. I think Wikimedia is in the wrong here, for what it's worth, but I don't think it's clear cut either way.