South Shore Camera Club
Quincy, Massachusetts

Digital Photo Preparation

Digital Competition File Preparation
and Submission Guidelines
2009-2010

We have a new projector with new specs so our pixel dimensions have changed.

Please submit your entries by the second Tuesday in the month prior to the competition. The categories are Nature, Open Beginner or Open Advanced and Assigned (changes monthly according to the competition schedule). The competition rules explain each category and the yearly schedule has been sent to you.

You may submit digital entries in two ways. You can hand Barry Nelson a CD or you can upload your images to our web upload page. Email has been a problem so we will no longer accept images that way. The web upload is the easiest for you and us.  We need to know your name, each photo’s title and the category each photo is to be entered into. The web upload makes you fill in that info but if you give it to Barry on a CD you should rename the file with that info. Use an underscore for spaces. (your_name_category_imagetitle.jpg)

You may submit only jpeg images and you must give us your name, category and image title. These are the only required steps but you may want to resize your images for best display as follows.

The projector has a resolution of 1440x1050 pixels. Images look best when they are sized to fit within these limits. Therefore verticals should be 1050 pixels in height. They will not fill the 1440 width. Panoramas should be 1440 in width and will not fill the full 1050 height. These are pixel dimensions. Think of the projected image as being a rectangular grid. Each square in the grid is one pixel. If your photo has more pixels than the grid it will be squeezed to fit and may not look its best. Even a single pixel oversized and resizing takes effect. Undersizing results in a smaller projected image.  Take your jpeg and open in Photoshop, click image, image size (Elements-image, resize, image size) and check scale styles and constrain proportions and resample image. Choose bicubic as the resample method. Then you can enter the pixel dimensions you need to fit within the 1440x1050 space. Click OK and your photo is properly sized. Then click file-save as, type in a name, click save, enter quality 8 to 10, baseline standard and click OK.

         One more thing should be done for optimal projection. The projector uses the sRGB color space. Most cameras that shoot jpegs as default use that color space so no need to do anything. Some of us that shoot raw or Tiff have pictures in other color spaces. Those that are not already sRGB should convert. In Photoshop click edit, convert to profile and the “source profile” shows the color space the photo is in already. The destination is the color space or color profile you want to convert to. Choose sRGB IEC61966... In conversion options choose Adobe (ACE), Relative Colorimetric and check Use black point compensation. Click OK and the image is converted. Then save it. In Elements 5.0, and I assume later versions, click Image-Convert Color Profile-Apply sRGB. 

If you shoot raw or Tiff you should make a copy and convert it to jpeg by using “save as”. I recommend a quality setting of 8 to 10 and “baseline standard”.

Directions for web upload of images for competition.

Go to this web address:
http://www.photo-ne.com/uploads/competitions/

To login, enter your email address and the password that I sent you by email and click "Login".

Where it says "File upload", click the "Browse..." button and use the dialog that pops up to find the .jpg file on your computer. Select the file and click the "Open" or "OK" button.

Give the photo a title and choose the category you are submitting the photo in.

Click "Submit Your Entry".

On the next page, a small version of your photo should appear - it may take a minute.  If it appears, then your photo has been uploaded successfully.

There will be a link at the bottom of the page to let you enter another photo in another category if you plan to do so.

         If all this confuses you just get Barry a jpeg that is named properly and it will be entered.

 Best of luck to all,
Paul Munroe