Digital Competition Instructions
Preparing your images
The following instructions are very detailed. It's not as complicated as it looks at first glance. Take a look at the summary first (for file naming). This may be adequate description for most. Then if you have any issues, look at the detailed descriptions.
Image file naming:
Copy the file and rename the copy. Never change your original file.
The image file names will be constructed in the format described below. You must get this right because I will not have time to check and correct errors - the files will be rejected by the competition program if the naming is incorrect and that image unfortunately will not be competing that day.
Format:
Club Code - Maker ID - Competition/Image number - Image Name.jpg. The elements are separated by a dash. I will describe each of them and finally give examples. Please observe capitalization examples except for image name.
Club Code:
this will always be C02 -- that's a Capital C followed by a numeric zero and a 2.
Maker ID:
This is formed of the 1st 4 letters of the Surname followed by the maker's 1st initial and the last 4 digits of your phone number.
Samples:
The Maker ID for Larry Smith would be SmitL1234 notice the capitalized 1st letter of the last name and 1st initial. If you have a 3 character surname do not use a 4th character.
The Maker ID for Bob Sly would be SlyB4567.
If you have 2 members of the same family with the same 1st initial, please provide me with a different phone for one of them so that the ID's will be different.
Competition/Image Number:
The competition code for color is A. The image number for the first image will be 1; the second image, 2, etc.
Image Name:
The image name must be comprised of fewer than 36 characters. Another way to say it is it can be up to 35 characters long including spaces. Please use spaces between words if possible. If your email client or your ISP won't allow file names with blanks, please use an underscore instead; as follows
The Deep River.jpg or The_Deep_River.jpg. Also, pay attention to capitalization. Make it look nice.
Samples:
- C02-SmitL1234-A1-The Deep River.jpg
- C02-SmitL1234-A2-The_River_Deep.jpg
- C02-JoneP5678-A1-The Tall Mountain.jpg
- C02-JoneP5678-A2-Red Rose.jpg
- C02-JoneP5678-A3-Yellow Rose.jpg
- C02-JoneP5678-A4-Blue Rose.jpg
Image Name Summary:
The 1st element is always C02 (that's a zero, not a capital o) followed by a dash
The 2nd element is always your Maker ID followed by a dash
The 3rd element is always the competition type (A = color, B = Monochrome) followed by a sequence number (1, 2, 3, etc.) example: A1 followed by a dash
The 4th element is always the image title. If you use C00003.jpg, C00003 will be the displayed title of your fabulous shot of Mount McKinley. You don't want that to happen. Also, do not use periods or apostrophes or other punctuation (except an underscore) in the image title.
Warning: complete the renaming process before resizing so that you are not working on the original image.
Image size:
The images must be in .jpg format and a maximum of 1024 pixels wide and 768 pixels high. You may have to make adjustments to stay within these limits. No, a vertical image cannot be 1024 pixels high.
How to accomplish resizing:
First you must consider that in print competition your images are matted and there is a small white border around your image where the mat board has been cut. This helps all images, but especially images with dark edges which would otherwise "flow" into the background.
Digital images are projected against a black background so we should add a border. There are two options regarding when to do this; before resizing and after resizing. Let's say that your original image is 3072 by 2304 pixels which is three times the size your final image will be. Let’s also say that you want a 3 pixel border around the entire image. Warning: read this entire section and choose your method before you begin the resizing process.
Adding a Border, Option 1: Before resizing.
1. Open your (renamed) image.
2. Select Image/Canvas size from the menu
3. Change the dimension units to pixels; it will show 3072 x 2304. You want a 3 pixel border so you have to add 6 to each dimension so you change the dimensions to 3078 x 2310.
4. Select white as the background color and click OK.
5. Select Image/Image Size from the menu
6. Adjust the sizes so that the width is 1024 or less and the height is 768 or less and once again click OK.
7. Save your image
You now have a correctly sized image with a 1 pixel border. Why only one pixel? Because you reduced the image to 1/3rd of its original size and the border was also reduced to 1/3rd of its original size. At 1 pixel, the border is barely discernable.
Adding a Border, Option 2: After resizing.
1. Open your (renamed) image.
2. Select Image/Image Size from the menu. They will display as 3072 x 2304.
3. Subtract 6 from each target dimension: 1024 - 6 = 1018 and 768 - 6 = 762. Adjust the sizes so that the width is 1018 or less and the height is 762 or less and click OK.
4. Now select Image/Canvas size from the menu
5. Change the dimension units to pixels; it will show 1018 x 762. You want a 3 pixel border so you have to add 6 to each dimension so you change the dimensions to 1024 x 768.
6. Select white as the background color and click OK
7. Save your image
You now have a correctly sized image with a 3 pixel border. Even if your photo does not have a largely dark background, it will benefit from this technique in digital competition.
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