Guidelines for Preparing and Submitting Digital Images for Evaluation and Competition on Slide Evenings

 (Note: New item #16 - Mar 15, 2007)

N.B. Members must be present during the competition evening for their images to be ranked. If you submit images and later find you cannot attend, please email Digital Chair Dany Suk <danysuk AT Yahoo DOT com> ASAP. Exceptions are allowed only for 'Corresponding Members' - former resident members who have moved away from the area and wish to maintain their membership.

We suggest printing these guidelines to facilitate following them during preparation of your images. Before using them, check this web page to make sure you have the latest version.

To ensure the best match between the image on your monitor and that shown by the digital projector, calibration of monitors with a colorimeter system (such as those made by Pantone, Colorvision or X-Rite) is necessary. (Our projector is periodically calibrated.)
  1. Open the image in Photoshop (or Photoshop Elements).
  2. If your image is in layers (PSD or TIFF format), flatten it. If it is 16-bit (from RAW source), convert it to 8-bit.
  3. Select "Image Size" – uncheck ‘Resample image’.
  4. Change the "Resolution" to 85 pixels/inch.
  5. Then check ‘Resample image’. Resize image to 1000 x 750 pixels), as below (depending on the orientation of the image).
  6. LANDSCAPE: Change the width to 1000 pixels. Click OK, unless the height is greater than 750 pixels. In this case, just change the height to 750 pixels and click OK.
  7. PORTRAIT: Change the height to 750 pixels and then click OK.
  8. If the image is mainly a square (approx. equal height and width), reduce the height to 750 pixels.
  9. If you wish to add a smaller border (1-4 pixels on each side) do so by increasing the canvas size, and specifying the color. If you do add such a border it is very important to increase the canvas size again, this time to 1024 x 768 pixels, and using black as the canvas. Since the CS2 Bridge slide show resizes all images to fill the screen, this will leave some 'breathing space' so that the projected image does not affect the image border. (This step applies also for images with critical information at the edge.)
  10. Select Image – Mode -"Convert to Profile" and under "Destination Space" select “sRGBIEC61966-2.1” from the pop-up list. Click OK.
  11. Sharpen the image (if not already done) using Filters - "Unsharp Mask" (or an alternative plug-in program like Nik Sharpener Pro), until it looks best to you. Save as JPEG file under different name in order to preserve your original image.
  12. When saving, select JPEG quality level of 12 (maximum) if you have an Internet broadband connection (cable or DSL). If you have a slower dial-up phone modem, select quality level of 8 to avoid long transmission times. If you use 'Save for Web', make sure you check the box entitled "ICC Profile" - to ensure that the embedded sRGB tag remains with the image. Otherwise your image on the screen may not appear the way it did on your monitor.
  13. Upload images to our new web server at: http://digcomp.pacamera.com/

    If you forgot your login and password, contact
    .
  14. When entering titles, use only alphanumeric characters - NO abbreviations (e.g., "&", "#"), slash marks (/), brackets, commas, colons, semicolons, quotation marks, etc. They do terrible things to the title. (3-15-07)
  15. There are 3 image categories - Pictorial Color, Monochrome and the special category for the month (the same as for Print competition that month). The current limit for the evening is 3 images/maker, with a maximum of 2 in any one category. Except for "corresponding members" (those living outside the area) a member must be present at the meeting in order to qualify for ranking. 
  16. Please submit your images no later than 3 pm on the Monday before Slide/Digital Evening so there is time to incorporate them into the slide show program. The earlier the better.

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    For members who are familiar with the use of Photoshop Actions, a set of actions (see figure below) is available for implementing many of the above steps - converting color mode to sRGB, changing resolution to 85 ppi, and reducing width to 1000 pixels or height to 750 pixels, etc. (As mentioned above, sharpening should be done after resizing. For those lacking 'Nik Sharpen', substitute the Unsharpen fFlter in Photoshop, or that in whichever editing application you use.)



    This Action set called "PACC Dig Slide Show CS2" (revised on 3-21-07, and also works on CS3)) can be downloaded by clicking here. (Extra actions for Nik Sharpen Low and the white border are mine, and can be deleted or replaced with your own as you wish.) The file must be copied from your Downloads folder and pasted into your Photoshop Actions folder (under the Presets folder of your Photoshop program folder). This must be done before opening Photoshop. (The procedure for MACs is a bit different.) When you open Photoshop and click on the Actions palette, open up the palette options by right-clicking the right triangle at the top of the palette, then from the list select 'Load Actions'. This should allow you to see this action in your Actions palette. If you are replacing the earlier action with this newer version, click 'OK' or "Yes' when asked if you wish to do so.

    If you have questions please contact either
    or .

Updated:  Mar 15, 2008
 
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