HOW
TO SUBMIT PICTURES DIGITALLY
TO NOTTINGHAM AND NOTTS PS COMPETITIONS
Kevin Gibbin/Bob
Rowe September 2008
Picture files for
use in digitally projected competitions should be submitted –
at least A WEEK IN ADVANCE
to the Competition Secretary on DISC (CD not DVD).
THE DISC SHOULD BE INDELIBLY MARKED WITH:
COMPETITION DATE,
MEMBERS NAME
NUMBER OF IMAGES ON THE DISC.
DISCS SHOULD BE SUPPLIED IN HARD CASES.
THE CASE SHOULD CONTAIN A DUPLICATE OF THE ENTRY FORM LISTING THE NAMES
OF ALL IMAGES AND THE SECTIONS TO WHICH THEY ARE ENTERED.
To enable competition nights to run smoothly, please make sure that
your files fit the specifications below. If you do not have access to
a computer and software such as Photoshop or Photoshop Elements or similar
to prepare the files, contact Derek Doar and he will discuss how to
proceed.
Note - This ONLY applies to people who shoot digitally but don’t
have computers/software.
The instructions may seem a bit complicated – but when you have
prepared the first file, the next 10,000 will be a breeze!
BEFORE
WORKING ON FILES TO SUBMIT!
BEFORE WORKING ON FILES TO SUBMIT we strongly suggest that you check
the Contrast and Brightness settings on your MONITOR screen.
IF, HOWEVER, YOU HAVE
HAD THE SCREEN PROFESSIONALLY CALIBRATED, THIS IS UNNECESSARY. IN THIS
CASE DO NOT TOUCH THE SETTINGS.
To ensure that your
pictures appear at the correct Brightness level when projected do the
following.
Get, either from the Competition Sec on disc or download from our website,
the image I have prepared for you to check monitor settings.
Open the image
in Photoshop.
The image has a grey segmented bar with ten divisions going from black
at the left to white at the right. The segments are numbered for identification.
Do the following:
a)
Go into the settings menu of your monitor and write down the current
Brightness and Contrast settings (to go back to if you are not happy).
b)
Adjust the CONTRAST setting to MAXIMUM
c)
Adjust the BRIGHTNESS TO A CENTRAL POINT on the control.
d)
Now, whilst looking at the segmented bar, slowly adjust the Brightness
control until segments 1 and 2 are visible as black (segment 1) and
dark grey (2) (Not as one big, black box).
e)
At the same time look at segment 9 and 10. 10 should be white and 9
a light grey. If 9 looks pure white the setting is too bright and will
burn out the highlights in your pictures.
f)
If you find that to get segments 1 and 2 to be visible as two segments,
the adjustment burns out 9 and 10, then lower the contrast setting a
little to see if this improves things.
g)
When the monitor is set correctly, you will see 10 individual segments
if you can’t achieve his – revert to the original setting
and seek help at the club.
h)
YOU WILL ONLY NEED TO SET UP THE MONITOR ONCE.
i)
I have also included on the image a mid-grey square (above the Macbeth
Chart) If this does not look a neutral grey i.e. has no Cyan or other
colour tinge, your monitor needs setting up or replacing. The skin tones
on the girl should look natural. My thanks to Simon Clifford –
Smith for use of the photo and chart.
PICTURE FILE SPECIFICATIONS
a) Files should be submitted
as JPEG files (not TIFF, RAW, .psd or any other file type). Use quality
level 12 when saving the file. This will produce a file of around 400
to 500kb. If your file size is much higher or lower than this, you have
done something wrong in the sizing and saving!
First, using the IMAGE>Image Size box in Photoshop/Elements, adjust
the Image Resolution to 72 dpi (See below for method)
b) Next, adjust the longest side
dimensions of the image in pixels. These should be:
1024 pixels along the LONG SIDE (width) for LANDSCAPE ORIENTATED pictures
– the height will vary according to how the picture has been cropped.
The height must be a maximum of 768 pixels to fit on the screen). or
768 pixels LONG SIDE (height) for PORTRAIT orientated pictures.
Again the width will vary according to the width/height ratio of the
image.
If you are not sure how to do this, see below.
COLOR SPACE
To ensure colour accuracy on the screen, make sure that your pictures
are saved in the sRGB colour space. If it has been produced using the
Adobe RGB (1998) colour space, change the space to sRGB (see below)
and adjust the colours on your screen to taste, before saving it to
disc.
(Changing from Adobe RGB (1998) to sRGB can sometimes result in the
pictures looking more saturated. You can combat this by lowering the
saturation a little in the Hue/Saturation Box). This effect will be
more obvious on some pictures more than others.
STEP –
BY – STEP INSTRUCTIONS FOR SETTING THE FILE SPECIFICATIONS.
These instructions apply to Photoshop CS2/3. They should also work in
CS or Photoshop 7 although you might find the vary commands are in different
menus from those listed.
1) Open the original image in
Photoshop.
2)
To protect the original image create a Duplicate to
work on.
Go IMAGE MENU> Duplicate. Put a file name in the box which opens
- see the file naming instructions below in Section 13. This will also
save problems later on.
3)
Switch back to the original and close it.
Assign
sRGB Profile
4) Go to the EDIT MENU and click
on ‘Assign Profile’ (near the bottom)
5)
Click on the ‘Profile’ circular button at the bottom. If
it doesn’t say ‘sRGB’ in the box next to it –
click on the drop down menu and select sRGB there.
6)
Click ok – your image is now in sRGB Colour Space. Check the colours
of the image on your screen and adjust if necessary. (See above)
Flatten the Image
7) Go to the LAYER MENU and click
on Flatten Image (near the bottom). This is necessary to flatten any
layers so the image can be saved as a JPEG later.
Set resolution and dimensions.
8) Do things IN THIS ORDER. Go
to IMAGE MENU>Image Size. The box opens.
9)
Make sure that the ‘Constrain Proportions’ and ‘Resample
Image’ boxes at the bottom are ticked.
10)
In the ‘DOCUMENT SIZE’ area change the ‘Resolution’
box to read 72 pixels per inch.
11)
In the ‘PIXELS DIMENSIONS’ area at the top
of the box – change the ‘longest side ‘dimensions’.
For a Landscape orientated picture change the WIDTH to read 1024 pixels.
The HEIGHT will change automatically.
For Portrait orientated images set the HEIGHT to 768 pixels. The WIDTH
will change automatically.
Make sure that ‘BICUBIC’ is set in the box next to ‘Resample
Image’
12) Click OK and the image will
reduce in size on the screen as the size and resolution are changed.
To see it larger on the screen, double click the HAND TOOL.
Save the image as a JPEG
13) Go FILE > Save As
I suggest you create a Folder in which to keep all the images you are
submitting.
Make sure the File Name is correct otherwise the new competition software
will not accept it.
The file name should show the title in BLOCK CAPITALS
followed by a space then the word ‘by’ in lower case followed
by a space then the name of the author, with qualifications if required.
Eg: NOTTINGHAM NIGHTS by John Smith CPAGB
On the Format bar click the drop down menu and choose JPEG from the
list. It’s in the centre of a long list.
Note: If you have any ALPHA CHANNELS in the CHANNELS PALETTE, other
than the RGB and Red, Green and Blue Channels, you will not be given
the option of saving the file as a JPEG in the ‘Save As’
box
Click SAVE button and the JPEG Options box appears. Move the quality
slider to the far right, number
12.
Click OK and you have saved a file of our competition specifications
to the hard drive.
Repeat with all the images you wish to submit and save them in the folder
you created earlier. MAKE SURE THAT THE FILE NAME IS THE NAME OF THE
IMAGE with author in the format shown above to avoid confusion at this
end.
Burn to Disc.
Burn the images to
disc – and don’t forget to ‘CLOSE’ the disc
i.e. when presented with the option of being able to add further images
or ‘close’ the burn so that no further burning on that disc
is possible choose the latter.
( Files on discs left ‘Open’ will sometimes not open properly
on computers other than that on which it was recorded).
If you have
any real problems, call Bob Rowe on 0115 940 0733.
