Guidelines for digital images in member's events
These guidelines apply to Clubworker Competitions and member's submissions to the Annual Exhibition, in the 2009 / 2010 season and beyond.
Preamble:
The "Rules for Clubworker Competitions" and "Rules for the Annual Exhibition" state:
"Image display size, file type, colour space, storage medium, and filename must comply with guidelines issued by the Competition Secretary to suit the digital projector and display software currently in use".
These are those guidelines, and cover all of those topic. In addition, these guidelines provide assistance for verifying that an image has met the guidelines.
And, purely for information, they identify the projection software used, and describe the calibration of the club's projector, to give confidence that events will be run using purpose-made software with high quality projection.
Storage medium for handover:
Unless otherwise published, images must be handed over on one of: a USB Drive, a CD, or a DVD.
(If submission of images by email is possible for a particular competition, relevant details will be published separately. This is not an option for the February 2010 Exhibition).
The strong preference is a USB Drive, because experience shows that this is the most convenient and reliable medium for the event organisers.
Image display size, file type, colour space:
Each image must be in JPEG format. (That is not to say its file extension must be "JPEG"). It should be converted (if necessary) to sRGB colour space, and ideally the colour profile should be embedded.
It must be no larger than 1400 pixels wide or 1050 pixels high. If the picture itself is smaller than 1400x1050 pixels, the remaining area may be a chosen background, for example black. The projection software will now fill with black if necessary to 1400x1050.
(Parameters such as "DPI" or "PPI" will be ignored).
File name and folder:
Images must be within a folder named according to the author in the format:
Firstname Lastname
(one space between the two words).
Each image must have a file name in the format:
NN Title In Words.jpg
where NN = your priority number (see below),
followed by one space,
followed by the image title with initial capitals and spaces as required,
followed by .jpg (the filename extension) with no space between the last word of the title and the .jpg
"NN" is the priority for this event expressed as 2 decimal digits including a leading zero, where "01" is the highest priority and higher numbers are lower priority. The numbers must be unique and contiguous, starting at "01".
In a Clubworker Competition, highest priority images, at least those from "01" to "03", will certainly be judged. Lower priority images may be judged if there is time. In the Exhibition, all images within the limit set by the Committee in advance will be judged.
For the Annual Exhibition of February 2012, for Advanced Class the maximum is 6 projected images, and for Intermediate Class, the maximum is 5 projected images.
The extension "jpg" must be used. Otherwise, although there will be no unnecessary rejections, it cannot be guaranteed that the image will be judged.
Verifying conformance to the guidelines:
Experience shows that up to half of all digital images submitted to our events, such as internal and Exhibition competitions, are incorrect in some way!
It is recommended that members open all of their images in Photoshop or similar for a last check before submission. This only takes seconds, but can save a lot of time and anguish.
The screen-shot here shows what the "Info" panel in Photoshop CS3 (if it is configured suitably) looks like with a fully-conformant image. (To use it for this purpose, Photoshop itself needs to be using "pixels" as its "Ruler Unit", using Edit > Preferences > Units & Rulers. Then the "Info" panel needs to display the illustrated information, using Palette Options via the drop-down menu shown in red to set all the "Document ..." information).
The essential details are highlighted just for this page:
- This shows the normal "Doc" size. (This is what an uncompressed JPEG image of 1400x1050 would be. It is not the actual file size).
- The "sRGB" line shows how a JPEG with an embedded sRGB profile looks to Photoshop.
- "1400 pixels" (or less) must come first, then "1050 pixels" (or less). (The PPI is ignored).
Now - verify the filename! Ensure that it starts with the 2-digit priority number, followed by a single space, followed by the title immediately before the dot, and "jpg" after the dot.
Information about the DiCentra projection software:
We now use DiCentra to project members' digital images in competitions and the Exhibition. This dictates some of the naming and other rules and guidelines above.
Images submitted in this form can be loaded automatically by DiCentra and their format checked and altered if necessary and possible. The image title in the filename will then be overlaid on the image during projection and the author’s name shown in the form used as a folder name.
Information about projector calibration:
We have invested in a state-of-the-art 1400x1050 (SXGA+) resolution projector (Canon XEED SX60)
We have calibrated our Shuttle PC + Canon Projector system using our Spyder 2 Pro.
(Guidelines revised 14 December 2009)
(Numbers of PDIs for the 2012 Exhibition added in red on 17 December 2011)