Blog archive - December 2009
15 December, by Roger Dye and Barry Pearson. (Notices and news)
What you need to know to submit images for the Annual Exhibition
The last handover date is 5th January, at the first meeting of the new year, the Digital Workshop at Hazel Grove Bowling & Tennis Club. (Immediately afterwards, the process of administering the entry and supplying them to the judge begins, so work cannot be added later).
Each member may submit up to 6 prints and up to 6 projected images, the latter being any combination of slides and digital images. (This applies to both Intermediate and Advanced classes).
Submission
Entry forms for both prints and projected images may be submitted on paper, (a blank form is available in the downloads area of the club website), or by email to Bill Chadband (see the example on the right, where "026" shows where the member's competition number goes).
Prints should be in descending order of priority, in case it is not possible to hang all submitted prints. All PDIs and slides will be projected. Empty sections (eg. "Slides") may be omitted.
Rules and format guidelines
Projected digital images will form part of our exhibition for the first time in 2010. The images should be submitted on a USB Drive (the strong preference) or on a CD or a DVD. They must be supplied in a defined folder-structure with specific file names. See Guidelines for digital images in member's events.
No image, or one substantially similar to it, may be submitted as both a print and a projected image. Nor may an image, or one substantially similar to it, have been submitted in a previous Exhibition in any format. (But it may have been used in a competition). Each image must have been taken within the last 5 years. Slides must be originals or duplicates of originals, and not have been digitally mastered: this is a new restriction.
Images will not be considered for Natural History awards unless they are explicitly identified as such, and then must conform to the restrictions of the Natural History category. (This only applies to Advanced class. There are no categories in Intermediate class).
Links, downloads, and further information
- Combined constitution and rules (2009 / 2010) (downloadable small PDF)
- Rules for the Annual Exhibition (2009 / 2010)
- Guidelines for digital images in member's events
- Guidelines for scoring members' work in the Exhibition
- Annual Exhibition Entry Form (downloadable Word document)
- Competitions Page (see button above)
12 December, by Roger Dye. (Notices and news)
DiCentra in use
We have purchased commercial software for running our projected digital image competitions and this was brought into use for the second Clubworker Projected Image Competition this year. The software package comes well recommended having been adopted by L&CPU and several local clubs. The software company also have impeccable qualifications. The writers are long time club photographers and a professor and a former senior lecturer in computer science at London universities. Their other line of business is in colour management for which they run courses. The software emblem is the Bleeding Heart flower, proper name Dicentra.
DiCentra has two great advantages over the system we have used since we started to run projected digital image competitions. Firstly, only one computer is required to project the images and score the competition. Secondly, and less obvious to other than the person running the competition, is that it does the majority of the work needed to compile, check, alter if necessary, arrange in a suitable projection order and list for scoring the images to be judged.
Lots more details of features and temporary problems in the full report . . . .
One very helpful aspect of the software I have not yet mentioned, because it worked so well, is that the competition can be set up on any convenient computer and exported to the actual machine to be used for the competition. The license conditions only limit the software use to within the society, not to any set number of machines.
Overall the system was well received at its introduction to NCPS and it so much simplifies and reduces the organiser’s work that we will continue to employ it for our digitally projected image club competitions. It will not replace Peter Redford’s Annual Exhibition system for the interclub competitions which is much better and gives us and our visitors a unique competition experience.
Members will be able to enter digitally projected images in our forthcoming Annual Exhibition and DiCentra is superbly suited to controlling a rolling projection of these and to running other types of competition than just our Clubworker contests, so we may well see its use in NCPS extended.
11 December, by Bill Chadband. (Meeting and event reports)
Second Projected Image Competition 8 Dec 09
John Royle of Crewe Camera Club was our judge for this competition. John set the tone by saying what a privilege it was to visit one of the best Clubs in the region. He thought it was next week when he would be visiting that club! More seriously, he explained that he was responsible for the L&CPU Web site and he was intrigued to note that nearly half of the log-ons came via the NCPS website – a testament to the popularity and efficiency of the NCPS website.
John had 8 Intermediate and 101 Advanced images to consider. He thought titles were important in guiding the judge. In an image “Tree Detail” he discerned the head of a horse, and wondered if the author had spotted this. It might have added to the overall impression. He subscribed to the general view that three was better than two, particularly when it came to pints of Guinness! Threes led to triangular forms which tended to define a Composition. Equally, having a foreground item, or person, helped to establish the 3-dimensional nature of a landscape. Bright Reds and Whites tended to attract the eye, even, he surmised when that wasn’t the intention of the author. In particular, he commented upon broad white borders which (particularly when projected on the large screen) distracted the eye from the main picture. Occasionally he thought images looked elongated, as though they had been distorted to fill the screen. He held a few images back for more consideration, and eventually awarded “Best Image” honour to a monochrome by Ian Bramham.
In his vote of thanks Jonathan Bawden praised the judge’s approach. He had been easy to listen to and very instructive, without needing to be disrespectful of any of the images. He thought we had all enjoyed the evening. The audience clapped in approval.
10 December, by Roger Dye and Tony Redford.
Christmas Special - Tuesday 15 December
Our Christmas Special this year will follow a slightly different course to that used previously. An extended first part will run as a normal club night meeting with a series of AV presentations from Tony Redford, including his famous ‘Christmas Cards’.
We will then clear the chairs and projection equipment and spend the remainder of the time consuming the seasonal nibbles and drinks so generously supplied (we hope) by our regular members.
9 December, by Barry Pearson. (Members' competition results)
Second Clubworker Projected Image Competition results
These are the results of the Competition judged by John Royle on 8 December.
Entries 1 to 4 were judged, 109 Digital Images in all (no slides).
26 people entered the "Advanced" class. 2 people entered the "Intermediate" class.
Competition results
- Clubworker Competition 2 - Intermediate digital images
- Clubworker Competition 2 - Advanced digital images
"Worker of the Year"
- Intermediate Worker
- Projected Image Worker
- Print Worker (unchanged by this competition)
- Club Worker
Best Image in competitionIan Bramham: "Long Dead" |
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8 December.
New link, to Ian Bramham's Photoblog
A new link on the Links Page is to Ian Bramham's Photoblog. (Frequent, nearly daily, photographs!)
Ian's Photoblog has a link to another website he owns. Ian's atmospheric landscapes on both sites demand a look!
Any others?
Are there other members who want their websites listed on our Links Page? Apart from Ian, members with websites there include Barry Pearson (me!) and Alan Saunders. Both of these websites are currently being upgraded with face-lifts and more photographs.
Nowadays, there are many ways of displaying your photographs online. You don't have to own your own website (although Ian, Alan and I do so). And you can show your photographs both in NCPS website galleries and on your own website. (I show my adequate photographs, 0.147% of my work, in NCPS galleries which I link to from my website, then add extra galleries on my website).
Anglo/Scottish battle 2010
Here is an important date for your 2010 diary! This Lake District event will take place over the first weekend in November as usual. Our regular rooms are reserved at the Derwentwater Hotel for Friday 5th and Saturday 6th November 2010. Jack Bamford, the competition organiser, has negotiated a preferential rate for dinner, bed and breakfast, which is only marginally up on the very good deal we had last time. The Village Hall at Portinscale is booked for the competition on Saturday 6th November and the judge for the event has also been finalised. Jack has persuaded Richard Spiers to accept this onerous task once again. This will delight our regulars who have been impressed by his shrewd comments, sensible marking and quietly entertaining style on a couple of previous occasions. A list of names, with room requirements and deposits, is usually required by the end of May so I will be collecting these towards the end of our season in April/May. And apparently, a real Indian Summer is forecast for 2010.
6 December. (Awards and acceptances)
4th French Digital Tour 2009
This International comprised 4 Salons:
8° International Digital Image Salon of Hayange; 12° International Salon of Bagnols/Marcoule;
4° International Salon of St Aignan de Crasménil; 15° International Salon of Foix.
AwardsMartin Currie: |
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AcceptancesMartin Currie: |
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5 December.
New download available
This is a new edition, significantly extended with new techniques, of a tutorial previously supplied by Jon Allanson after his Digital Workshop of 6 January 2009.
- Photoshop Notes - Selective Enhancement and other Tips (PDF tutorial by Jon Allanson).
- Also available on the Downloads page.
4 December, by Bill Chadband.
The November Focus is available as a PDF file, for viewing online or downloading.
3 December, by John Garner. (Meeting and event reports)
3rd Digital Workshop – 1st December 09
We welcomed Mike Lawrence DPAGB, AFIAP, to this our third workshop of the session. This was a return visit, from the same time last year, with the objective of both refreshing and furthering his teachings on selections in Photoshop. He said that he had only scratched the surface previously and added that his way was not necessarily everyone’s but any other was less right than his! This we were soon to appreciate as his knowledge of Photoshop takes some beating. However, at half time Roger allowed Jon Allanson 15secs to comment and provide a paper on the topic!
Mike started by emphasising that to make selections, one had to learn to use the various tools with the Mouse or tablet whilst using the four fingers of the left hand on the keyboard. The understanding of this was paramount to being successful at making good selections. The main keys were Shift, Alt and Ctrl plus the Space Bar and he outlined the functionality of each, in respect of their relationship to the various selection tools.
Using an image of a Robbie Williams look-alike Mike demonstrated the use of the Lasso and Marquee tools and used the different types on this image and one of an aircraft. This he expanded into the use of the Magic Wand and changing of its tolerance. Throughout, he related to the various layers and masks and how Quick Mask and layer masks work. He covered the destructive eraser tool which, he didn’t like using. After his final selection of Robbie, he placed him in the Aircraft scene to demonstrate the objective of the process.
After the break, Mike selected an image of a girl singer and demonstrated at length the various ways to select her outline whilst maintaining the detail in her hair; this took us into paths and colour channels and if we tried and remembered a fraction of the processes, we would be pleased with the results.
Tony Redford proposed the Vote of Thanks. He first said Mike was an absolute master of selection and found it good that the chosen images were not easy ones, as he had demonstrated the degree of difficulty and perseverance required even by an expert. He was sure that if we could use just some of what we had learnt, our Photoshop skills would be enhanced.
2 December. (Awards and acceptances)
35th Smethwick International Exhibition of Photography 2010
AcceptancesAlan Saunders: Wild Red Kite |
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| Jon Allanson: Lola Lamour; Little Egret; Early Purple Orchid |
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| News and blog archives | November 2009 | ||