Instructions regarding projected images…the parts in bold italics have been updated for 2018.
Here are a few pointers to getting the best out of the digital projected section.
Please use only the title for the filename (with the .jpg extension). Do not put your name, member number or any thing else. Please use the appropriate title case with only the first letter of important words capitalised – it looks MUCH prettier when displayed.
e.g. “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse”
and not “the-four-horsemen-of the-apolcalyspe”, for example.
For all projected image competitions, challenges and appraisals, upload the images to our competition portal, which you will find on the members’ tab under competition entry…or from this link. The competition secretary MikeL will give you a password so that you can use this area.
If you are entering the maximum number in any medium, please list your images in order of preference (or on the back of the print, in print sections) if you prefer the order of the images just in case we have too many and we have to reduce numbers. Unused images can be used next time.
Preparing Images
Some people are a little unsure of the best way to convert images so as to get the best out of them in competition. Here are a few hints.
We project in landscape format 1600 pixels wide and 1200 pixels tall so the images will look their best if presented at this size. If you get the size slightly too big the software we use will scale the image to fit on screen but if it is too small you will end up with a small image to be judged. If your image is not the same shape as this (i.e. not 4:3 ratio), then fill up the width for long thin images (make your image 1600px wide by less than 1200px high) or, for images that are nearer to square, fill up the height (make your image 1200px high by less than 1600px wide). Please do not fill the unused area with black.
Colour Space
Each image must have an sRGB colour profile embedded, or it will be rejected by the PhotoComp uploading software.
To Create a PhotoShop action to automatically prepare your images for projection:
These are the steps in the action:
1. Flatten Image (just to make sure there are no layers – layers may blend differently with a different profile)
2. Convert to sRGB (using Relative Colorimetric intent)
3. Fit to 1600 x 1200 (resize to fit within 1600px x 1200px box)
4. Convert to 8 bit
5. Sharpen for final use (Unsharp Mask, Amount: 70%, Radius: 0.3px, Threshold: 1)
6. Save as JPEG, quality 100%, embed profile – by default it “should” try to save the file on Drive C: To change the default save folder, double click on the Export line with a file open, do not change any of the save options , unless you want to change the default parameters, click on Save and navigate to where you want to save the files, making any new folders you require and save the file – you can always go back and bin it after. Remember: do NOT change the name of the file or all the files it saves will have the same name. )
8. Close (and do not save – just so it does not write over your original)