Image preparation

How to prepare your images

Please prepare your images to the following specification for the first stage of the competition.

ENTRY STAGE

When uploading your images to the Competition portal, please resize and downscale your full size images to the following specification.

72ppi, max 3mb and 2000px on the longest side. Adobe 1998 profile.

If you are unsure how to resize your images, please see this advice here: https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/how-to/image-resizing-basics.html

BOOK STAGE

If your image has been chosen for an award and is to be included in the book, please supply your images as full size, 300ppi jpgs in Adobe 1998 colour space. Please name your files in the following format.

Naming Format

Name your images in the following format:

[surname] [forname initial] [image number]. jpg

Example: If your name is John Smith then your images would be as follows:

smithj01.jpg
smithj02.jpg
.
.
.
smithj015.jpg

ENTER THE COMPETITION NOW

I missed the deadline for uploading my high resolution files for the final round, can I have an extension?

NO: For all main categories, we regret to say that we cannot give extensions for any entrant. When the deadline passes, judging begins straight away and we cannot interupt the process.

Monitor Calibration Devices, colour spaces – warning:

Monitor calibration devices are the main cause of printing problems in the printing industry, so unless you are expert in this area, we recommend you do not use such a device.

Monitor calibration is typically used for inkjet printing on coated papers, and this means printers that use 12-16 inks. Our book is produced using the 4 colour CMYK process which uses 4 inks.

If you send us a file that has been calibrated with a profile embedded for inkjet printing, we have no way to know this and when we convert it to CMYK your image may appear differently in the book. Your image may also appear different if you send it to us in the SRGB colour space when converted for printing.

Dark prints – in almost all cases, if your images look dark when printed, it is most likely that your computer screen is too bright or you have used monitor calibration for digital printing. Digital displays are backlit and commonly give a false impression of how the image appears. You should adjust your brightness accordingly or adjust the brightness settings of your final image to ensure it does not print too dark. You can also look at your histogram

Digital artifacts – artifacts occur if you have over-sharpened your image or your image has been resized or upscaled (interpolation). These can affect the quality of your printed image. If you “upscale” your image, quality can be lost so bear this in mind.

Please note that we cannot be held responsible for any faults with your image once it has been sent to print.