dba

er,mine are as well

tbh,its great there are pros in here,a little contest will force us novices to think about what we are doing and get some free advice from the pro snappy chappys

and i'm using a 35mm compact anyway,so i'm limited to scans

it will be an excuse to take the camera out,and having a purpose to going out with a camera is always more fum imo

ps i will post my night time efort straight after yours if it makes you feel better

frisby

Any chance we could get the thread made sticky so that more people look and are likely to get involved?

Also, are we going to have a standard size that the images are submitted as to keep it fair and also a template for the information that should be provided - i.e. camera type, settings, manipulation etc

I presume the photo thread will only be for people to submit there images and not to discuss the competition on, just to keep it tidy.

laters

Stu

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

Good idea about standardising the size - I vote for having all entries 800 pixels wide. Not only does this ensure a more level playing field, it's a good compromise between having images that will take forever to download, and having them so small that they lack impact. (Please note that, when images are resized, it's normal to have to apply a little sharpening to the resulting image. I certainly will.)

dba (and others who are worried about it): I don't think there are too many pros on SN - Gareth, Josh and Mike (Toonman1) are the only ones I know of. There are, however, plenty of knowledgeable and/or experienced amateurs.

I'd suggest that the following information accompanies entries, where available:

- shutter speed and aperture
- film speed or digital sensitivity (ISO)
- exposure compensation used
- camera, lens and (if applicable) film type
- mention of what post-processing has been done. So, for example, DSLR owners might mention white balance adjustments, sharpening, levels adjustment and other normal parts of digital workflow. Film users might mention the scanner used, its settings, and a mention of who processed the film.

(Tip: night photography is something that a lot of High St photo labs screw up regularly - if you're using film, now might be a good time to try a pro lab like Peak Imaging).

Further suggestion: I'd prefer it if we DON'T mention any other techniques used in making the image - lighting, multiple exposures, filters and so on. We can talk about all that after the competition without giving everything away before the closing date for entries

Just my 2€

A.

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

ps. I have a couple of entries ready now too - just say the word!

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

3. Image must have been taken within the period outlined (i.e. no old photos). E.g. if the competition runs for two weeks from the 1st Decemeber, then the photo must have been taken between 1st Dec to the 14th inclusive.

Seems like a few people - myself included - have already taken a few shots especially for the competition. Is there really anything to gain from disallowing these? I'll only have to waste an evening re-shooting the same images.

4. Each submitter can change their posted image at any time (using edit function).
5. Maximum of two (2) images per submitter, per competition.

Is this a necessary limitation if only new photos are allowed? I say the more the merrier, and maybe impose a restriction next time round if it gets silly.

9. Judges decision is final.
10. Images will meet the requirements of the ScoobyNet T&Cs

Yawn....

11. I will always win.

That's fightin' talk, that is! Grab your weapon...

A.

IWatkins

Andy,

Nah, just posted some rules for discussion more than anything.

First time around I would say that shots taken before the first competition are OK but after that would have to be fairly strict otherwise there be just loads of pictures posted that are already sitting on everybodies hard disks. And then no one will be getting off their **** and taking photos which is what it all about.

Number of shots limit ? Again, just for discussion really. We don't want the thread running to eight pages with every page having thirty shots per post. My poxy ISDN link couldn't handle it.

As for my weapon, well, batteries are charged and I'm ready to rock 'n' roll.

Cheers

Ian

dba

er,not all of us are digital geeks ,so scanning and resizing to fit into something less than the size of a tennis court is a real challenge

i'm sure i will manage,this comp will at the very least force to understand these things

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

We're all still here to help, you know

If you've got the right software - a cut-down version of Photoshop comes with a lot of scanners - then it's easy, someone will talk you through it. If you don't have the tools, I'll be happy to do the resizing for you, just email me the photos.

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

That's easy:

Every digital image is divided into lots of small dots (pixels). A pixel represents the smallest detail that can be recorded - so, the more pixels there are in a given photo, the more detailed it can be. A typical digital camera will produce photos that are about 2000 pixels by 1500. Multiply these numbers together and you get 3,000,000 pixels, or 3 Megapixels.

When you view the photo on screen it's normally at 100%, which means that one pixel on your display corresponds exactly to one pixel in the image. Because most screens are about 1024x768 pixels, the image (2000x1500) is bigger than the screen, so you have to scroll around it to see it all. You can make it smaller by viewing at, say, 50% - but then your screen isn't capable of displaying all the detail in the original image.

When you print the image, you get to choose the scale - ink droplets in a modern inkjet printer are much smaller than pixels on the screen, so printing 1-for-1 in the same way would give a tiny image. Instead, Photoshop lets you choose how many dots per inch will be used - so, for example, our 2000x1500 image printed at 100 dots per inch (dpi) would come out at 20 inches by 15. The same image printed at 200dpi would only be 10 by 7.5 - although it would be smaller, the smaller image would be more detailed.

The crucial thing here is that, when you change the print size, you don't necessarily have to alter the image at all - you're just telling Photoshop how big you want it. If it's set to print 20x15 at 100dpi, and you change it to 10x7.5 at 200dpi, nothing happens to the image - it just gets tagged. If you change the print setting to be 20x15 at 200dpi, though, then the image will be scaled up by a factor of 2 in both dimensions, because four times as many dots are now needed.

The file size tells you how much capacity the image requires on your hard disc to store it, or how long it takes to download from a web site. In some cases this is simply the number of pixels times 3 (one byte each for red, green and blue). However, JPEG files (which are the most common by far) use lossy data compesssion to reduce the amount of storage space required and decrease the time taken to download images. The JPEG algorithm works by discarding information that is (almost) invisible to the human eye, and it allows a trade-off between compression efficiency and image quality. File size depends on the number of pixels in the original image, the amount of visible detail in that image (blue skies compress well, brick walls don't), and the quality/compression trade-off that's been used.

HTH

Andy.

Fuzz

Might need Andys **** isstance as the windows paint program just aint gonna cut the mustard.

Only just seen this thread too, so best go and buy meself a tripod a bit quick. [img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img] was going to ask for one for Crimbo. Bah!!

Andy

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

Windows paint is fine, if you know how big the image is to start with. Choose Image>Stretch/Skew and enter the correct %age - so, for example, to shrink an image 2000 pixels wide down to 800, that's (800/2000)*100=40%.

A.

Fuzz

so paint will save the image without compressing the image (and subsequent loss of quality).
I.e Paint does not give you a slider bar to choose which !

Andy

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

Fuzz: just tell Paint to save the file as a JPEG (.jpg) file. JPEG files are always compressed.

What it's not doing is giving you the option to trade off quality vs file size, but that doesn't really matter - it's just picking a sensible default. If anything, I think it tends towards over-compressing and giving an end result that looks a bit blocky.

Fuzz

"If anything, I think it tends towards over-compressing and giving an end result that looks a bit blocky"

Exactly... not going to win me any prizes then.

(not that I will win anyway )

Andy

Robertio

iTrader: (1)

If you guys/gals want I can write a small program that will resize any jpg image to have a longest side size of 800 (and leave the compression as a setting you can manually change) and e-mail it out to you?

I can't take photos at night (well I can but I can never tell what I've taken a photo of afterwards ), but software I can just about write from time to time