March deadline THIS Friday

Our March NHCC competition deadline is just now two days away.

Your images must be emailed to NHCCwin@comcast.net before midnight Friday March 20th .

Photographs must be in the JPEG format and scaled to a maximum of 1024 pixels wide and a maximum of 768 pixels high. If you need help entering the digital competition for the first time please see a current member. These directions are very simple to do, but sometimes simple things appear complicated when written down. Ever try to write down directions to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich? Showing someone is much easier. Our digital competition requires that only you (1) resize your image to 1024 x 768 and save it as a jpg and (2) that you name it properly so that it can be competed, the scores databased and the image displayed on properly on the NHCC website competition gallery.

For information on the assigned subject competition see http://nhccphotoblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/nhcc-changes-to-category-competition.html.

Our handbook with the complete rules and instructions can be found on the NHCC website: http://www.newhavencameraclub.org/handbook.htm

Prints

1. Prints must be between 8 by 10 inches and 16 by 20 inches.

2. Prints must be mounted on mat board or foam core board. Any size mat board or foam core board is allowed up to 16"x20".

3. Prints may be matted conventionally or electronically as long as the maximum dimensions are not exceeded.

4. On the back of each print clearly print your name and address, title, order designation (1 or 2), and an arrow indicating which edge is the top. This information may be printed on one or more labels affixed to the back if you prefer not to write on the mount.

Electronic Photographs

An example file name formatted correctly is A1$Jones$Bill$Red_Skier$2005-11.jpg

The first letter is A, B, OR S for special category.

You can enter TWO images in A or B and in TWO images in S. The A or B photos do NOT have to be the same subject as the special category.

1. Photographs must be submitted as JPEG photographs with the .jpg extension.

2. Convert files to the sRGB color space if not already in that space (or convert to Gray Gamma 2.2 if submitting an untinted monochrome photograph).

3. Photographs will be projected using a projector having 1024 pixels in the horizontal direction and 768 pixels in the vertical direction. Photographs must fit within those dimensions. See Figure 1 (pg 17 handbook). Unless your photograph’s proportions are in the exact ratio of 4 to 3, one of these dimensions will be less than the maximum. For example, if you have a vertical photograph, the height will be 768 pixels, but the width will be significantly less than 1024 pixels. A square photograph will be 768 pixels by 768 pixels under these rules. Smaller photographs are acceptable. This means that a horizontal photograph will normally be 1024 pixels wide and may be as tall as 768 pixels, for example Figure 2 (pg 17 handbook). If the photograph is not 768 pixels tall it will be projected with black bars above and below the photograph as shown in Figure 3 (pg 17 handbook). A vertical photograph will normally be 768 pixels tall, but will be less than 1024 pixels wide and it will be projected with black bars on the two sides as shown in Figure 4 (pg 17 handbook).

In order to provide all of the information needed and to allow the use of automated tools, image files must be named as follows:

x#$LastName$FirstName$Title$Year-Month.jpg

Where “x” is the class (A, B, or S for special category) “#” is the sequence number for the competition (1 or 2), “LastName” is the last name of the maker, “FirstName” is the first name of the maker, “Title” is the photograph’s title without spaces (use the underline character “_” instead of spaces), and “Year-Month” is the competition being entered in the format “2005-11” for November 2005.

It is suggested that normal capitalization rules be followed for the last name, first name, and title. The dollar signs (“$”) are used to separate the fields of information.

An example file name formatted correctly is A1$Jones$Bill$Red_Skier$2005-11.jpg

This is Bill Jones’ first photograph for class A entitled “Red Skier” entered into the November 2005 competition.

Note that file names may not contain spaces because we may post some or all of the entries and results on our club Internet site which runs on a Unix operating system that does not allow spaces. Use the underline character (“_”) instead of spaces in titles. It is very important to adhere to this naming convention so that the Vice President of Inside Competition or his designated assistant can use automated tools to prepare score sheets and keep records. The dollar signs ($) are recognized as field separation characters by automated tools such as spreadsheet programs. Be sure that all fields are in the correct order. If you run into problems because your computer operating system does not allow file names as long as required, complete the name as far as possible and put the full file name in the body of the submitting e-mail and the chairman will fix your titles for you.

• If you are submitting make-up photographs, use the year and month of the competition being made up rather than the year and month of the competition into which entered. If entering make-up photographs for the October 2005 competition in the January 2006 competition, the year and month should be “2005-10”, not “2006-01”.• When inserting the competition date, use a 4 digit year (for example 2007) followed by a dash (“-“) followed by a two digit month (09, 10, 11, 01, 02, 03, 04, or 05).