Year-End Competition

The Victoria Camera Club Annual Year-End Competition occurs in April and you have until April 10th to get your entries in to Linda Baker, the Competition Chair. Each member is invited to submit up to two images for each of the following categories:

Colour Prints

Open Theme. See 'Matting of all Prints' below for details regarding print preparation.

Monochrome Prints

Open Theme (including Nature). See 'Matting of all Prints' below for details on print preparation.

Open Slides

Open Theme. See 'Slides' below for details on slide preparation..

Open Digital Images

Open Theme. See below for boxes on  'Digital', 'How to Resize a Digital Image' and 'How to Submit a Digital Image' for all the details.

Nature Colour Prints

Nature subjects showing no evidence of the hand of man. See 'Cropping for all Nature Competitions' below for a full discussion of the 20% by area rule. Post processing limited to contrast, brightness, and sharpness with no layer masks or layer filters.  See 'Matting of all Prints' below for details regarding print preparation.

Nature 35-mm Slides

Nature subjects showing no evidence of the hand of man. See 'Cropping for all Nature Competitions' below for a full discussion of the 20% by area rule. Post processing limited to contrast, brightness, and sharpness with no layer masks or layer filters, no slide sandwiches, mounted in standard 35mm slide frame.

Nature Digital Images

Nature subjects showing no evidence of the hand of man. See 'Cropping for all Nature Competitions' below for a full discussion of the 20% by area rule. Post processing limited to contrast, brightness, and sharpness with no layer masks or layer filters, no digital montage or mirroring. Also see below for boxes on  'Digital', 'How to Resize a Digital Image' and 'How to Submit a Digital Image' for all  of those details.

Additional Entries

Club members who had entries place first, second or third in this year's monthly club competitions are allowed to also submit those images along with the two allowed each member for each category. Entries can be images captured at any time. Entries should not have been submitted at any time in any other club competitions unless they had placed as noted here in the monthly competitions this year.

Matting of all Prints

All prints should be window matted or securely mounted on 4-ply mounting board. All mats should be neutral in colour only (i.e., white, cream, grey or black). No double mats are permitted (only single mats, with no liners of any kind). If prints are window matted, they must be backed by a 4-ply mat of the same size as the outer dimensions of the window mat. Minimum print size is 5x7 inches. The outside dimensions of the mount, print and window mat must not exceed 16x20 inches. Orientation of the print should be clearly labelled on the back with an arrow. Please make it clear for each print whether you are submitting it for the Open, Monochrome or Nature competition.

It is highly recommendedthat each print be submitted in a clear plastic sleeve or envelope of the kind available at places such as Opus or Island Blue. These are not expensive and help protect your own work as well as the work of others. Older envelopes that have been torn or marked up should be avoided as they do not help your print to make a good impression. The envelope should be the same size as the print whenever possible.

Slides

The slides should be 35-mm slides mounted in 2 x 2 inch mounts. Each slide should be spotted with a circle or dot in the lower left corner of the mount as it is normally held up to the light for viewing, to insure that the slide is properly placed in the slide projector.

Please make it clear for each image whether it is being submitted for the Open or Nature competition.

Digital

All digital images should be submitted as jpegs of no larger than 768 pixels on the longest side and no more than 300 dpi. (See below for details on how to resize your digital images.)

Please label them exactly as follows, both in terms of punctuation and capitalization, and don't include any other numbers or information: Title of Image-Your Name (e.g., Memories of Spring-Linda Baker).

Note: Images submitted to the competition judge or judges will be renamed to remove the personal identification.

As noted below, submit them by email to: vccentries@gmail.com

Again, please make it clear with your submission which images are being submitted for the Open and which for the Nature competition. The easiest way to do this would be to send all the Open images in one email labelled Open competition and all the Nature images in a second email labelled Nature competition.

Following all of these directions carefully will make the life of your overworked competitions chair much easier.

How to Resize a Digital Image

The Victoria Camera Club will follow CAPA rules for its new Projected Digital Images category. Digital images must not exceed 768 pixels on their longest side. The following list provides a "how to" for resizing your images using Photoshop, Photoshop Elements or the image processor of your choice.

• Open your image file and go to Image/Image Size (or simply Resize)..
• You will only be concerned with the box for Pixel Dimensions. Ignore Document Size and Resolution (which apply to printing).
• Select Pixels for your output.
• Make sure that the Constrain Proportions (or Aspect Ratio) box is checked.
• Check the Resample box.
• If your image is a horizontal, type 768 into the width box; the height will adjust automatically.
• If your image is a vertical, type 768 into the height box; the width will adjust automatically.
• A square image would be 768x768 pixels.
• Save as a jpg file in PC format with a high quality setting.
• If you have a large number of images to convert, resize and rename, Irfanview or another programs with a batch mode can do it all in one step.
• Irfanview is a freeware program available for download here.

Images should be in the proper orientation for viewing and will not be resized, rotated or adjusted for judging.

How to Submit a Digital Image to Club and/or CAPA Competitions

Club Competitions: Submit your digital images as high-quality JPEGs saved in PC file format (use a quality setting of 90% or better) by e-mail to: vccentries@gmail.com. 

CAPA Competitions: Submit you digital images, prepared as above, by e-mail to: capa@victoriacameraclub.org.

E-mail is preferred if possible but if you don't have e-mail you may hand in the images on a CD to Linda Baker for Club competitions and to Gordon Griffiths for CAPA competitions.

Cropping for all Nature Competitions

Not everyone is aware that we follow the CAPA guidelines for cropping in Nature competitions, which state that only 20% cropping of the total area of the original image is permitted.  This applies to all categories: Colour Prints, Monochrome Prints, Slides and Digital Images.  The intent is to force one to compose the picture in the viewfinder and not in Photoshop or the darkroom with its attendant loss of sharpness or resolution, visible in the appearance of artifacts such as "jaggies" (see discussion below).

The 20% rule is an area rule.   The per cent taken off the top, the bottom and each of the two sides must add up to less than or equal to 20%.  For example, if you crop a total of 15% off the top, then only 5% may be removed from other sides.  For cameras that shoot in a 35-mm format (2:3 ratio), cropping  to a square format would break the cropping rule since the image area is reduced by 1/3, i.e., 33%.

Tips for Doing Better In Print and Digital Image Categories

A number of judges have commented that many of the images are oversharpened. This may produce colour noise, halos and other artifacts. Halos are lighter areas of colour adjacent to edges in some areas of the photograph. If these are visible to the naked eye, then you have definitely oversharpened, and some judges may even use a loupe to examine the images.

Make sure that sharpening is the last thing you do to your image. For example, when downsizing your digital image to the required 768 pixels on the longest side, make sure you don't do your downsizing on an already sharpened image. Also, always use the highest quality setting available when saving your image as a jpeg.

The following is a link to a basic tutorial on "Sharpening in Post-processing Digital Imaging" that some of you might find helpful: http://www.dslreports.com/faq/13197

To avoid halos, try a smaller radius or one of the more advanced techniques, such as using the "lightness" channel in LAB or blending the sharpened layer with the original layer using the "luminosity" blend mode.  These and a more advanced discussion of the whole sharpening process may be found in "Sharpening using an Unsharp Mask" at: http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/unsharp-mask.htm

Another criticism that has been made by judges has been about over-cropping. A judge experienced in digital editing can pick up evidence that you have carried cropping too far. Over-cropping basically means you are lowering the resolution of your image. This makes problems such as chromatic aberration ("purple fringing") more evident. In addition, "jaggies," which are visible steps on lines at slight angles against a contrasting background may appear. In fact, the lower the resolution, the more individual pixels and any imperfections may become obvious.

Good luck with your entries!
Linda Baker, Competitions Chair