HOW TO PREPARE AN IMAGE - Ridgewood Camera … prep...How to Prepare an Image for Competition Borders needed Resize Add border Sharpen Color space Save as correct file type Avoid duplicate

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H. Schulz

September 14th, 2016

HOW TO PREPARE AN IMAGE FOR COMPETITION

How to Prepare an Image for Competition

• Table of Content• Sharpness, Exposure, Composition out of scope• Select Image for Competition out of scope• Editing Image for Competition out of scope• Prepare ready image for competition

• Borders needed?• Resize• Add border• Sharpen• Color space• Save as correct file type• Upload image out of scope• Avoid duplicate entries

How to Prepare an Image for Competition

• Assumptions• Adobe Photoshop

• Adobe Lightroom

• Familiar with navigation within these applications

Do I need a border?Situation is clear no border needed

How to Prepare an Image for CompetitionBorders neededResizeAdd borderSharpenColor spaceSave as correct file typeAvoid duplicate entries

How to recognize when you need a border

Do I need a border?Where does the image begin and end?Don’t leave it up to the judge to guess.












RCC competition rules dictate that the longest edge cannot Exceed 768 pixels.

This includes borders if needed.

Assuming a 2 pixel wide boarder around the image, will leave the maximum length of 764 pixels

Assuming a 1 pixel wide border around image,Will leave the maximum of 766 pixels

Size depends on method you use to add a border- Use all of your image, resize to smaller size add border- Overwrite your image with the width of you border

Resize an Image

Resize Image - Photoshop


How to Prepare an Image for CompetitionResize Image - Photoshop

Borders neededResizeAdd borderSharpenColor spaceSave as correct file typeAvoid duplicate entries

Pick longest side to resize!Here an image not needing a border

How to Prepare an Image for CompetitionResize Image - Photoshop


Part of EXPORT IMAGE

You can select one, more or allImages to be exported.

How to Prepare an Image for CompetitionResize Image - Lightroom


Add border via CANVAS size - Photoshop


Objective: add 1 pixel border

Advantage:Use complete size ofyour image.Disadvantage: process more complex



Original file size after resizing was 766 x 511 pixels

With this method you need to enter the New dimensions, width and height.

The difference between old and new Will be filled with the Canvas extension color.



Original file size after resizing was 766 x 511 pixelsNew file size after adding canvas is 768 x 513Will result in 1 pixel border




Resize Image and add border via STROKE- Photoshop

Select fx (bottom right) and select STROKE

Advantage:Easy process.Disadvantage: overwritingparts of your image.


Resize Image and add border via STROKE- Photoshop

INSIDEWill overwritethe outside pixels

There is a way toavoid the over-write: add canvasof border width.But then you canuse the CANVAS method right away


Sharpen an image - Unsharpen Mask

What is “sharpen an image”?

Image sharpening is a powerful tool for emphasizing texture and drawing viewer focus. When performed too aggressively, unsightly sharpening artifacts may appear. On the other hand, when done correctly, sharpening can often improve apparent image quality.

Most image sharpening software tools work by applying something called an "unsharp mask," which despite its name, actually acts to sharpen an image.

Photo of the letter "T"

Original SharpenedSource: cambridgecolour.com


What is “sharpen an image”?

Source: cambridgecolour.com

The key to effective sharpening is walking the delicate balance between making edges appear sufficiently pronounced, while also minimizing visible under and overshoots (called "sharpening halos").Basically you are increasing the contrast on the edges.

Sharpen an image


What is “sharpen an image”? SETTINGS

Source: cambridgecolour.com

Setting How It Works

Radius

Controls the size of the edges you wish to enhance, where a smaller radius enhances smaller-scale detail. You'll usually want a radius setting that is comparable to the size of the smallest detail within your image.

AmountControls the overall strength of the sharpening effect, and is usually listed as a percentage. A good starting point is often a value of 100%.

Threshold(Masking)

Controls the minimum brightness difference that will be sharpened. This can be used to sharpen more pronounced edges, while leaving more subtle edges untouched. It's especially useful to avoid sharpening noise.

Detail(if avail.)

Controls the relative sharpening of fine versus coarse detail (within a given radius

value), in addition to affecting the overall strength of sharpening. Higher values emphasize fine detail, but also increase the overall sharpening effect. You will therefore likely need to adjust this setting in conjunction with the amount/percent setting.

Sharpen an image


Unsharpen Mask

Sharpen an image


Starting point Noise and halo

Unsharpen Mask

Sharpen an image


Increased thresholdHalo and noise gone

Work with AMOUNT and RADIUS

Unsharpen Mask

Sharpen an image


Sharpen an image - High Pass Filter Principle: increase contraston edges!

unsharpened



unsharpened






Sharpen an image - High Pass Filter


Sharpen an image - High Pass Filter

before

after

Color Space: sRGB vs. Adobe RGB

What is Color Space?

color space is a specific range of colors that can be represented in a given photo. JPEG images can contain up to 16.7 million colors, though neither color space actually uses all 16.7 million colors available. Different color spaces allows for you to use a broader or narrower range of those 16.7 million colors used in a JPEG image.

The image left explains it pretty well. Both images contain only three colors taken with difference “color spaces”. The colors shown in the AdobeRGB scale have more differential between them. This means photos taken in the AdobeRGB color space will have more vibrancy in their colors, whereas sRGB will traditionally have more subtle tones. In situations where you're photographing strong color tones, sRGB “dulls them out”. AdobeRGB is able to display those colors with more accuracy.

Source: Zach Sutton


The TypesSettings in your camera(here CANON)

In digital photography, there are two main types of color spaces, AdobeRGB and sRGB. If you go into your camera’s settings, you’ll see that you’ll have the option of using either, straight out of the camera. You’ll also have the option of converting it to one or the other in post processing (with limitations).

Which one should you use?

How to Prepare an Image for CompetitionColor Space: sRGB vs. Adobe RGB


The Difference

sRGB came first, and almost everything on a computer is built around sRGB. The internet, video games, applications, personal devices, and most everything else has adapted sRGB as their standard for color space.

This means, the monitor you’re using likely cannot display all the colors of AdobeRGB. Most traditional computer monitors can only display about 97% of the sRGB color space, and only about 76% of the AdobeRGB color space.

Screen calibrators will often tell you how much of the colors you're able to display.



Since most web browsers have adapted sRGB as its color space, if you upload an image to the internet with the AdobeRGB gamut, the browser will convert it to sRGB, and it’ll do a terrible job at it, as shown here.

If you’re not printing your work often, sRGB is the choice of color space for you.It’ll be the sure way to guarantee that your photos look great on the web, and still look accurate in print.

However, if you’re often printing your work, and looking for vibrant colors, AdobeRGB may be the choice for you.It just adds a few steps to your workflow process, as you'll need to save them as sRGB to correctly display them on the web.



Conversion AdobeRGB to sRGB

External Editing from Lightroom to Photoshop




Export from Lightroom

File Export




Covert in Photoshop



Conclusion:

If this at all confuses you and leaves you feeling overwhelmed, switch your camera to sRGB color space, and leave it like that. It'll still allow you to photograph and print beautiful images. However, if you're shooting specifically for print, AdobeRGB offers more range and versatility in the images taken. It all really comes down to personal preference, AdobeRGB does offer more colors, but at the cost of complicating things for a subtle difference in your photos.

For Projected Images Competitions ALWAYS submit in sRGB!



How to Prepare an Image for CompetitionMost Common File Types


File Type Notes

RAW A camera raw image file contains minimally processed data from the image sensor of a digital camera. Raw files are named so because they are not yet processed and therefore are not ready to be printed or edited with a bitmap graphics editor. Normally, the image is processed by a raw converter where precise adjustments can be made before conversion to a "positive" file format such as TIFF or JPEG for storage, printing, or further manipulation. This often encodes the image in a device-dependent color space.DIGITAL NEGATIVE

TIFF Tagged Image File Format, abbreviated TIFF or TIF, is a computer file format for storing graphics images, popular among graphic artists, the publishing industry, and photographers. The TIFF format is widely supported by image-manipulation applications, by publishing and page layout applications. IT save images uncompressed. This means images do not lose details and file sizes can be very big.

JPG JPEG is a commonly used method of compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and image quality. JPEG typically achieves 10:1 compression.JPEG = Joint Photographic Experts Group

How to Prepare an Image for CompetitionFile Type used for competition


Use JPG for Competitions

Save ONCE as jpg after all your editing, resizing and sharpening is done.

NEVER open a jpg file, edit the image and safe again as jpg!

Every time you “SAVE AS JPG” a compression algorithm will decrease the quality of your image. Every time it will make you file size smallerand hereby you will lose details!

How to Prepare an Image for CompetitionFile Type used for competition


Example of losing image quality

Original61K

5x save47K

10x save39K

How to Prepare an Image for CompetitionAvoid duplicate entries


RCC rules of competition states:

A projected image or a print receiving an Award or Honorable Mention in any category (i.e. Pictorial or Nature) of regular club competitions may not be entered again in the same category or in another category. However, it can be entered in the Annual competition, and it also can be entered in another competition type …

Keep a log of all the images you submitted to competitions (image, title and file name)

This will help you to avoid duplicate submissions and dq’s “grey area” different exposures of the same series


Documents

HOW TO PREPARE AN IMAGE - Ridgewood Camera … prep...How to Prepare an Image for Competition Borders needed Resize Add border Sharpen Color space Save as correct file type Avoid duplicate