Isculpt Posted February 5, 2013 Report Share Posted February 5, 2013 I'm a newbie at this business of emailing large photo files, so perhaps the answer to the dilemma is obvious to everyone else, but I need help (and I need it before the Feb 8th deadline!!:osrc="http://ceramicartsdaily.org/community/public/style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif"> ). I'm trying to send images to a Lark Books Call for Entries, and the guidelines indicate that TIF files are highly preferred. Those files are large, 10-50 MBs, and my email program will not accomodate sending such a large file. How would you satisfy the requirements below, given my email problem? That's the most important issue, but one additional item has me stumped. It states "Do not create shadows. We will determine if shadows are needed and add them as necessary". What?? Are they asking for photos flooded with an excess of light, with no shadows produced by careful lighting to give the item dimension??? Digital Image Submission Guidelines • Digital photographs should be taken at the camera’s highest resolution, at its best quality setting. • TIFs or JPGs are acceptable. TIF files are highly preferred. • Do not compress files. • Digital images must be a minimum of 4.667 x 6 inches (1400 x 1800 pixels) at 300 PPI. The maximum image size we accept is 9.5 x 12 inches (2850 x 3600 pixels) at 300 PPI. • Digital images must be between 1 and 5 MBs (JPG) or 10 and 50 MBs (TIFs). • Files must be in RGB format. • Files should be 8 bit, not 16 bit. • If it is necessary to develop digital negatives (raw files), use Adobe RGB 1998 color space. • Color correction and retouching images is acceptable, but should only be done by professionals who specialize in digital images. • Do not silhouette (remove the background from) your image. We will determine if this is needed and have our digital team silhouette images as necessary. • Do not create shadows. We will determine if shadows are needed and have them added as necessary. I appreciate any suggestions! Jayne Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GEP Posted February 5, 2013 Report Share Posted February 5, 2013 You can create a free gmail account, and use that to send in your large attachment. Gmail can handle attachments up to 25MB (I think). As for the shadow issue, if your photos contain an excessive amount of shadowing, then this will probably eliminate you from consideration. But if your photos contain a reasonable amount of shadowing, don't worry about it. Any good Photoshopper can remove those if they want. To me it sounds like they are tired of receiving entries where the artist has silhouetted and drop-shadowed the photo themselves. This might make that photo look better, but it's a pain for the book publisher. They want to do all of the silhouetting and drop-shadowing themselves so it will be consistent throughout the book. Good luck! Mea Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arnold Howard Posted February 5, 2013 Report Share Posted February 5, 2013 I'm a newbie at this business of emailing large photo files, so perhaps the answer to the dilemma is obvious to everyone else, but I need help (and I need it before the Feb 8th deadline!!:osrc="http://ceramicartsdaily.org/community/public/style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif"> ). I'm trying to send images to a Lark Books Call for Entries, and the guidelines indicate that TIF files are highly preferred. Those files are large, 10-50 MBs, and my email program will not accomodate sending such a large file. Email is an inefficient way to send large files. Lark probably has a web page where files can be uploaded directly from your computer instead of through email. Most publishers have a file upload page. Shadows in photos are generally caused by specular lighting, which is light that shines directly onto the pots. That results in hard-edged shadows. To soften the shadows, shine the lights onto white panels, and bounce the light from the panels onto the subject. Sincerely, Arnold Howard Paragon Industries, L.P., Mesquite, Texas USA ahoward@paragonweb.com / www.paragonweb.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ceramista Posted February 6, 2013 Report Share Posted February 6, 2013 I'm a newbie at this business of emailing large photo files, so perhaps the answer to the dilemma is obvious to everyone else, but I need help (and I need it before the Feb 8th deadline!!:osrc="http://ceramicartsdaily.org/community/public/style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif"> ). I'm trying to send images to a Lark Books Call for Entries, and the guidelines indicate that TIF files are highly preferred. Those files are large, 10-50 MBs, and my email program will not accomodate sending such a large file. How would you satisfy the requirements below, given my email problem? That's the most important issue, but one additional item has me stumped. It states "Do not create shadows. We will determine if shadows are needed and add them as necessary". What?? Are they asking for photos flooded with an excess of light, with no shadows produced by careful lighting to give the item dimension??? Digital Image Submission Guidelines • Digital photographs should be taken at the camera’s highest resolution, at its best quality setting. • TIFs or JPGs are acceptable. TIF files are highly preferred. • Do not compress files. • Digital images must be a minimum of 4.667 x 6 inches (1400 x 1800 pixels) at 300 PPI. The maximum image size we accept is 9.5 x 12 inches (2850 x 3600 pixels) at 300 PPI. • Digital images must be between 1 and 5 MBs (JPG) or 10 and 50 MBs (TIFs). • Files must be in RGB format. • Files should be 8 bit, not 16 bit. • If it is necessary to develop digital negatives (raw files), use Adobe RGB 1998 color space. • Color correction and retouching images is acceptable, but should only be done by professionals who specialize in digital images. • Do not silhouette (remove the background from) your image. We will determine if this is needed and have our digital team silhouette images as necessary. • Do not create shadows. We will determine if shadows are needed and have them added as necessary. I appreciate any suggestions! Jayne I'm shocked with all the requirements, I guess they get so many entries that they can actually ask for that much. One way to send large files is using Dropbox or any other free online file sharing. About the shadows if you don't mind you can put a sample picture here in the forum and we can help you. Good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neilestrick Posted February 6, 2013 Report Share Posted February 6, 2013 The quality of the images is as important to Lark as the quality of the piece in the photograph. If you don't know how to take good photos, have someone do them for you. The photographer will also be able to size them for you. Some people do all sorts of silly things to make their images look better, but in general it doesn't work very well. Lark just wants a good image with soft shadows, no glare, and minimal alterations. Because they aren't shooting the images themselves, they have to have guidelines to provide some level of consistency to the book. Here's an image I just shot for a customer who's entering it into the Lark book. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isculpt Posted February 8, 2013 Author Report Share Posted February 8, 2013 Thank you all for your helpful information and advice. Nice photo, Neil. I'm relieved to know what they're referring to with the admonition about shadows. After soliciting advice from this site, I purchased photo lights and a light cube for this shot. (I should have followed the advice to forego the cube and use photoboxes instead...) A friend who does professional sports photography handled the actual shots for me, but she was unused to dealing with emailing large TIF files. Lark uses "Juried Art Services" for submissions, and I'm hoping that I'll be able to upload images from her CD without trouble when I make my decision regarding image choices -- tomorrow, on the deadline date, of course. Well, actually, the Lark site says the deadline is the 8th and their link to "Juried Art Services" brings up a deadline of the 13th. I'm not feeling lucky enough to push it quite THAT far, though! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neilestrick Posted February 8, 2013 Report Share Posted February 8, 2013 I think what they are talking about with the shadows is that sometimes when people shoot slides, especially when using a light cube, the light is so diffused that the piece throws little to no shadow. This makes the piece look like it is floating in mid air- there's no visible ground. So people add in shadows to ground them. Or if they paste a piece into a different background they have to add a shadow to ground it. Your images will load up to Juried Art Services easily. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtomicAxe Posted March 11, 2013 Report Share Posted March 11, 2013 If you save in tif format, make sure you use LZW compression ... it's scales the photos to the size of jpgs but doesn't remove the quality like jpg compression. Should be one of the options when you save your photos. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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