Technical Information
A guide to getting the best out of your photography, and how to best prepare images for submission. Note that the initial submission via the website need only be a small image. However if you are shortlisted you will be asked to submit a larger version.
How to Enter
The BWPA website is set up to help you choose and enter your best images. Now you are registered you can upload images to your 'lightbox' at any time, for free. You can review them online to make sure they look right and are what you want, and delete them if you like. Images you keep on your lightbox will not be entered into the competition until you decide you are ready. When you have uploaded the images you want to enter, you can submit your entry to the competition. To do this you will need to buy credits.
Use your lightbox wisely to save credits: if you get all your images ready in the lightbox and then submit them in a single batch it may save you money. If you submit them in several smaller batches it might use up more credits. Once the images from your lightbox are entered into the competition, you can't delete them. But until the closing date you can always upload images and enter more if you want to.
Image size and type
For your initial submission you can upload any standard JPEG picture. There is no minimum resolution requirement at this stage. Although the initial online image need not be bigger than 1024 pixels on the longest side, if shortlisted, users will be asked to supply full-size image files in 8bit TIFF format. Note that TIFF files are not accepted for the initial round.
File names are for your own reference only. They should be kept short: fewer than 50 characters with no spaces or punctuation characters other than hyphens or underscores.
Files can be any dimensions. However large files will take a long time to upload, and in a portfolio of many large images this may take too long and result in a error. To avoid this we strongly recommend you resize your files to be no more than 1024 pixels along the longest side. Any submitted files larger than this will be automatically resized by the website. No other processing will be applied to submitted photographs. If you wish to be sure that your submitted file is not resized at all, simply send a file that is 1024 pixels or smaller, and it will be retained without any further processing. Images less than 1024 pixels in size will not be enlarged. The maximum possible size for any single upload is 10Mb.
Please make sure that you keep copies of your original large file. Be careful not to accidentally save it directly into a small size for uploading - and then not be able to retrieve the large file again! You can resize your copy image either using Photoshop or your own camera software. Your camera software or imaging software may have options to save images for web use or for e-mail – choose this option as this will be 72 ppi (dpi). Please keep copies of all your original and resized images safe.
If you are shortlisted we will be in contact to obtain your larger original files.
Preparing your digital images
While there are no restrictions on the type of camera used, please note that part of the judging criteria will be technical excellence and it is therefore recommended that you use the highest possible quality setting on your camera. The file should be as large as you can achieve with your equipment.
Ideally the image should have been taken using a camera with a sufficiently high resolution to allow the image to be reproduced at A4 size or above (at 300 ppi). We recommend that you use a camera of 4 megapixels or more, if possible, enabling the image to be of sufficient size for printing and inclusion in the exhibition.
Although the initial online image need not be bigger than 1024 pixels on the longest side, if shortlisted, users should aim to supply full-size image files in 8bit TIFF format, with a file size between 20-50Mb – this size would enable us to make larger prints if desired. We recommend setting the camera to either the RAW file mode or large high resolution JPEG file mode. The colour profile for all digital images should be Adobe RGB 98. Please keep your original RAW, JPEG and/or TIFF files - these may be requested at any time.
If you are successful in being shortlisted for the final round of judging, we will request your largest file (TIFF or JPEG) for judging and reproduction purposes.
Scanned images
You can also submit images that have been scanned from film or negative. Please note that a high-resolution scan will be required for short-listed images and should be between 20 and 50Mb as an uncompressed tiff file, although a high-quality JPEG is acceptable (8 bit, Adobe RGB 1998 colour space).
Wood mouse, Mark Darlington
