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2006 Theme Challenge Categories (1 Viewer)

IanF

Moderator
These are the proposed themes for the current year. They are however subject to amendment in particular in respect of themes being nominated as prize competitions which will periodically appear.

Jan - Anything Goes!
Feb - Perched Bird
Mar - Birds on Feeders
Apr - Birds and Water
May - Monochrome or Sepia Birds
Jun - Humorous Bird Photo
Jul - Birds and Man
Aug - Butterflies
Sep - Birds in Flight
Oct - Camouflaged Bird
Nov - Digiscoped Birds.
Dec - Holiday Card

Detailed descriptions of the theme will appear at the beginning of each month or queries can be answered in advance in this thread.
 
I attach entry - this is my first ever competition entry - so apologies in advance for any obvious blunders
IanF said:
These are the proposed themes for the current year. They are however subject to amendment in particular in respect of themes being nominated as prize competitions which will periodically appear.

Jan - Anything Goes!
Feb - Perched Bird
Mar - Birds on Feeders
Apr - Birds and Water
May - Monochrome or Sepia Birds
Jun - Humorous Bird Photo
Jul - Birds and Man
Aug - Butterflies
Sep - Members Faces
Oct - Birds in Flight
Nov - Camouflaged Bird
Dec - Holiday Card

Detailed descriptions of the theme will appear at the beginning of each month or queries can be answered in advance in this thread.
 

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Hi, Mackell! I see this is your first post, so a warm welcome to you from all of us on staff here at BirdForum!

I think Ian was just posting the proposed categories here, so you might want to wait until the actual January competition and rules are announced. There will be a specific thread created where images can be submitted. :t:
 
HI, ianf & all

Iam new to the site( couple of days) and I want to enter the competition, but I am strugling on the size of image to up load, ive been cropping, save for web, resizing image etc etc.
but I cannot get near to 200kb, they are ether very low or too high.
The images I have 9kb, 28kb, 250 kb and 331 kb.
THE ORIGANAL SIZE IS 2272 X 1704 AT 300 DPI 2.03MB
can you help, please. much thank
 
A couple of things to consider are that apart from size in kb, there is also size in dimensions.

The maximum kb size is 200 kb as you're aware - but also the maximum dimensions are 800x800 pixels. Many photos in the Gallery are considerably lower in file size and in dimensions.

As regards dpi then 300 dpi is more often used for printing photos. For web use 75 dpi is the norm which gives larger dimensions for any given file size. The 'save for web' should take care of that side of things. Using 'save as' and nomiating a new file name also usually lets you adjust jpeg compression for smaller file size.

Most often I crop a photo to say 1600x1200 and then resize to say 800x600 or 640x480. 640x480 often takes the files size to below 200kb in any case.

A photo of 800x600 or similar still needs some additional jpeg compression to take it below 200kb - that's when the 'save for web' comes into play. I don't know what software you're using, but most allow you to adjust the amount of jpeg compression. At most I use 80% compression but more often 90-95% is sufficient. You should be able to vary the compression to end up with a file size of just below 200kb - but for web use sometimes 60kb files can be just as clear.

An alternative method of reducing file size is to use a filtration program such as NeatImage or PictureCooler. Using them at low settings they reduce 'noise' in digital photos which quite often accounts for a large proportion of the file size but adds nothing to the photo - except graininess!

So in essence -
1. Crop your photo to the desired proportions for composition.
2. Resize the photo to below 800x800 pixels.
3. Either use 'save for web', 'save as' or filtration software to reduce file size to below 200kb.

Give it another go - any probs let me know and we'll see where we can go from there. At worst you can email be the full sized photo and I can reduce the sizes for you.
 
I am so glad that I stumled upon this as I am going mad with resizing. I have never noticed the 'save for web' option before, duh !

Also I don't know how to avoid the pixel-ation that I get when I resize too small. Any advice re the pixel ation I keep getting or is that just standard and not something that I am doing wrong?

Thanks
Rin x

:-C
 
Pixelation is generally a feature of up-sizing rather than down-sizing!

Downsizing often leads to softening of the image which then needs use of unsharp mask or even sharpening. I find it's always worth downsizing to the dimensions I want and saving a copy and then opening the copy. Sometimes it's a little soft but sometimes it's okay.

I'm no great expert at such things, but the process I follow is to crop an image to the proportions I want e.g 1600x1200 and then downsize it using bicubic to the dimensions I want e.g. 800x600 and save a copy. I open the copy - sometimes it's okay and other times it needs levels adjusting and some sharpening. Final stage is to run it through noise filtration software such as Picturecooler of NeatImage - which also reduces file size for web use. If noise isn't an issue then use of 'save for web' works just fine.
 
Sized Pics...

grisler54 said:
HI, ianf & all

Iam new to the site... I cannot get near to 200kb, they are ether very low or too high...THE ORIGANAL SIZE IS 2272 X 1704 AT 300 DPI 2.03MB
can you help, please. much thank


If using photoshop, crop at 5*7 @ 72 dpis and save at 7 quality... That's all there is to it...
 
Have just noticed November comp may be digiscoped birds and all I can say is yes please!!!

Jaff
 
Somehow I am now rather confused.Oct theme is" birds in flight",but did we not have this in Sept?.So ,please ,what is the theme for Oct?,is it members faces,(I hope not!!!)
 
It might be a silly question Christine - but how do you have a competition of member's faces??????? The mind certainly boggle at that one.....who can pull the silliest face for instance maybe?!!! ;)

Sue
 
Sue,a good question!!!.But having had a look in the Comp Gallery,I can see a couple of digiscoped images,so is this the theme for this month -Oct?.'cos in the first post it says digiscoped shots for November.Perhaps I have missed something somewhere along the line.
 
Digiscoped Birds is a proposed theme for November.

Camouflaged Birds is the October theme.

Members Faces when run is not so much a competition as an opportunity for new members since the last time to add their mug shots to the Gallery and existing members to update theirs. No voting booth is run.
 
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