Preparing Images for PDI Competitions
Derek Smith • 18 August 2021
Preparing Images for PDI Competitions
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’m looking forward to meeting up together as a club again and participating in the club, and inter-club competitions. Today I’m going to write about my thoughts on preparing for competitions.
Intentional photography: what are you going to photograph today? Look at the club programme and think about the images that would be needed for each competition category. I spent a few days in the Peak District recently with the full intention of capturing images for the “Trains”, and “Buildings in a Landscape” categories, I’m not sure that I achieved my goals, but the most important thing about our hobby is the pure pleasure, and enjoyment of taking pictures. Don’t get hung up if you haven’t come away with a “great” photo, it is far more important that you have been out, and experienced the sights, sounds, and people around you.
Editing photos: my advice here is to find a photo editing suite that you are familiar with, and comfortable in using. YouTube has a great many tutorials to assist with learning the software, Nigel Danson is a landscape photographer producing regular YouTube videos with tips on composition, as well as editing techniques. Gary McIntyre is another favourite of mine on YouTube, talking you through the editing process easily.
Preparing an image for competitions: once the image has been edited, I would suggest saving the edited image at full size, for example a 6000-pixel x 4000-pixel image. Resize this image to one of the maximum dimensions, either 1200-pixel, or 1920-pixel to suit the required size for the projector, possibly saving the resized image to a temporary folder.
For the next stage an image editor that allows for working in layers is required, Adobe produce software for layering of images, as does Serif Affinity Photo, there are also free photo editors available Gimp, which is cross-platform, and Paint.Net for Windows. Open the image editor with a blank tab and create a 1920-pixel x 1200-pixel blank background image with a white, or possibly a black background, open the edited image of your choice, then copy this image, and paste onto the background, then centre the edited image onto the background. There may well be space to either side of the image, or to the top, and bottom of the image, but this is immaterial as the composite image is now optimised for viewing on a projector screen. Save the complete composite image into a memorable folder, I have a temporary folder on my drive called simply “Upload”, the composite image will now be devoid of any EXIF data, but the author's name, and title of the image can now be added, detailed instructions for doing this can be found on our website.
Sending competition entries: the edited images for submission to the competition should be sent to the Competition Secretary. The majority of us send the images via “WeTransfer”, this free to use internet software is easy to use, and notifies when the images have been sent, and when the images have been downloaded.
This portrait of Chloe has been optimised for the projector as described and is on a black background as I thought that it looked better.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’m looking forward to meeting up together as a club again and participating in the club, and inter-club competitions. Today I’m going to write about my thoughts on preparing for competitions.
Intentional photography: what are you going to photograph today? Look at the club programme and think about the images that would be needed for each competition category. I spent a few days in the Peak District recently with the full intention of capturing images for the “Trains”, and “Buildings in a Landscape” categories, I’m not sure that I achieved my goals, but the most important thing about our hobby is the pure pleasure, and enjoyment of taking pictures. Don’t get hung up if you haven’t come away with a “great” photo, it is far more important that you have been out, and experienced the sights, sounds, and people around you.
Editing photos: my advice here is to find a photo editing suite that you are familiar with, and comfortable in using. YouTube has a great many tutorials to assist with learning the software, Nigel Danson is a landscape photographer producing regular YouTube videos with tips on composition, as well as editing techniques. Gary McIntyre is another favourite of mine on YouTube, talking you through the editing process easily.
Preparing an image for competitions: once the image has been edited, I would suggest saving the edited image at full size, for example a 6000-pixel x 4000-pixel image. Resize this image to one of the maximum dimensions, either 1200-pixel, or 1920-pixel to suit the required size for the projector, possibly saving the resized image to a temporary folder.
For the next stage an image editor that allows for working in layers is required, Adobe produce software for layering of images, as does Serif Affinity Photo, there are also free photo editors available Gimp, which is cross-platform, and Paint.Net for Windows. Open the image editor with a blank tab and create a 1920-pixel x 1200-pixel blank background image with a white, or possibly a black background, open the edited image of your choice, then copy this image, and paste onto the background, then centre the edited image onto the background. There may well be space to either side of the image, or to the top, and bottom of the image, but this is immaterial as the composite image is now optimised for viewing on a projector screen. Save the complete composite image into a memorable folder, I have a temporary folder on my drive called simply “Upload”, the composite image will now be devoid of any EXIF data, but the author's name, and title of the image can now be added, detailed instructions for doing this can be found on our website.
Sending competition entries: the edited images for submission to the competition should be sent to the Competition Secretary. The majority of us send the images via “WeTransfer”, this free to use internet software is easy to use, and notifies when the images have been sent, and when the images have been downloaded.
This portrait of Chloe has been optimised for the projector as described and is on a black background as I thought that it looked better.
Louth Photographic Society
Good Morning All Last week at the club we held a Local Nature and Open PDI competition, members Dave Turner and Steve Chapman kindly offered to judge the competition, thank you to you both, it was a good night and the entries were of a high standard giving you both quite a task. The results are on our website, but the two winners on the night were, Local Nature Tony Gaskins and Open Harry Kerman. This week, Wednesday 8th April, Tony Gaskins, one of our members is showing us Coast 3, a PDI presentation. Tony is an excellent photographer and spends many hours photographing our coastline. Aprils Print competition, Circles and Open is fast approaching, you can send your titles to Dave Turner when your ready and bring your prints in the week before the competition. Regards Graham
It was no April fools, when we held our PDI (Projected Digital Image) competition last night. The images submitted into this competition were off the highest quality. Dave Turner judged the Open category, which I think is always one of the hardest categories to judge, pitting landscapes, against nature, and still life, but Dave did a magnificent job, offering well founded critique of the images submitted. After the break, Steve Chapman judged the Local Nature category, (nature images taken within a 25 mile radius of St. James' church, Louth) Steve "held back" 10 out of the 18 submitted images, and gave those 10 images very careful consideration until he finally arrived at the 3 highest placed images. Steve commented that the submitted images were indeed of high quality, and he took his time to evaluate the submitted images and offered useful critique on each one. The competition made for a very interesting evening, and all members deserve praise for the quality of the submitted images. The website Competition page has been updated with the full results, and the top three images from each category. On this post is 1st placed Sedge Warbler, Cleethorpes by Tony Gaskins, in the Local Nature category, and 1st placed Hudson Bay Wolf, (Lincoln Zoo) by Harry Kerman, in the Open category.
Good Morning, All, Last week at the club member Chris Birchmore gave a presentation on MPP cameras which included some of Chris's collection of cameras and prints taken. There is a report on the evening on our blog page. Thank you Chris for an interesting evening. This week, Wednesday 1st April, we are holding a local and open PDI competition the local subject being nature, please if you haven't already, send your entries to Harry before midnight tonight. Members Steve Chapman and Dave Turner have volunteered to judge. Also on the Wednesday 1st April our Louth Photographic Society 70th anniversary exhibition will be open to view at the Louth Museum. Regards Graham
Chris Birchmore gave an informative, and interesting talk and demonstration of his medium format film cameras. at the beginning of the evening Chris gave a potted history of the origins of the MPP cameras he was showing us. The cameras take a 5 x 4" film stock, and looking at the cameras it seems incredible that photographers in the recent past could take excellent photographs with these. The MPP cameras were often used by the British Armed Forcies during the Second World War, and throughout the 1950s, and 60s, and some of these medium format were still being manufactured in the 1970s. The prints that Chris showed taken with these cameras were of excellent quality, with an amazing depth of field. Many thanks Chris for a fascinating evening.
Good Morning All Last week at the club we held a committee meeting, which was very productive, we made the final arrangements for the exhibition, charity night, and studio evening as well as other items on the agenda. We are holding an Exhibition opening night at Louth Museum on Friday 17th April celebrating 70 years of Louth Photographic Society. There will be a small buffet and cold drinks available, if any member would like to donate a bottle of wine to the occasion please hand it to Harry at one of our club nights. This week, Wednesday 25th March, member Chris Birchmore will be giving us a presentation. The following week is a local competition, with the categoriess of "Local Nature" (up to 25 miles radius from St James church) and "Open" (unlimited mileage) please send your entries to Harry before midnight, Sunday 29th March. Members Steve Chapman will judge the Nature category, and Dave Turner the Open category. Regards Graham
Good Morning All Last week at the club we held our monthly PDI competition judged by Martyn Wrigg, the standard of entries was very high and well done to Tony Gaskins for a first in the Architectural Detail and Derek Smith for his first place in the Open. All the results are on our website under competitions. This week, Wednesday 18th March we will be holding a Committee meeting, just committee members for this one. The following week Chris Birchmore is the speaker for the night. Harry is now accepting entries for the PDI local competition, with the categories of "Local Nature" and "Open". We judge this competition in house so if you would like to judge one of the subjects please let me know. Regards Graham
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A PDI (Projected Digital Image) competition was held last night with the categories of "Architectural Detail", and "Open". Martyn Wrigg was our judge for the evening, and he competently judged the submitted images, although he diid surprise with some of his choices of placing, but that's a judges perogative. Martyn complemented members on the quality of the images presented, which had made some of his decisions difficult. First placed was "It's a Fixer Upper" in the Architectural Detail section, and "Dervish Musician" in the Open section. Congratulations to Robin Begley, who as one of our newest members submitted some impressive images, achieving a 3rd place in "Architectural Details", and 2nd in the "Open" category. All the results are now posted to our website Competition page.
Good Morning All Last week at the club member Steve Chapman gave us an insight into his life and especially his time at Ilam Park in Derbyshire photographing for the National Trust. Steve showed us many photographs he had taken of the people involved with the trust and the Peak District. The second half was dedicated to Steve's own work, some superb aircraft photography as well as many other subjects. There is a report on the evening on our blog page. This week, Wednesday 11th March we are holding a PDI competition, with the categories of "Architectural Detail " and "Open" to be judged by Martyn Wrigg of Barton. The following week is a committee meeting for the committee members only on that evening. For newer members we have two committee meetings a year. Regards Graham
Last night Steve Chapman presented a selection of images from his archives. Steve had previously been a volunteer photographer for the National Trust, and he showed many photos from the Ilam Park Estate, Dovedale, it was interesting to see some of the "behind the scenes" photos. The Jacobite reenactment battle scenes were amazing, the uniforms showed great attention to detail, and there were some real characters among the reenactors. After the break Steve showed some of his general photography, he has a great photographic eye, as some of his photos showed with different colours, shapes, and leading lines. Steve has taken many photos of agricultural machinery, and risked life and limb to create some close up aircraft photos. For atmosphere, just look at these horseriders at the top of the hill on a cool early morning. For heartstopping imagery look at these children on the side of a building, the children are photos on the side of the building, however, Steve wasted no time in capturing this stunning image. Many thanks to Steve for a fascinating evening.
