TOPIC:   Data files and formats.  Colour space, compression, etc

Last Update  22 July 2005

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Terry Redman, Chairman of Farnborough CC (SPA)

The rules for digital competitions are in our opinion no different to print and slide competitions, and I attach the relevant section from our Club Handbook which deals with these rules – only the first 2 pages are relevant. You will note that because there are now 3 formats of competition (print, slide and digital) we have restricted members to using an image in one format only per season. However where there is a difference is in the preparation of images and we have found that detailed user-friendly guidance is essential if the competition is to run smoothly. Also attached, therefore, is Appendix 4 to our Handbook which contains this guidance - it has been written with both the benefit of our experience and having considered papers produced by other clubs. It is hoped that these docs will be of help in establishing a set of standards, if that is what the Sub-committee intends to put in place.

Download/View their image preparation Rules (pdf, 407KB)

 

www.photoguild.ns.ca/events/digital.htm

Site for Nova Scotia with detail and screen shots of how to prepare data files for the digital events.  Recommends sRGB space.  When assigning the profile the text recomends perceptual rendering, but screen shots show relative colorimetric.  Compression at JPEG-12 (ie high quality).  Requests authors to use 768 pixels on the longest side always.  This means both landscape and portrait formats display similar area: landscape not allowed to use full width/area.

via Roy Moore, Maidstone CC (KCPA), about use of AdobeRGB as the colour space for submitting entries

There were two reasons for choosing Adobe RGB 1998 as the standard colour space for the KCPA Digital Imaging Competition:

1) Most entrants would be digital workers who print their images; they would, of course, be using Adobe RGB 1998 as their working colour space and would have their copies of Photoshop set accordingly. Therefore choosing Adobe RGB 1998 means that they would not have to make a profile change before submitting their entries.

2) (The main reason) I was advised by GretagMacbeth that, when calibrating a projector using their equipment, the limitations of the projector can be overcome to a considerable extent (precisely how much depends, apparently, on the particular design of projector). Therefore it is possible to specify a colour space somewhat bigger than sRGB even though the projector specification seems to be imply that sRGB is all that is possible. I gathered from talking to one of their personnel that many projectors can indeed work to a larger colour space, but that fact is not spelled out in the literature since business users (by a very long way, the largest group of users) are not particularly concerned about accurate colour rendition and burdening the literature with information about colour spaces could possibly have a negative marketing influence.

I must add that the literature about colour spaces is very large and not particularly self-consistent; it is not impossible that the information I received from GretagMacbeth could be contradicted by information from another source. For example, it is well known that the graphical representation of profile gamuts depends greatly on which company provides the graphing program. Compare, for example, representations by Monaco, GretagMacbeth and Chromix of the same data; or look at the 'out-of gamut' parts of an image as represented by Photoshop and Chromix.