How to run Projected Digital Image competitions How to run Projected Digital Image competitionsWith more and more of your members using digital cameras, your club may be thinking about running projected digital image competitions. You will need a projector and a computer (preferably colour-calibrated), of course, but you will also need some software to display the images and manage the competition. While you can use the standard components of a Windows system to do this, there are specific software packages available to take much of the effort out of organising projected digital image competitions. Whatever way you choose, there are three steps to successful projected digital image competitions:
You need to publish some rules and guidelines for your members - you may want to make these as simple and unrestrictive as possible to encourage entrants who are new to digital processing and for whom image sizing, compression and colour spaces are arcane mysteries. How restrictive your rules are will depend to some extent on the facilities of your chosen software - the more comprehensive the software, the less restrictive the entry requirements.
At a minimum, you need to specify the image file type(s) that your competition software can accept. It should always accept jpeg, but you might want to accommodate tiff, bmp and png as well. You should also specify the resolution of the projector that you will be using (e.g. 1024 pixels wide x768 pixels high).
You will probably want to specify a maximum file size, especially if you accept entries via e-mail. A 1024x768 pixel bitmap or tiff image with 24bits per pixel requires a 2.3Mb file - compressed with "best" jpeg compression this becomes 400-800 Mb and compressed into a png file, becomes 1.2 Mb. It is worth pointing out that there is no advantage in sending really large files - somewhere along the line, the image size has to be reduced to the resolution of the projector, and any extra information will be discarded. On the other hand, an image that is less than the projector resolution is likely to be at a disadvantage
You may want to choose imaging software that will automatically resize images that are larger than the screen resolution - otherwise you will need to ask entrants to resize their entries to the appropriate resolution before sending them in. Images that are smaller than the screen size should be projected with a black background.
You may want to specify a medium for transmission - nowadays, it is usually CD or e-mail attachment. With more people on broadband, e-mail is fast becoming the standard. You need to set a deadline for entries that gives you enough time to include them in the competition.
When your members select their images and send them to you, you need to record who has sent which file and whether they provided a title. If you want to send an acknowledgement or the results, you will also need to record the member's e-mail address. Try and make sure the member's name is recorded exactly the same for each competition - for example, always "Phil Jones" and never "Philip Jones". Otherwise, you will have problems when you try and aggregate scores at the end of the year. This can be a time consuming and error-prone task if done manually, so competition software usually provides some help.
From the point of view of the judge and the audience, a projected digital image competition should appear similar to a slide competition. The software should allow you to:
The software might also be able to:
Unless you are totally confident in your chosen software and your ability to use it under pressure, it may be prudent to print out the running order in advance and keep a written record of the scores and winners during the evening.
If you have recorded the scores on your computer, the software may well be able to manage the results for you. At a minimum it should print the results (for the club notice board), but it may also produce an HTML file for the club website, or send each entrant their results by e-mail.
The software may also be able to maintain a league table by bringing together the results from all the competitions that have happened so far in the year. It may also store the results, or export them, in a format that can be read by programs such as Microsoft Excel, so you can manipulate them as you wish.
It is worth spending some time thinking how your club runs slide competitions and imagine how this could be improved if you could get the slides by e-mail. Also think how you manage competition results and imagine how this could be improved if the scores were already on the computer.
Next look at, and preferably trial, the available software and find a package that does (most) of the tasks you have identified. Talk to other clubs, and see how they manage.
Obtain the software that best fits your needs, but start using it as simply as possible until you and your members gain experience in the process. Expect to spend some time learning the software - managing a series of projected digital image competitions is actually quite a complex task.
It may be tempting to introduce Projected Digital Images gradually, by simply projecting some digital images alongside slides on a slide competition night. In practice this is likely to be fraught with problems. Firstly the optical characteristics of digital projectors and 35mm slide projectors are dramatically different. In addition you will not be able to use the management features of the competition software and you may need to have different submission requirements because digital images need to be submitted in advance of the night of the competition. For these reasons clubs may prefer to dedicate an evening to a Projected Digital Image competition and to keep it separate from traditional slide competitions.
In addition to existing competition categories such as set subject, pictorial, portrait, classes of author, etc there is the new possibility to divide entries by degree of digital manipulation. This has been used successfully by some clubs, but be prepared for lively discussion - quite extreme manipulations may be undetectable in the finished image. There is a steep learning curve in getting optimal quality when preparing and presenting digital images. The same image may look very different on the monitor at home and projected at the club. It might be advisable to make opportunities available for club members to preview their images on the club projector under the same conditions that will be used for the competitions.
For information about choosing a digital projector, see Choosing a digital projector.
This document was produced in January 2006 by Phil Stapleton and Steve Brabner for the Chilterns Association of Camera Clubs.