Electronic Image Competition (EIC)

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

We hope you find answers to any questions about EIC here. If not, feel free to contact any EIC Committee member. Be sure to read the Rules, Guidelines, and other documents on the main EIC page.

1. I cannot find the Web upload facility. What should I do?

   Sorry, but the Web upload capability is no longer offered. Please send your images as email attachments to .

2. Can I bring images to the competition meeting?

   Sorry, the images must be delivered in advance, and no walk-in submissions can be accepted.

3. There are Competition Rules, plus there are EIC Submission Guidelines. Do I have to comply with both?

   Yes. The Competition Rules are published in the Membership Booklet and remain unchanged throughout the Club season (though there could be exceptions). The EIC Submission Guidelines deal with operational details specific to Electronic Image Competition, and may evolve during the year in order to make operational improvements. Members will be notified by email and meeting announcements if there are significant updates to the EIC Submission Guidelines.

4. When are submissions due?

   Images must be received into the EIC e-mailbox by 7:30 pm on Sunday, three days before the competition. It is highly recommended that images be submitted early (up to one week before the competition) to allow time for troubleshooting and retry if the transmission fails. The EIC team does its utmost to facilitate easy submissions and to ensure integrity of files received. But we cannot be responsible for delays or loss caused by email, Internet, or other factors beyond our control.

5. Why must I send all my entries at one time?

   This saves work for the EIC Coordinator, who is tasked with receiving, storing, cataloging, visually and technically checking the entries, then responding to the originator with a confirmation email. Doing this only once per member each month saves considerable time and effort. The role of EIC Coordinator already involves a large commitment of time, and if the job becomes too onerous then good candidates won't volunteer. It's okay to send the entries in separate emails a few minutes apart, but don't send them hours apart or add yet one more entry days later. If this requirement causes hardship in your case, please raise this issue with an EIC team member.

6. Are the image filenames really that important?

   They are very important because the filenames are read by machine (software) for both the presentation to the judge and for crediting awards and points. Thus, if your filenames do not comply with the naming conventions given in the Submission Guidelines, your entries could be omitted or your winning points might not be credited to your account. The EIC team attempts to correct filename errors, but the responsibility rests with the originator. The most common corrections are for: improper hyphen separators, reversed parts of the filename (title and photographer), and inconsistently spelled photographer name (important for logging).

7. What about long filenames - aren't they a problem?

   Not for the vast majority of competitors. It is true that some email software, and some Macintosh systems, can corrupt filenames during transmission of the files. The corruption may be truncation of long names, or completely ignoring the name you have entered and using the original numbered file name given by the camera. Those who have experienced this problem in the past have usually solved it. One workaround is to include the text of the filenames in the body of the email, and add any descriptions needed to make sure we can figure out which image goes with which filename.

8. Photoshop keeps changing my files names!

   The "Export" or "Save for Web and Devices" function in Photoshop does have a quirky behavior by default in some versions, but you can fix it. Specifically it adds new hyphens to the filename, and truncates it to a short name. If you use this method of saving JPEGs for competition instead of the File, Save As method, try the following. From the Save for Web & Devices panel, click the options button. It looks like a tiny black triangle in a circle, under the Done button. Select "Edit Output Settings." From the Output Settings dialog, choose Saving Files from the second drop-down box. Uncheck the boxes for filename compatibility with Mac OS 9 and Unix. Click OK.

9. How do I know my files were accepted?

   Images delivered as email attachments will receive a return email acknowledgement within a reasonable period of time (please allow up to two days). Images delivered by other means may not be acknowledged.

10. Can I submit a replacement image?

    Generally, no. Please (please!) be sure your image selections are final before submitting any of them. Further refinement of your image is not a valid reason to submit a replacement. In cases where an unavoidable mistake is made, you can request authorization to submit a new image file to replace an earlier one. Please do not submit additional copies without first clearing this with the EIC team (see Submission Guidelines for contact information). Remember, by rule all your entries will be disqualified if you exceed the allowable number.

11. Why can't I submit files greater than one megabyte?

    One megabyte is sufficient for images displayed at the full resolution of our digital projector, and has been set as the standard maximum size for all EIC competitors. Larger files are unlikely to have perceptible quality improvement. If your image files tend to be larger, you may be preparing them using an inappropriate method. Refer to the document How to Prepare Images for Electronic Presentation on the EIC page.

12. My images don't look the same on the projector - why?

    There are two likely possibilities: either your own monitor is not correct (did you calibrate it?) or you're seeing limitations of the projector system. If your own monitor is not calibrated, or you're using an inferior monitor such as a laptop LCD screen, there is a strong possibility that your images will look different when projected. The Canon SX-50 projector is highly rated for photography, but has limitations - in particular the low dynamic range and steep gamma curve. Subtle colors in bright areas tend to be washed out toward gray-white, though the highlights never appear clipped ("blown out"). Numerous people have said the projected images look overexposed relative to their monitors, but others (with calibrated monitors) refute this saying the projected images appear comparable to their screen image. In general, we have found the colors surprisingly accurate and the color gamut sufficient for most subjects. Our projection system (computer and projector) has been profiled using a sophisticated photospectrometer. We connect the projector using DVI (digital) rather than VGA (analog) to maximize image fidelity and to eliminate sources of drift over time.

13. Will email degrade my images?

    No. The image is completely unaltered by Internet transmission, assuming no data errors (which are very rare).

14. Should I crop to fit the projector's aspect ratio?

    You have this option, but you should use your artistic judgment to decide where to crop, and don't over-emphasize matching the projector aspect ratio (to use every available pixel). The projector has a 4:3 aspect ratio... that is, the full image area is slightly wider than it is high. A 35mm frame (with 3:2 aspect ratio) will fill the width of the image area but not the height; it will be displayed in the vertical center, with blank (black) areas top and bottom. A vertical shot will fill the height of the image area, leaving blank areas on the left and right. The blank areas don't seem to have much bearing on whether the judge selects your image as a winner.

15. What is the best choice of pixel dimensions?

    IDEAL DIMENSIONS: WIDTH no more than 1400 pixels HEIGHT no more than 1050 pixels

    Submit images having pixel dimensions as follows: width equal to or less than 1400 pixels, and height equal to or less than 1050 pixels.

    This is the native pixel resolution of our Canon Realis SX-50 digital projector - far below film scanners and digital cameras. You will almost certainly need to resample (downsize) your image to reach this size, unless you already cropped to a tiny section of your original photo. A common mistake is to reverse the numbers, setting horizontal size to 1050 pixels - not ideal.

    Images with too many pixels (such as native files from a film scanner or digital camera) may require severe compression (with loss of quality) in order to squeeze into the 1 megabyte files size limit.

    Images with too few pixels will suffer from reduced detail, and may look fuzzy when enlarged to fit the screen. Images having pixel dimensions which exceed 1400 x 1050 will be resampled to fit on the screen, either by hand (using Photoshop) or automatically by PowerPoint.

16. What about DPI (dots per inch) settings?

    This is surprisingly confusing! Dots per inch (dpi) is mainly a printing term, and certainly has no meaning for an image projected on a screen. For example, if we zoom the projector and change the size on the screen, the pixels per inch on screen does change - yet we haven't changed the image file or "resolution" at all. So the dpi setting in your image file means nothing, right?

    Almost, but not quite. Our competition software is based on Microsoft PowerPoint software. PowerPoint (still rooted in the printing world) tries to interpret each image based on printed page size, so it does try to obey the dpi number embedded in your image file. With extreme numbers (such as 4000 dpi from a film scanner), PowerPoint may have difficulty scaling your image to fit the screen, apparently caused by round-off errors. The result would be a slight shift in aspect ratio. To avoid that, please use a dpi number in the "normal" range, say 72dpi or 96 dpi. In this range, the exact number will have zero effect on your image display or quality.

17. Why was there a thin white line at the edge of my image?

    The likely explanation is that your image processing software added a band of extra (white) pixels to your image during cropping, moving, or rotating. Be sure to check your images against a field of black before submission, and you'll catch any white edges that were accidentally added. In Photoshop this can be done by pressing the " f " key one or more times to cycle through the full screen modes.

18. Is my B&W, or sepia, electronic image considered "Altered"?

    Rule #9, Unaltered Images, permits "rendering the entire image in monochrome" as an acceptable process for Unaltered Images. Therefore, black and white or sepia toned images should NOT be entered into the EIC Altered category unless some other alteration has been performed.

    But "images which are partly monochrome and partly color are not considered representative of observed reality, and are only permitted in the Altered Print and Altered Electronic Image Categories."