Wordpreneur.com

BY LOUISE DOP

Most writers know that an eye-catching photograph can enhance the chances of acceptance but if it’s submitted in the wrong format any advantage will be thrown away. A glance through a selection of contributors’ guidelines reveals editorial requirements ranging from ‘non-matt prints at 72 dpi’ to ‘TIFF files split for CMYK.’ The uninitiated shouldn’t be daunted by such technical jargon. This simple guide to the more widely used terms will arm you with the knowledge required to submit your pictures correctly and, critically, to keep those editors satisfied.

Black and White Prints

Black and white photographs are usually submitted as prints. With nostalgia currently in fashion, old family snapshots are in demand. Don’t worry if they are a little worn or stained. Editors will overlook this if the material is suitably appealing and these pictures often look surprisingly good in print. Caption prints by applying sticky labels to the backs. Never write directly onto the print as this could ruin it.

Channel Splitting

Some editors ask for digital photographs that have been ‘split for CMYK.’ This means that the photographic image is separated into individual files for each color used in the printing process — Cyan/Magenta/Yellow/Black. This procedure is not as difficult as it sounds and most good photographic editing software will do it for you with one click of the mouse.

Colored Prints

These are acceptable to publications where high quality pictures are not essential. Contributions for readers’ letters, tips and fillers usually can be supplied in this way. Some editors may stipulate a minimum dpi, which refers to the clarity or resolution of the print. Images can be printed on matt or glossy photographic paper, depending on the finish required. Again, label with care.

Colored Transparencies

The preferred format for high quality, glossy magazines, transparencies are widely recognised as the “professional” choice for colored pictures. They are obtained using a traditional camera loaded with a special transparency film. Transparencies produce sharp images with excellent color reproduction. As labelling is awkward, make sure you provide an information sheet, outlining details of each image.

Digital Photographs

Photographs taken with a digital camera are stored as electronic files in the camera’s memory instead of on a film. These images can be transferred to a computer and manipulated using photographic editing software. They can easily be distributed on disk or by email.

Disk

This is the medium used to store and distribute digital images. While floppy disks used to be common, they do not provide enough storage space for large photographic images and if you want to submit digital pictures by post you will probably have to put them onto a CD. This is called “writing” or “burning” a CD and your computer must be equipped with a CD rewriter to perform this task. Writable CDs (called CD- Rs) can be expensive so buy in bulk and use the soft plastic sleeves rather than the bulky cases to store them. Invest in a special CD pen so that you can label the contents of the CD clearly for the editor’s benefit.

Editing Software

Digital images can be edited using the appropriate software, which is often provided with a new camera (for example, Photoshop, Photo Express and Paintshop Pro). Pictures can be resized, cropped, rotated or touched up to remove unwanted objects and red eyes. Special color effects can be applied, including conversion to black and white (known as greyscale). The software also lets you save images to the required file format.

Email

Digital material can be emailed to editors directly as a file attachment. High resolution images will result in large files (measured in Bytes) and these attachments could take a long time to send. A low resolution image of 30kb might take a few seconds to email but a high quality image of 1Mb could take at least 15 minutes on a slow speed connection. If you or your recipient is on a pay-per-minute Internet connection, this could be costly. Always get permission from an editor before sending files in this way.

File Format

Every file stored on a computer has a particular format, which determines how it will be used. Each file is labelled with a 3-letter extension according to its file type. For example, a text document will be stored as a different sort of file (filename.doc) to a computer program (filename.exe). Digital photographs can be saved in a number of different ways according to the editor’s needs. The most common are:

• GIFF (filename.gif) – Good for line art and logos: limited to 256 colors
• JPEG (filename.jpg) – Good for pictures: no color limitations
• TIFF (filename.tif) – Used to format files for the printing process: 2 colors only
• EPS (filename.eps) – Used to store pages containing both text and images

Resolution

This is a measure of the clarity or sharpness of an image — the higher the resolution, the better the photographic quality. A top-class glossy magazine will require high resolution while images for a webpage can have relatively low resolution. A digital camera stores the image information as millions of tiny pieces (pixels) and the more of these used by the camera, the better the photographs it can produce. When the picture is printed or viewed on a computer screen, not all the pixels can be resolved and the resulting resolution is often referred to in dpi (dots per inch) or ppi (pixels per inch). This is the number of ink dots used to print a linear inch of the picture or the number of pixels used to display one inch of the image on screen. An editor may specify a minimum dpi or ppi for submitted pictures.

Samples

Editors are usually very careful with submitted material but if you are worried about your precious snaps, send sample copies to start with. These could be created by scanning the photograph. You can then choose to print the results on ordinary cartridge paper (saving money), to save the scanned image onto a disk or to email the file directly. Make it clear that these are only samples and give precise details of the material that you can provide on request.

Scanning

Traditional prints and transparencies can be copied or stored in digital format using a scanner. Your scanning software will let you choose the file format and the resolution for the subsequent image. If you plan to print your scanned image, remember that its resolution will be limited by the dpi (dots per inch) capability of your printer.

Louise Dop is a successful freelance writer and technical author. Her ebook, The Writer’s Secret Weapon, brings together a collection of the best free online resources for writers and gives an insight into the writing life. With over 50 direct links to resources, this straightforward guide will show you the real-life tips and tricks that — armed with an Internet connection and basic computer literacy — you can try for yourself right away.

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