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Digital Photography Guidelines

British Columbia Magazine is dedicated to publishing the best, most beautifully reproduced photographs of the province. We value the skill, innovation, and artistic vision of the many talented B.C. photographers who share their work with us, and we are committed to adopting new technology that enhances our relationships both with our contributors and our readers.

While transparencies remain the preferred format of British Columbia Magazine--producing superb reproduction when drum scanned by our prepress, and far easier to edit quickly on the light table--in skilled hands, today's high-megapixel digital cameras are capable of delivering excellent reproduction.

Shooting and submitting digitally for a professional publication requires a considerable investment, both in equipment and the acquisition of knowledge and skills. Photographers embracing digital SLRs are strongly encouraged to learn about and establish a regular digital workflow.

At this time, we will consider digital photography if the following conditions are met:

Shot with a 6 megapixel or higher professional digital SLR camera.
Shot in raw format at your camera's highest native resolution, submitted at no less than 300 dpi.
Your last name embedded in each image file name. (E.g. Smith_cougar_001).
Images accompanied by caption info regarding the specific subject and location of each image.
Images saved on CD/DVD in Mac format: please note that disks cannot be returned.
Each file on the disk previously opened and checked by you for disk errors, transfer errors, or corruption. Disk read/write errors are not uncommon with large amounts of data and you must submit error-free disks.
Images culled to include only your best-quality shots. Whether shooting with digital or traditional media, photographers are responsible for culling; unedited disks of hundreds of raw images are unacceptable.

Note: Please do not send links to images on your personal website. Our staff is limited and we simply do not have time to review websites, given that the image quality on such sites generally does not represent the sharpness and overall quality of the original.

Submission Format

We require assigned photographers to submit:

1) a disk of images in JPG format, for initial photo selection, PLUS

2) a disk of RAW images, sized no less than 300 dpi. Our prepress will customize the shots for our specific press needs. Please note: while 32MB files at 12" wide usually meet our needs, if we select an image for a double-page spread we may require a file as large as 70MB and 17" wide.

Photographers who have the advanced technical skills to Photoshop their own images for colour saturation, sharpening, and so on without losing critical image data (one of the most common problems we see in digital submissions), may submit:

1) a disk of images in JPG format, for initial photo selection, PLUS ONE OF THE FOLLOWING:

2a) a disk of images in RAW format, no less than 300 dpi, with your XMP sidecar files attached, OR

2b) a disk of images in DNG format, no less than 300 dpi (the DNG format will automatically include your adjustments while preserving the original information), OR

2c) a disk of cleaned, cropped, production-ready images in TIFF format, in 24-bit RGB colour, 8 bits per channel, accompanied by a disk of the original RAW files as backup. Note: It is the photographer's choice whether to indicate settings for all submitted images, or just a select few.

Noise Reduction

Whenever possible, shoot with your camera's recommended ISO to minimize noise. Underexposure and the consequent over-processing will drastically increase noise. Expose to capture as much information as possible without losing highlight detail. If in doubt, overexpose rather than underexpose.

Colour Space

Colour space settings in Photoshop should be set to Adobe 1998 or ProPhoto. Adobe 1998 is intended for high-end print application and is the desired setting for images processed to TIFF. Do not use sRGB for working space, archiving files, or digital delivery, as it is a setting intended for images destined for website use and will eliminate important colour information from your files.

Captioning

We require specific caption info for every photograph we publish: where each shot was taken, season, specific names of lakes, peaks, etc. Digital image files can offer an advantage here: various software programs (Photo Mechanic, iView, Adobe Bridge) allow you to easily embed complete captions in your image files, in large or small batches. Note that every image must be captioned. As with slides, when we begin the photo editing process, the digital "selects" are moved from the overall submission to a smaller "selects" file the art director will use to create the final layout. If your caption info isn't embedded in every file, then it becomes a real hassle to track it down once it's time to write the caption. Sadly, some great shots are vetoed for lack of caption info.

File Format Glossary

JPEG files (.jpg) are great for e-mail, casual use, newsprint, and some non-critical magazine reproduction at smaller sizes. They're smaller than other formats so you can squeeze more onto your storage medium. However, when you create jpegs, you're discarding image information, forever-not conducive to excellent colour reproduction.
RAW files are unprocessed images your camera has captured. For them to reach full potential, they need additional processing (something our prepress experts are best equipped to do). By shooting and saving in RAW (16-bit colour), you get a better image than saving as a JPEG (8-bit), and you won't have discarded any of the image's data. Downside: RAW files are larger and take longer to write to your media, and the files require special software to view and work on them.
DNG (.dng) are "digital negatives" created in Adobe Photoshop CS2. The DNG format preserves the original RAW file while allowing you to add metadata directly to the file, eliminating the need for sidecars and simplifying your workflow. An alternative to saving files as DNG is to save the RAW files with your adjustments in an XMP sidecar file.
TIFF (.tif) is the next best format. The advantage is there is no post-processing needed, and this format is more widely used. The downside is that it's going to be a very large file, far larger than a RAW file.