PDI Guidelines

digital projector

Guidance for Projected Digital Image (PDI) Competitions

This note sets out the rules for competitions or PDI guidelines for preparing images. For Rules about Print Competitions please see Competition Rules.

General conditions

  1. Usually a maximum of two images may be submitted per PDI competition. However, if it seems that the total of the entries will be too low for a realistic competition, the Chairperson may send out a club email asking for extra submissions. Black & White (monochrome) PDI images are judged separately from colour PDIs.
  2. Images must not have been used in previous print competitions.
  3. Images may be submitted by email to enen11four@btinternet.com.
  4. Each image must have a title in the format “TITLE by Author.jpg”.
  5. Entries should be received by the Competition Secretary via email by midnight on the Friday before the meeting of the PDI competition to the above email address . This allows them to be prepared for the competition. All entries via the email will be acknowledged. If you have not received an acknowledgement by 11 am on the Saturday preceding the competition, please make contact on highmount@btinternet.com. Submission dates are shown on the club’s programme.
  6. Images can be entered via storage media such as memory sticks at prior meetings.
  7. The Competition Secretary has the right to refuse late entries.
  8. Images may be captured by either digital camera or scanned from the entrant’s original slide or print. Laboratory scanning is permitted providing the original image was on negative, slide or print which was the work of the entrant.
  9. Images may be straight images with no manipulation, manipulated images or composites of several images providing that the originals were taken by the entrant using the photographic process. Wholly computer generated images are not permitted.
  10. Memory Sticks and CD’s should be available for collection at the event for which they were submitted, after which they will be kept in the Club’s storage cupboard for a reasonable time.

Acceptable Image Sizes

Banbury Camera Club has adopted the 1600 pixels (horizontal) x 1200 pixels
(vertical) standard prescribed by the Photographic Alliance of Great Britain (PAGB) and recommended by the Chiltern Association of Camera Clubs (CACC) of which Banbury Camera Club is a member. This means that portrait-orientated images should have a maximum height of 1200 pixels with a corresponding smaller width.

Image Format

The image format should be JPEG to ensure consistency the image and must have the file extension ‘.JPG’ or ‘.jpg’. Other formats and extensions, such as GIF, JPEG, TIFF, PSD etc. will not be accepted. Please note that an extension of ‘.jpeg’ does cause problems.

The image should ideally be saved at compression level 9-10, to retain quality. This is when the maximum quality is 12. If a percentage quality is offered in the menu choose 80% or 90%. It must be saved using the sRGB colour space The title MUST be in the format TITLE by Author. Note the capitals for the title, the use of spaces and lower case for “by”, as anything else creates extra work when assembling the entry as a whole.

Colour Space

Images should be in sRGB colour space for consistency &, ideally, this colour space should be embedded inside the image. If your images are in the Adobe RGB 1998 colour space, or anything else other than sRGB, then it is recommended that you convert the image to sRGB in your image editing software before submitting it. Otherwise your images may acquire a slight colour cast.

If this means nothing to you, the chances are that you are already using sRGB as it is generally the default colour space that cameras and editors use.


The following is meant to help you conform to the club’s rules & make the running of internal & external competitions as smooth as possible

Converting Colour Space to sRGB

  1. With image open in Photoshop, choose Edit
  2. From drop-down menu choose Convert to Profile
  3. In Destination Space – Profile choose sRGB IEC61966-2.1
  4. Press OK

Resizing your image

You should resize your image to fit within the pixel area specified above for the particular image format. This procedure is for Photoshop but it is similar for other image editing software.

  1. From the Image menu, choose Image Size. The Image Size dialog box is displayed:-
    Landscape Images (Click for example)
    Portrait Format (Click for example)
  2. Make sure the units you have selected are pixels (see above).
  3. Make sure the Constrain Proportions box is ticked. If your image is in
    Landscape Format, set the width to 1600 pixels. If your image is Portrait
    Format, set the height to 1200 pixels.
  4. Ensure that your image fits within the 1600 x 1200 boundaries. Note that the resolution does not need to be changed, as it is the pixel resolution that is important. Click OK to resize your image.

How to create a JPG file in Adobe Photoshop

Saving the Image

  1. From the File menu choose Save As. The Save As dialogue box is displayed:-
    Save Dialog Box (Click for example)
  2. Select the folder you want to save to. If saving to Memory Stick or CD choose My Computer and identify the device in the pop-out box. Type in the correct File Name, as will be put onto the competition entry form.
  3. Make sure the Format field is set to JPG.
  4. Click the Save button. The JPG Options dialogue box will then open:-Image Quality (Click for example)
  5. Set the image to Quality 9 or 10, which will retain the quality of the image without the file size being too large.
  6. Make sure the Format Options is set to Baseline (“Standard”).
  7. Click OK.

Using Export in Adobe Photoshop
All the above changes can be consolidated into the ‘Export As’ command which has recently been upgraded by Adobe

  1. From the File menu choose ‘Export’. From this Export menu choose ‘Export As’. The ‘Export As’ dialogue box is displayed. (Screen grab attached: Export As.jpg)
  2. Starting at the top right corner, in ‘Format’ select the JPG option.
  3. In ‘Quality’ set 80% or 90% if offered percentages.
  4. In the ‘Image Size’ section ensure ‘Scale’ is set at 100% & make sure that the ‘Resample’ box is set to Bicubic Automatic. Now click in ‘Height’ & set it to 1200. Click in ‘Width’, if it is 1600 or less, you have finished with this section. If it is greater than 1600, change it to 1600 & then click back on ‘Height’ for it’s new lower value. Ignore the value shown in the ‘Scale’ option.
  5. In the ‘Metadata’ section only the ‘None’ option should be checked.
  6. In the ‘Color Space’ section both ‘Convert to sRGB’ & ‘Embed Color Profile’ options should be checked. Wait for the blue ‘Export All’ button to be displayed in blue. (Screen grab attached: Export As – final.jpg)
  7. When you click the blue ‘Export All’ button, you will need to indicate on your computer where this image should be stored.
  8. If you did not do it in the saving process, rename your image according to the club format of TITLE by Author.