South Broward High School - Class of 1958 Website

Picture Guidelines

Note: In this document, the terms "picture" and "photograph" may be used interchangeably. Click on an item adjacent to the plus sign to expand the item. When expanded, click on the item again to contract it. This is referred to as an "Expandable/Collapsible Outline."

Note: It is acknowledged that there is always opportunity for differences of opinion with respect to many of the issues addressed in this document. Accordingly, these guidelines should be interpreted as suggestions rather than as hard-and-fast rules.

+ Picture Composition

The individuals to be included in a picture should either be posing for the picture or at least be aware that a picture is being taken. Those pictures which appear to be taken more or less haphazardly by someone traversing the function area are generally poor candidates for inclusion on the website because of the difficulty in identifying the individuals (see Subject Identification below). Also, these individuals may not be photographed in a complimentary manner (see Subject Fidelity below). When taking an indoor picture using a flash, the photographer should strive to have all subjects equidistant from the camera; this lessens the likelihood that foreground areas of the picture will be too light while background areas are too dark.

+ Classmate Inclusion

All photographers at class functions should strive to take pictures of all classmates attending the function. At prior functions, some classmates were not represented in the pictures that were taken. To accomplish this objective, and to ensure subject fidelity (see below), it would be advisable to take multiple pictures of all individuals.

+ Subject Fidelity

A picture may be rejected if, in the opinion of the Webmaster, a subject or subjects are photographed in a manner that is not favorable to the individual(s). An exception would be a picture taken to capture an intended effect, such as the "Retro Players" photographed at the 45^th Reunion. The Webmaster may wish to contact a classmate for prior review and approval of a picture before posting it on the site.

+ Picture Adjustments

Using photo editing software, various adjustments can be made to a photograph before posting on the website. These include color adjustments - lightening/darkening picture areas, adjusting flesh tones, etc., removing red-eye, or cropping (removing) extraneous data from a picture.

+ Submission Procedures and Processing Guidelines

The Webmaster can accept photographs in a variety of media - conventional prints, digital images contained on a CD, or digital images sent as an attachment to an e-mail message. If submitted as prints or as images on a CD, after processing, the Webmaster can return the media to the photographer upon request. For conventional prints, the Webmaster scans them at 300 dpi (dots per inch). Given that the standard for photographs published on the web is generally 72 dpi, this ensures that the pictures will be of high quality and resolution. After scanning and the application of adjustments (see Picture Adjustments above), the images are then scaled in accordance with our website resolution of 800 pixels wide by 600 pixels high while observing the aspect ratio (the ratio of the width of an image to its height) of the image. For digital images submitted on a CD or attached to an e-mail message, the processing guidelines are essentially the same as for prints after they have been scanned. For more information on digital images, see Digital Cameras and Images below. If digital images are to be sent to the Webmaster as an attachment to an e-mail message, they can be compressed into a single file (i.e., a ZIP format), but be aware that a message sent to an EarthLink address (the Webmaster's personal ISP) cannot exceed 5MB in size. If the message, including attachment(s) exceeds 5MB but is less than 7MB, it can be sent to the website address: webmaster@sbhs1958.com.

+ Subject Identification

Attempts will be made to identify by name all individuals in a picture. This particularly applies to classmates and spouses. An obvious exception would be group pictures or pictures for which it would be otherwise impractical to identify all the individuals. Non-classmates/spouses can always be cropped out of a picture before posting (see Picture Adjustments above).

+ Digital Cameras and Images

There is a wealth of information on the Internet dealing with evaluations of digital cameras and techniques for their effective use. For a discussion of some of these techniques, refer to an article entitled "Digital Focus: Take Sharper Pictures" that is available on the PC World website. The URL of the article is: http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,126978-page,1/article.html. There are links to other relevant articles under the "Recent Columns" heading. Another good resource is the Digital Photography Review site.

A few general comments about the effective use of digital cameras:

From the Advanced Camera User Guide for the Canon PowerShot A630 camera: "Before you try to photograph important subjects, we highly recommend that you shoot several trial images to confirm that the camera is operating and being operated correctly." This suggestion would seem to apply to all digital cameras; proficiency can only come from repeated practice. Also, become familiar with the features of your camera and the settings you can make when taking pictures in varying lighting situations.
If you are "serious" about digital photography, you may wish to consider two accessories: a dedicated flash that will give you greater picture depth than is available with the flash that is installed in most digital cameras and a tripod, almost mandatory to avoid camera "shake" when shooting at slow shutter speeds.

For pictures to be posted on the class website, the following guidelines can be adopted:

If you are taking pictures primarily for posting on the site, or other websites that have been designed with a resolution of 800 x 600 (800 pixels wide, 600 pixels high), consider setting the Recording Pixels to this resolution or, if unavailable, to the next greater setting. A side benefit of this strategy is that you can store more images in the camera's external memory. Consult your camera's documentation or refer to the Megapixel Calculator website for file sizes, memory card capacities, and other statistics.
If your camera allows you to vary the JPG compression, set it to produce the highest quality image. If the resulting image(s) are too large, they can always be compressed prior to posting on the site.
If you also intend to produce prints of such pictures, set the Recording Pixels to produce the print size you desire based upon the print quality you seek. Refer to the Design 215 website for information on the maximum print size you can produce based on the megapixels of your camera and the desired print quality.
Since most class pictures are not taken in special lighting situations, the camera's automatic mode should be acceptable, especially since adjustments can always be made to the images before posting (see Picture Adjustments above).
If you intend to make your own picture adjustments and also resize the images to 800 x 600, make the adjustments before resizing.
If pictures are shot at a resolution of 640 x 480, they will be posted on the site at this resolution and will not be enlarged. Increasing the size of such an image seriously degrades its quality.

+ 50^th Reunion Impact

These guidelines and procedures may be revised depending upon what is decided for the 50^th reunion in September 2008.