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Publishing / Barnes & Noble OVERVIEW: This document deals with the submission of digital photographs, and while it deals primarily with our production of calendars, it also pertains to illustrated books. We produce two types of calendars, wall and engagement. The primary and inset images for our wall calendars are horizontal or square. Insets should be somewhat iconic, recognizable at a glance from a normal viewing distance for a wall calendar. Images for the engagement calendars are vertical, though we can often crop a vertical from a high quality horizontal. SUBMISSION FORMAT: Submissions may be made in all formats and methods of delivery, including posting to on-line light boxes, FTP sites and CD/DVDs. Once we finalize our selections we need to reproduce from very high quality digital files, since the primary calendar images for our wall calendars are 12" high and up to 14" wide. As of 2009 we are no longer accepting film submissions – only digital. If you would like to discuss this further, please contact the photography director, Chris Bain, at cbain@sterlingpub.com. SCAN SPECS: High resolutions scans from transparencies must be made to approximately 12” high or larger (horizontal format) at 300-350ppi for our wall calendars. They should not be digitally enlarged from smaller scans. If you have razor sharp images that are scanned on high quality equipment to a smaller size, please allow us to attempt to enlarge them via interpolation, unless you are extremely experienced in this area. In any event, all high-resolution digital images will be test printed on premises so that we can determine whether or not the image will hold together at the high degree of enlargement required. Unless you are sizing the image to exact final reproduction size (see advanced section, below) please do not sharpen your digital files. FILE TYPES: Please save all files in TIFF format, not JPEG if at all possible. While JPEGs are convenient for downloading, it is a “lossy” compression scheme which degrades the image with every SAVE command. To be perfectly clear: Every time you save an image as a JPEG you degrade the image quality slightly. Repeated opening and resaving compounds the problem. DIGITAL ORIGINALS: If you captured the image(s) digitally in the RAW file format, feel free to submit 8 or 16bit TIFFs, as your software and understanding allows. Digital files shot on high quality cameras can withstand higher degrees of enlargement/interpolation than could scans from transparencies of the same size. COLOR SPACE: Scan or shoot into the largest color space possible, either ProPhoto RGB or Adobe RGB (1998). If you are unsure about this, just choose Adobe RGB. Do not save or convert to sRGB, which is a much smaller space (less color) or convert to CMYK (less color still). The more you give us to work with, the better the reproduction we’ll get from your images. MANIPULATED DIGITAL IMAGES: Since many of our calendars are being produced under license from the World Wildlife Fund, we must be careful to protect their name and reputation, as well as our own. It is perfectly acceptable to color balance, color correct, and even intensify colors in the manner of traditional photography, as one might do with a polarizing filter or through dodging/burning. We cannot accept images where the reality has been altered through cutting and pasting images together (collage) no matter how realistic the result may be. We cannot accept an eighth penguin added to a line of seven other penguins, for instance, so do not send us images where any elements were added. Normal retouching, including the removal of power lines, litter, etc., is permissible, of course. ADVANCED: If you are advanced in the world of digital imaging, and would like to exercise greater control in the final reproduction of your image, including final sizing and sharpening, we welcome the collaborative relationship. For our wall calendars, since the final horizontal trim size is 12" high by 14" wide, crop and size the image to 12.125" high x 14.25" wide. Leave the image in its tagged RGB color space (Adobe RGB or ProPhoto RGB) and flatten your image. Please indicate with your submission whether or not you have sharpened the image. The line screen for our calendars is 175 lpi on glossy stock. Our engagement calendars are 6" x 9" vertical. GAME FARM ANIMALS: We would prefer not to receive photographs of animals photographed at commercial game farms. With species where this is difficult or impossible (frogs, some butterflies and/or hummingbirds, most wolves, for instance), please clearly label them as "Captive" in the appropriate meta-field. MULTIPLE SUBMISSIONS: If you are submitting for more than one calendar, please separate each individual submission by subject. Please send your submissions to the appropriate photo editor if submitting on CD/DVD. You can ship them in the same package as long as they are separated by project within the package. NON-EXCLUSIVE VS. EXCLUSIVE: We need non-exclusive, World - English Language rights for the normal calendar season. If your other clients wish to purchase exclusive use of an individual image at the same time that we are reviewing the same image please let us know as soon as possible so that we can take those images out of further consideration. We welcome dialogue on any of these issues. Please direct any questions or concerns to a staff photo editor, or to Christopher Bain, Photography Director, Sterling Publishing/Barnes & Noble. (March 2010)
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