2010 6GC Calendar, the build... Options

[GriffGirl]

First I'd like to take a moment to thank everyone for their amazing support with the 2009 6GC Calendar. It was a great success and I got some really awesome feedback. So thanks to EVERYONE on the site who helped make it happen, from sending in your contributions to voting and of course buying one (or several in quite a few cases) calendars! I had a great time making it and getting to know a lot of you in the process and am looking forward to doing it again this year for 2010.

I learned a lot from some of the bumps and obstacles doing the calendar last year. One of the main things I that I got requests for was to allow more time for people to get their submissions in. Another thing that has room for improvement is to allow more lead-time so everyone gets their calendars well before January. That last batch of you guys didn't get yours until very late in the year, and as promised to each of you individually, I haven't forgotten about you. You know who you are. (and so do I )

You spoke, and I listened. And with that, I am officially opening up the Call for Contributions for the 2010 6GC Wall Calendar. Here's the details you'll need to know:

What: The Official 6GC 2010 Wall Calendar features photos of rides belonging to, submitted by, and voted on from members of the 6gc.net community. Photos do not have to be taken by members but do have to be credited properly. Cars MUST be 6th gen Celicas, preferably belonging members of the site. In some cases non-members will be considered, but I MUST have permission from the owner or the photo will NOT be posted for voting.

When: Submissions will be accepted from now through US Labor Day weekend, September 7th. Any entries after September 7th will not be considered. Round 1 Voting will begin one week later, on September 14th and will end the Friday of that week, September 18th. Round 2 Voting will begin the following Monday, Sept 21st and will conclude the following Friday, the 25th. Should a third round be needed, the timeframe for that will be determined at that time but will not extend beyond Friday, October 2nd.

Photo Criteria: You must follow this criteria in order to be considered or else your photo will not be considered or entered for voting.
• Minimum photo size of 2816x2112, or the maximum setting of at least 6MP camera, whichever is greater.. Bigger is better. Smaller sizes effect the resolution when it prints on paper and as such, WILL NOT be considered, sorry.

• Photos should be horizontally shot, not vertically. That means it needs to be wide, not tall.

• Each submission MUST CONTAIN THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION:*please note that not in all cases will all the info be able to be published, but I will include as much info as possible for the selected contributions
- Screen Name
- Real Name (will not be published)
- What Year your Car is
- Model (ST, GT, GT-Four, etc)
- Body Style (it's not always obvious in the photo)
- Transmission
- Color
- Performance upgrades, or stock
- Suspension
- Exterior Upgrades
- Interior Upgrades
- Location (city, state, country)
- YOU MUST INCLUDE THE ACTUAL FILENAME(s) OF THE PHOTO(s) IN YOUR EMAIL TO ME SO I CAN KEEP TRACK OF YOUR SUBMISSION(s)!!!! I get a LOT of emails for calendar submissions and don't have time to dig around in the email to figure out who sent what, so please just make it easy to keep track of for me! (thanks!)
- Please use the following naming convention example for you photos: username_2010.jpg (RAW files can be submitted as well, no problem)
- Please do not submit more than 2 photos. If you submit more, I will only use the first two that happen to appear. I will not review and choose for you. (I just don't have time!)

• Please email photos or links to your photos to me at 6gcCalendar (at) gmail.com. YOU MUST PUT THE WORD "CALENDAR" somewhere in the subject line so it doesn't get caught in the spam trap. I've set this address up specifically for this use and will not be using it for anything else. If you can, you should compress your photos into one archive. ZIP them or Stuff them. If you don't know what that means, google it.

• LINKS TO PHOTOS WILL BE ACCEPTED. Do NOT however link me to your Photobucket (etc) account though, unless you have a PAID "Professional" Photobucket (etc) account, as the images will be resized and thus unusable. You should use a free file transfer service, such as http://www.yousendit.com/. It is free, convenient and secure and a great way to send large files. (I think Supersprynt posted a link to another site like this as well. See his post below)

New This Year: All members whose photos are selected to appear in the Official 2010 6GC Wall Calendar will receive a free calendar! I'm sorry, but I can't extend this to each member whose car appears in group photos. In the case of group photos, a calendar will be sent to the person who submitted the photo. If for some weird reason I get the same group photo twice, it'll go to whomever sent it first.

Please post questions comments and suggestions in this thread.

GO!

This post has been edited by GriffGirl: Oct 23, 2009 - 5:25 PM

[Supersprynt]

I have a couple suggestions - I see people are already submitting photos.

First - it would probably be helpful if the files that people are thinking of submitting use a standard file name structure. IE: username_2010.jpg. Just a thought. Keeping the photo name like DSC_10001029101094.jpg is terrible to Michelle.

Second - probably a maximum number of submissions should be allowed, like: 1. With so much time available this year for decent photos - people should probably submit THE best of your choices.

Third - what PPI will these be printed on? If it's 300 - I'm thinking more of 3200x2400 resolution (8mp). 2200x1700 seems more like 150ppi for an 8.5x11 image. I would also not send Michelle links to photos - as uploading these to photosharing websites like photobucket, imageshare compress the image and will degrade the quality. If you must upload you're photo due to email restrictions, do so using rapidshare.de or another file sharing website.

Also - are all of those details about the car going to be on the calendar photo itself, or perhaps on the month area?

Sidenote: If anybody wants photos touched up for this thing - I'm more than happy to do a lil work on them.

This post has been edited by Supersprynt: Jun 16, 2009 - 5:52 PM

[GriffGirl]

I have a couple suggestions - I see people are already submitting photos.

First - it would probably be helpful if the files that people are thinking of submitting use a standard file name structure. IE: username_2010.jpg. Just a thought. Keeping the photo name like DSC_10001029101094.jpg is terrible to Michelle.

Second - probably a maximum number of submissions should be allowed, like: 1. With so much time available this year for decent photos - people should probably submit THE best of your choices.

Third - what PPI will these be printed on? If it's 300 - I'm thinking more of 3200x2400 resolution (8mp). 2200x1700 seems more like 150ppi for an 8.5x11 image. I would also not send Michelle links to photos - as uploading these to photosharing websites like photobucket, imageshare compress the image and will degrade the quality. If you must upload you're photo due to email restrictions, do so using rapidshare.de or another file sharing website.

Also - are all of those details about the car going to be on the calendar photo itself, or perhaps on the month area?

Sidenote: If anybody wants photos touched up for this thing - I'm more than happy to do a lil work on them.

The calendar doesn't print offset, it prints digitally, so there's a little room to get away with slightly lower resolution as the digital print isn't as detailed as offset print is.

HOWEVER:
11" x 8.5" = 3300 x 2550 pixels @300dpi. I don't know what proportion that equates to in digital cameras, as the proportions are different, but if the photos can be shot at a MINIMUM of 3300 pixels wide (horizontal orientation) then it should be just fine.

I realize that not everyone has a camera that will shoot that size. I've got a 6MP Canon S3IS–a fancy point-and-shoot but not a DSLR– that will shoot 2816x2112, which equates to roughly a little larger than 9x7. This is where the digital printing helps out a bit, as the resolution reads out approximately equal to 225-250 dpi. Can you tell the difference between that and 300dpi? Yes. Is it a hugely noticible difference? No.

With the understanding that not everyone has access to a DSLR or a 10mp camera, I will amend my original post to reflect a minimum size of 2816x2112, or the maximum setting of at least 6MP camera, whichever is greater. I want a quality calendar and can definitely see room for improvements where resolution is concerned over this years'. But I also don't want to exclude too many people from being considered for the calendar, because ultimately, this calendar is about the 6gc community. So that's my proposed compromise.

I continue remain open to thoughts and additional feedback.