Focus on Fungi Competition

[RobSutton]

Just got a copy of the October issue of Outdoor Photography and their competition of the month on the "If you only do one thing this month" page inside the back cover is asking for fungi shots. Only a small prize £50 but fungi shots of the quality posted on this site would, I think stand, a real chance.

[matt_xyz]

thanks for the heads up Rob, I'm certainly planning to take some fungi shots in the next few weeks. I'm hoping for some nice sunny Autumnal mornings....

Matt

[FungiJohn]

I think we might have one or two images in our Gallery
John

[jimmer]

I saw that ad and thought of you fungi guys. You have given me the get up and go to take fungi and I really enjoy it. I may enter what do you think of my chanced you lot have got exellent ones I hope you go in for it regards Jimmer

[FungiJohn]

I can't afford the magazine and it's only £50 for the winner, so that’s me out but good luck!

John

[big bill]

The closing date for enteries is the 31st Oct,sent in as tiffs on a CD with a print out of pics

[stephen p]

Planning to get some shots this Weekend.

The woods near me are not wet and stinky so perfect for fungi

[jimmer]

John I can't afford the mag someone kinly buys me one now and again

[pressld2]

I've sorted out my best 10 from Clumber and will definitely be entering. I shall wait until a bit nearer the deadline though just in case I get anything better on my local patch - unlikely!

Dave P.

[Kayleigh]

How much does the mag cost

[big bill]

Originally Posted by Kayleigh

How much does the mag cost

The Mag costs £3.75,but enteries are to be in by close on 31st Oct,upto 10 Tiffs on a Cd or 10 trannies and send to Focus on Fungi,Op,86 High Street ,Lewes,East Sussex BN7 1XN. You have to include a daytime contact details of shots and SAE with you submission.

Hopes this helps you Fungi people out you never know you may win

[Kayleigh]

Originally Posted by big bill

The Mag costs £3.75,but enteries are to be in by close on 31st Oct,upto 10 Tiffs on a Cd or 10 trannies and send to Focus on Fungi,Op,86 High Street ,Lewes,East Sussex BN7 1XN. You have to include a daytime contact details of shots and SAE with you submission.

Hopes this helps you Fungi people out you never know you may win

Thanks for the info Bill.
I haven't got any decent fungi pics lol

[pressld2]

Isn't converting to CMYK fun!

They specify that submissions should be CMYK tiff files but, surprisingly, Lightroom doesn't allow export directly to CMYK. So I have exported as sRGB tiffs and then used Paint Shop Pro to convert to CMYK. However the converted images are much darker and have some colour shifts so I've had to play with curves, colour balance and saturation to try and get them somewhere close to the look of the originals.

Anyone got any tips for doing this? Does Photoshop make a good job of the CMYK conversion to start with or do those of you using that software still have some tweaking to do?

Dave P.

[Keith Talbot]

Originally Posted by pressld2

Isn't converting to CMYK fun!

They specify that submissions should be CMYK tiff files but, surprisingly, Lightroom doesn't allow export directly to CMYK. So I have exported as sRGB tiffs and then used Paint Shop Pro to convert to CMYK. However the converted images are much darker and have some colour shifts so I've had to play with curves, colour balance and saturation to try and get them somewhere close to the look of the originals.

Anyone got any tips for doing this? Does Photoshop make a good job of the CMYK conversion to start with or do those of you using that software still have some tweaking to do?

Dave P.

does anyone know why these competions dont except jpegs

ive got 1 or 2 good pics but i wouldnt know where to start converting to tiff and reading daves problems i dont know if i could be bothered going through all that,

i would imagine theres plenty of people out there like me who could produce a good pic but not technically inclined to enter them into comps

just wondered if there was a reason

keith

[pressld2]

I don't know much about this subject but I believe that CMYK files are needed for the printing process used for books and magazines (offset litho?).

RGB files are fine for displaying on a PC monitor which uses a mixture of Red, Green and Blue to produce a full colour display, but the printing process mixes Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and blacK inks so a CMYK file which specifies the correct values for those colours is preferred.

But I'm 100% with you, Keith. Asking for CMYK files in submissions from professional photographers is fine but I think it's a bit restrictive for a competition aimed at the magazine's readers, most of whom will be amateurs and many of whom will not have access to professional software packages like Photoshop CS. They only print 10 or a dozen so you'd think they could do the necessary conversions on the winning images.

Maybe (whisper it) it's done deliberately to limit the number of entries? The magazine has a circulation of 36,500 so if just 1% of the readers send in 10 images (if you're going to the trouble of posting a CD you might as well send the maximum number of shots allowed) that will give them 3,650 shots to wade through. I have trouble editing 300 images after a day's shooting!

I was reasonably happy with my conversions in the end (although I still think the RGB versions looked slightly better) so I posted the CD this morning. Fingers crossed!

Dave P.

[Keith Talbot]

thanks dave,your probably right (with a whisper ) if every joe bloggs entered they wouldnt have time to get the magazine out,

also the fact that its only £50 (not that id turn down £50) theres probably alot of people that wont bother with the conversion business,

if it were say £1000 im sure i could learn pretty fast

keith

p.s good luck with your pics

[RobSutton]

Originally Posted by pressld2

Isn't converting to CMYK fun!

They specify that submissions should be CMYK tiff files but, surprisingly, Lightroom doesn't allow export directly to CMYK. So I have exported as sRGB tiffs and then used Paint Shop Pro to convert to CMYK. However the converted images are much darker and have some colour shifts so I've had to play with curves, colour balance and saturation to try and get them somewhere close to the look of the originals.

Anyone got any tips for doing this? Does Photoshop make a good job of the CMYK conversion to start with or do those of you using that software still have some tweaking to do?

Dave P.

They don't say anything about CMYK files in the feature at the back of the magazine that asks for submissions to this competition? So if it's true I can't understand how they expect most people to know this

[pressld2]

You're right Rob, at the back of the mag they just ask for "no more than 10 TIFFs on CD or 10 transparencies". I was reading the submission form (on page 50 of the October edition) which says "When burning your CD, create two folders: one containing CMYK TIFF files, saved at 300dpi, and a second with low-res files saved at 72dpi." They don't say what format the low-res files should be so I sent jpegs.

All a bit confusing really.

Dave P.

[mike from ebbw]

I had some Fungi pics that I was really happy with and thought about sending them in.After I tried to convert one to TIFF at 300 dpi it took so long and ended up such a big file I gave up.
Good luck to anyone that entered!

[chris/gilbert1]

cheers for the notice bout the competition. definately give that a go just need some nicer weather for the right light now

[pressld2]

Welcome to WAB Chris/Gilbert!

Sorry to disappoint you but the closing date for entries was 31 October. Don't let that stop you photographing fungi and posting them here though...

Dave P.

[chris/gilbert1]

arh dam it. never mind could you keep updates of up and coming competitions please, im somewhat new to wildlife photography but hold a real passion for it and want to start exploring strengths of my work.