John Shaw Nature & Digital Photography Workshops Click here for locations and dates
				Mexico's Colonial Heartland March 17–24, 2007
				Horses and Icons of the Wild West August 26–September 1, 2007
				Masai Mara Wildlife Reserve, Kenya September 7–21, 2007
				Australia Wildlife November 1–20, 2007

On a recent Joseph Van Os Photo Safari I was asked about how to submit digital images to a client. The person asking had at one time sent slides (remember them?) to an editor, but was totally lost now that he was shooting digitally. Let’s assume you have been asked to send some photos; here are some possible ways to do so.

First of all, you need to know the client’s specifications and follow these exactly when submitting. Some things to consider: file type (.psd, .tiff, .jpeg), bit depth (8-bit or 16-bit), file dimensions in pixels, file size in megabytes, file name convention, color space (Adobe RGB, sRGB, etc.), and resolution (dpi or ppi). Typically most clients want a flattened but not sharpened 8-bit tiff file in Adobe RGB at 300 dpi at a certain size with caption information in the IPTC file info—but be sure to check with the recipient first. Send an editor a 16-bit image file in ProPhoto RGB, unsized, with no information attached, and it is unlikely that you will be ever contacted again. (That is, unless you have the only pictures of Elvis and Bigfoot sharing cheeseburgers down at the local drive-in.)

If you have only a few images to send, the easiest way is via the Web. For small files just attach them to an email (don’t embed them into the body of your letter). However, most email services limit the size of any one email to around 5 MB. You could send multiple emails to send multiple images, but sending a larger image file requires another method.

This is where special file transfer websites come into play, if you have a fast Internet connection. Two that I’ve used with good results are www.yousendit.com and www.dropsend.com. You can upload a file to these sites, which in turn send an email to the recipient telling them there is a file waiting for download. Both services are free up to a certain point. For example, yousendit.com has a "lite" version that allows you to send as many 100 MB files as you wish. For $4.99 a month the file size increases to 2 GB per file. Dropsend.com gives you five free file uploads per month, with a file size of 1 GB each. After this they offer several incremental plans which give you more files per month. Both sites are easy to navigate, so take a look.

If you need to send a number of large image files, probably the simplest method is to burn a CD and FedEx it to the recipient. But there are some considerations you should remember.

Make sure the files are actually on the CD. This seems like an obvious point, but I have received blank CDs from tour participants who wanted to show me some pictures from our trips. Once you burn the CD, open it and check that not only are the images really there but that they will open correctly.

Make the file name useful and distinct. Digital cameras output files with names something like DSC_0123.JPG. Be warned that someday in the future you’ll take another image with the exact same file name. I would strongly urge you to rename your image files to a more useful format (see my article on Downloader Pro, archived on photosafaris.com), but keep the names relatively short. Don’t use names such as Kathy’sPictures_RockyMountainNationalPark_2005vacation0123.jpg (and I didn’t make up this file name—it was sent to me!). Don’t put any special characters in the file name, such as ©, $, ! or &, as not all software can read file names that include symbols.

The file name should not be the caption information. That’s what the IPTC panel is all about. Almost all image management programs allow writing this information which will become part of the image file. Here’s the IPTC option from Nikon View (Nikon’s free browser):

If you’re using Photoshop just select File > File Info and you get this:

Fill out the appropriate boxes—and don’t forget your name. Make the caption—or "description" as Photoshop calls it—useful to the recipient. A bad caption: "Pretty flowers." A good caption: "Indian paintbrush covers a spring prairie in the Texas Hill Country near Austin."

Be careful using stick-on labels on a CD. Don’t add one small label, such as an address label, as this will make the CD unbalanced which in turn will probably make it unreadable (or worse, jam up the CD drive). If you use actual CD labels, purchase good ones and make sure they are centered on the CD, with no wrinkles, and have no air bubbles. I use Avery CD Labels, (product #5692), and apply them carefully by hand. At the most basic, write your name on the CD using a Sharpie marker (NOTE: These should not be used on long-term storage CDs as the inks can eventually destroy the data—special solvent-free markers are now available for CDs.)

But the most important piece of advice I can offer: Before you send any images whatsoever, make sure your recipient really wants to see them. For example, it's prudent to never open email attachments and never download unknown files. When I get emails with attachments, I always play it safe and simply delete them without ever opening them.

Announcement: John's latest book, John Shaw's Photoshop Guide, has recently been updated and expanded. This is an eBook on CD, with step-by-step instructions on producing

	John Shaw

the best digital files. The new version is available only from John's website: www.johnshawphoto.com