Uploading Images
When you upload an image it is always placed into your Image Library. Competitions and Galleries can then use any number of links to your image. Multiple organizations can link to the same images in your library.
File Names
Your file name must conform to Windows naming conventions. It cannot start or end with blank characters, it must be less than 220 characters long, and it cannot contain and of these characters: \ : / * ? " < > |
File names can assist in providing a title and other information about your image. See the Help topic on "Optional File Name Formats".
Image Titles
By default, the title of you image will come from any embedded title in your image file. If no title is found, the title will come from your file name. You can choose to have only a portion of your file name used for your title if you use one of the optional naming formats.
Image titles must be unique to each author. This allows identification of an image without any confusion. After uploading an image you will have the opportunity to change the title selected by the upload process. You can also edit images in your Image Library to change titles at any time.
Image Retention
Note that images in your Image Library that are not used in any competition or gallery will be automatically deleted three months after their upload date.
Your image always creates a thumbnail image, which is never deleted unless you delete the image in your library. It is retained as a historical record of an image you entered into a competition.
Competition entries hold a reference to a full size image from your library. That reference will preserve the full size image in your library. After a number of years, your organization may "release" its reference to the full size image, allowing the full size image to be deleted if there are no other references.
Image Sizes
The system maximum image size is 7680x4320 pixels. If your image exceeds the system maximum size allowed, your upload time will be unnecessarily long and your image will be resized after the upload completes. If your image file size exceeds (20.0MB), you may see an error message and the file will not be uploaded.
Note that the "resolution" value you might specify for an image is never used. It is simply a number to assist in calculating a print size. Only pixel dimensions matter.
Competitions may specify a maximum image size in pixels. This limit restricts the number of pixels displayed when judging and when transmitting images to the ICM program.
Website judging and voting restricts the "logical pixel" dimensions displayed by a browser. If the operating system or browser uses a "zoom" setting to magnify displays, the website needs to send the browser up to double the number of logical pixels to provide the full fidelity of the image. If judges use high resolution monitors you should increase the maximum size allowed for images, perhaps up to the maximum physical dimensions of monitors used. These might be 4K monitors.
It would be reasonable to upload images that are double the size dimensions specified for a competition, up to the maximum physical size that might be used by a monitor. This allows more pixels to be sent to a browser that is running with a "zoom" factor. The larger sizes are not needed by the ICM program, which is unaffected by any "zoom" factor.
You should upload an image size large enough for any organization or competition that may use your image and allow the system to downsize your image as necessary to comply with competition limits. Click here for information on how to resize an image.
Duplicate Images
You must avoid uploading duplicate image. Each image you upload must be significantly different from images already in your image library. The difference must be obvious when viewing thumbnails of the images.
If duplicate images are detected after submission, your images may be later merged. This will change all reverences in competitions, galleries, or any other usage, to point to the preserved image. Your image title would change on the deleted image in this process since its references would now reflect the preserved image.
If you need to revise an image, edit the image from your Image Library. This might be necessary if you need a larger version of the image for a new competition.
If you want to submit the same image to more than one competition, upload the image only once. Make your additional submissions from your Image Library.
Restricted Images
Images that are adult in nature, depict violence, or are suggestively sexy should be marked as "restricted". This marker prevents the display of the images on the website unless the viewer is a member and is logged into the website.
Images may be automatically marked as restricted by the system. This is determined by a Google image processing service and may not be wholly accurate.
Authors can also manually mark images as restricted by editing the image in their Image Library. Authors may change their profile settings using the menu "My Account", "My Account Settings" to allow their images to only be displayed to members that have logged into the website.
Metadata and EXIF Data
Some EXIF data is collected and saved by the system. A very short summary of the values can be optionally displayed in galleries and for competition images. The values displayed include the camera, lens, shutter speed, aperture, ISO, and image creation date.