Digital photo Shooter's Guide.

When sending photos to Field Artillery, our first choice is for you to mail or over-night glossy color prints (preferably) or black and white photos from traditional film cameras. This allows us to scan and work the photos in our software designed for publishing and ensures each electronic image has the high-quality resolution required for magazine publication.

However, if you must send us electronic photos, please read on to save us both a lot of time and trouble.

1. Shoot the Picture. When taking a picture, set the camera on the largest image size and the highest quality resolution settings the camera will allow. Set the image size the largest your camera will allow, usually "Full" or "XGA." The highest resolution settings usually are called "High," "Super Fine" or "Ultra-High." (Cameras set at "Standard" or "Basic" quality settings produce images only good enough for web sites.)

Do not shoot a small photo on a low-resolution setting so you can save data space on your camera's storage capacity. Shooting small images at low-resolution would allow you to take more photos per shooting, but we wouldn't be able to publish any of them.

The higher settings will create larger photos and files. A color photo usually results in a file of at least 2 MB and a grayscale photo of at least 1 MB. There is no "hard and fast" rule about the image's file size, but generally, the bigger the size of the digital photo, the better the quality of the photo.

If your camera gives you the option, shoot the photo as a PC tiff file. We also accept jpg files. When saving a file as a jpg, choose a "Quality" setting of "Maximum" or"10" and the "Format Option" of "Baseline (Standard)."

2. Download the photo in raw data. When downloading the file from your camera or its removable storage card to another drive, save the image in raw data. Do not manipulate the data (resize or try to edit the image). Let us take care of that.

And, please don't try to "beef up" the resolution of the small, low-resolution photo you shot. For example, shooting a 500-kilobyte image and enlarging the dpi until the file size is 1.5 MB will not make the image clearer--it only will make the image larger (bigger dots, not more of them).

3. Send us the digital photo. By following the first two steps, you'll have a large file for each photo. One way to get your photos to us is to send them on a 100- or 250-MB Zip disk or a CD. In some cases, a jpg file will fit on a 3.5 floppy disk--but do not resize the jpg photo to make it fit.

Our magazine's email will accept 5 MB or smaller per message. Do not try to send us larger files via email. You may be able to send us several photos by email, one at a time. Be sure each message with a photo attached includes a caption of who's doing what, when and where in that image and the article/author for which it is intended to illustrate.

Mailing or over-nighting single electronic photo files larger than 5 MB may be the best option. However, we can go out on the Internet and pick up large images you've loaded onto a special Fort Sill site. The Fort Sill ASP File Upload Site on the Internet can handle large/single file uploads without special software. To access the ASP site, go to our "Digital Shooter's Guide" on our homepage at http://sill-www.army.mil/famag. Click on the ASP File Upload Site link that's toward the end of the Guide.

If you have questions about shooting and saving digital photos or how to send them to us, call the Art Director at DSN 639-5121/6806 or Commercial [phone]/6806; our Fax number is DSN or Commercial 7773. Our Email is [e-mail]. Our mailing address is Field Artillery , P.O. Box 33311, Fort Sill, Oklahoma 73503. If you wish to over-night your photos to us, the street address is Building 758, Room 7, McNair Road, Fort Sill, Oklahoma 73503.

We know the majority of our digital shooters are not professional photographers. You are authors/photographers who are soldiers and Marines--even better, mostly Field Artillerymen--telling the story of the best branch and best Army and Marine Corps in the world.

Help us do justice to your articles by following these instructions for taking digital photos. Good Shooting!