Field Artillery digital photo shooter's guide.

We, at Field Artillery, prefer high-resolution digital photographs that you can email to us (about 500 KBs to 1 MB for each color photo). When shooting digital photos for publication, there are some technical steps you can follow that will save us both a lot of time and trouble.

1. Shoot the picture. When taking a photo, set your digital camera on the largest image size and the highest quality resolution the camera will allow. The highest resolution settings usually are called "High," "Super Fine" or "Ultra-High." (Cameras set at "Standard" or "Basic" quality produce images only good enough for websites or PowerPoint presentations. Just because a photo looks good in those formats does not mean it is printable in the magazine.)

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 won't be able to publish them.

The higher settings will create larger photos and files. A color photo usually results in a file of 500 KBs to 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.

If your camera gives you the option, shoot the photo as a tif 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)."

One piece of shooter's advice is to get close to the subject--the closer, the better. Even if you shoot the photo on a high-resolution setting, if the subject doesn't fill the frame, by the time we crop the photo, we may not be able to use it.

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. Do not crop, resize or try to edit the image in any way. This includes adjusting the brightness and contrast.

We know what settings work best according to the specifications of our printer. We also have the latest professional digital image manipulation software. Let us take care of that.

And, please don't try to "beef up" the resolution of the small, low-resolution photo you've shot. For example, shooting a 100-KB image and enlarging the dpi (or ppi) until the file size is 500 KBs will not make the image clearer--it only will make the image larger (bigger dots, not more of them).

Important: Do not import the photos into Microsoft PowerPoint or Word and send them to us. They are unusable in those formats.

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-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 8 MBs or smaller per message. Do not try to send us larger files via email. You can send us several photos by multiple emails. Be sure to include caption information (who's doing what, when and where) for each photo attached and the associated article/author. Also include the photographer's full name and rank for credit in the magazine.

Mailing electronic photo files larger than 8 MBs is one option. However, we do have an FTP site available for uploading photos. No special soft-ware is required to upload your images. Simply send us an email requesting instructions for uploading your photos on our FTP site.

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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; the 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 73503-0311. If you want to over-night your photos, the street address is Building 758, Room 7, McNair Road, Fort Sill, Oklahoma 73503-5600.

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 Artillery-men--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!