We’ve devised some simple guidelines for submitting digital photos to Wheaton Magazine.
Although many photos you take with your digital camera or smartphone will look great on your computer screen, the transition to print publication isn’t always possible because the printing process demands photos with far more information encoded in them; these photos are called high-resolution images.
Send photos featuring alumni.
The Wheaton Magazine only accepts photos that prominently feature alumni. The magazine only will publish photos of children or babies if two or more alumni are present in the photo. Unfortunately, as cute as babies are, we cannot accommodate all the photos of them.
Consider photo quality.
Photos should be sharp and clear. Photos that are out of focus or that have harsh shadows, over-exposed areas, or “red-eyed” subjects, may not be usable. In particular, with photos of groups of people, photo size is important so each face can be sufficiently amplified. Extreme close-ups of faces, or photos tilted at odd angles, may not translate well into print. Also, do not submit photos in which someone has obviously been cropped out, and do not send in photoshopped images.
Use a higher resolution setting on your digital camera.
When taking Class Notes photos for the magazine, please set your camera’s image size to at least 1280 x 960 (or set your digital camera to high, “superfine” or whatever term is used on your camera for the high-resolution option). This will ensure that your photo meets the minimum technical qualifications for inclusion in the magazine. Also, do not send photos with a date or timestamp, or watermarks of any kind.
Email photo from a smartphone or another device at its original size, or at the highest resolution possible.
At a minimum, photos must be 4X6 at 300 dpi. A good indicator that you have a high-res photo is that it exceeds 1 MB in size. Photos downloaded directly from Facebook, or other social media galleries, are too small to publish. The owner of those photos must email the original photo at a high resolution to ensure it is printable.
Send your photos as attachments.
We prefer images as JPEG (.jpg) or TIFF (.tif) files. Please do not embed images in email messages or word processing documents.
If you have questions about submitting digital images, email [email protected]. Please direct questions about this document to [email protected].