Processing Photograph for Competition - must be under 5Mb?

Two_In

Two_In

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I'm entering a competition and submitted images must be in JPEG format and under 5MB. According to Photoshop my RAW photographs are 68Mb and when saved as Jpegs are about 12.5Mb.

How do I get my photo under 5Mb and without getting myself disqualified for submitting a sub standard image? I have Photshop Elements.

Any advice much appreciated
 
Two_In said:
I'm entering a competition and submitted images must be in JPEG format and under 5MB. According to Photoshop my RAW photographs are 68Mb and when saved as Jpegs are about 12.5Mb.

How do I get my photo under 5Mb and without getting myself disqualified for submitting a sub standard image? I have Photshop Elements.

Any advice much appreciated
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I surmise this is an online competition, if so do the rules also give the pixel dimensions they require as that will impact on the file size!

If they don't give the pixel dimensions, then ask them because IMO they are not giving you enough information to make an informed decision as to how to "present" your submission ;)
 
Thanks for your reply. Sorry I haven't been very clear. It's actually a painting competition - I submit a photograph of my painting.
I'm confident that the photo of the painting will be more than acceptable (I have had much advice from this forum in the past). But my concern is that by reducing the size of the file with PS, it will arrive in front of the judges looking very poor. I have no idea how the judges would view the photo either? Maybe blown up with a projector? I also crop the background out, filter out the specks where the lights catch brush marks and canvas, and maybe tinker a little with brightness and contrast (but only just enough).
 
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Look at your file pixel dimensions, do they specify a preferred size.
You could reduce it to say 3000 on longest side then no need to increase JPG compression
 
Musicman said:
Don’t save/export the JPEG at 100% quality (i.e. minimum compression)

There should be no discernible difference if you save it at 90% quality and it could feasibly halve the file size
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Is there anyway I can check this to see if the image will look ok for the judges? Email the image to myself maybe?
 
Just do some experimenting. As a start, resize the image - for a 3:2 ratio image this could be to 2400 pixels on the longest dimension, for instance. If your image crop was square, try 2000px x 2000px. Such an image after resizing should save out under 5Mb as a jpg at max quality (100%). If over the limit, drop the quality to 90%.

The exact jpg size varies according to pixel dimensions, compression setting and the tonal variety in the image.

No need to email the image to yourself - you already have it! Just examine it. Trust your eyes.
 
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camera clubs specifiy 1600 px wide by 1200px high (including porttrait orientation shots) as this fits the projection - East Anglia CLubs are all required to use this for competitions.
At 95% Jpeg thats around 1Mb file for a 6000x4000 image starting at 24MB its perfectly fine image.
 
I do not know how you get a 12.5MB JPEG; it would need to be of huge pixel dimension.

Dave
 
Look at the ppi (Pixels per inch) setting, if its 300 you can reduce it to approx200 and it will still look ok if they want to print it, it can be reduced to 72ppi as a minimum for screen use.
 
seaodyssey said:
Look at the ppi (Pixels per inch) setting, if its 300 you can reduce it to approx200 and it will still look ok if they want to print it, it can be reduced to 72ppi as a minimum for screen use.
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PPI is utterly irrelevant. It will make absolutely no difference to the file size.
 
DemiLion said:
PPI is utterly irrelevant. It will make absolutely no difference to the file size.
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It depends how he is resizing it, If he is resizing with out changing the measurements to pixels it will make a difference, I think the default in photoshop is inches. I no longer use PS so can't check
 
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