Please keep the 2011 calendar in mind so that we don't have to scramble come November, 2010.
(the following is mostly the same post from last year because I'm too lazy to re-type the whole thing)
I would like to thank Christine (amazincc) and Bob (pit$bull) for offering to help gather pictures for next year's calendar. Many (if not most!) of you will be hearing from them to get full size versions of the pictures that you have posted. I simply don't have the time to hound people for pictures, and they are more than willing to help me out in that department! So you might as well email the pictures when asked, I don't always remember to follow up... but they will!
I'd love to have an even larger selection of pictures for the individual calendar next year. I am very selective on the size and composition of the photos for the individual, so we will be keeping our eyes out for potential images over the course of the year. We have had more than a few non-forum members buy the calendar so I'd like to appeal to a larger audience and high quality is mandatory.
The first, and most important, criteria, is the size of the photo. It is impossible to enlarge a small, low resolution picture to a large, high resolution picture. Literally impossible. After the size, it is the focus (I really hate using blurry pictures in any of the calendars). After the focus it is the composition; especially for the individual one.
As people see good shots in the gallery (or elsewhere) please post in that thread to remind the original poster to email me the picture. Not everyone checks this thread, so telling them in the actual thread makes more sense. Let them know that you think the shot would be good for the calendar - whether it is the "multi" or individual. Too many fantastic pictures of the dogs get "lost" as the months pass. You don't have to post only your dog, if you notice a great picture of someone else's just say "that's a great picture!!! send it in for the calendar!!!" then refer them to this thread.
The calendars and the shirts are the main financial support of the forum, with the staff making up the difference!
As you take pictures that you like of your dog(s) please email them to me as LARGE as you can - calendar@pitbulltalk.com PLEASE, name your picture the name of your dog!!!!!! It was hard for me to keep track of which dogs I had already used, and as I got more frusterated with the pictures this year I started to give up on the ones that were not named correctly. The emails sometimes bounce if they are too large, so keep them to around 5 mb or so. If in doubt, only attach one picture per email.
So...
PLEASE PUT YOUR DOG'S NAME IN THE FILE NAME.
I repeat....
PLEASE PUT YOUR DOG'S NAME IN THE FILE NAME!!!!!!!
This year, the images that I get that don't have the dog's name in the file name are going to be deleted. I'm not going to even down load them to my computer, I'm going to delete the email without even looking at the picture. These calendars take a LOT of time and a LOT of effort. It takes you exactly 3 seconds to change a file name, it takes me HOURS to make calendars, if you can't bother to spend 3 seconds of your time to make my life just a little easier while I make the calendars, well, then you won't be seeing your dog in them.
Send the largest version of the images that you have. I have plenty of room in my email account, so don't scale them or change them. If the file is under 2 mb it's probably not big enough for the "one up" calendar, but I can probably use them for the "collage" calendar.
The easiest way for you to get me the full size is to send me the picture file from your camera. Photobucket and other online sites scale them. Your original files are on your computer where ever your picture software puts them when you download them. You can find that info in the preferences for the picture program, or just do a search. Most of those programs create a small version of the picture for fast viewing (and that is NOT big enough for me to use) but then access the large one for printing. Trust me on this one!!
I'd like to detail why we didn't end up with a collage calendar for 2009 or 2010.
When it was time to put it together this year, I put all of the pictures together in a folder. I then sort them into month folders, then open them and start arranging.
Here's the problem... well over half of the 200 or so pictures were NOT named with the dog's names. So I ended up with the same dogs over and over and over. After a while all of the dogs begin to blur together. Frustration sets in, I close the files and stop working. I start again a day or so later. My patience runs out faster each time. I finally just gave up.
I LIKE THE PROJECT. I am NOT complaining about the project itself. However, it is a nightmare when I don't get just that little tiny bit of help from all of you.
My goal every year has been to do themes for every month. A month with kids, one with snow, spring, fall, sports, sleeping, clowning around, etc but that's hard because I don't always have enough of one topic. I don't mind having dogs in the calendar multiple times if we do themes, but if people don't mind going even one step further, that would be awesome! When you go to change the name of your picture to (for example) inara.jpg, instead change it to inara_sleeping.jpg! Then I know what dog it is AND what she's doing! One extra word might just make all the difference!
Of course, themes might not work again, it all depends on the number of pictures that we get, but I'll give it a go!
PLEASE, look through your picture folders! Send in LOTS! but send in the BIG ones! The ones FROM YOUR CAMERA! There is plenty of room in that email inbox, I promise. If you get a bounce, let me know, but you shouldn't.
If you are using iPhoto - You need to go to the folder where iPhoto puts your originals, those are the ones I need. When you email directly from iPhoto, it sends a scaled down version. So you'll have to attach the full size picture directly from your email program and not use the mail feature in iPhoto itself. You can search for the file name to find it, let me know if you can't locate it, I'll dig around on my Mac and see where mine are, but I'm not sure that they will be in the same place on yours.
Thank you!
Michelle, Christine and Bob