Gosh, compared to film, I am still so excited about how darn simple it is to take good digital photos close up and in dim light, that I have never bothered with "touch ups". I guess it is the botanist in me: I want to see everything as Mother nature made it. Besides, no time for such things for me.

My perfect photo is not a picture of a perfect subject (or a perfectly made picture); it is a perfect depiction of whatever the subject is.

Oh, I have a bird poop on an iris bloom today, a dark burgundy one! Not a pretty sight!

You take the good with the bad.....

The light colored rock in the middle background is peppered with Serviceberry seeds. The remnants after rains had washed the purple poop away.

I agree, I would leave that as is!
But I have some pretty bloom shots that may have just a bit of a dirt speck that would ruin it for me personally so a quick touch-up takes just seconds to remove it.

>>>>But I have some pretty bloom shots that may have just a bit of a dirt speck that would ruin it for me

Indeed!
To each, their own, and there is nothing wrong with that!

You are all making me rethink things....I have added some things with a small flaw such as a dry leaf on the ground....I had better learn how to improve that.

How is a leaf on the ground considered a flaw.

These so called "flaws" are the easiest way I can tell that a photo is not dubious and copied from somewhere else, i.e. from an online catalog where pics may have been doctored horrendously.

Now through experience, I have found that someone(s) will take this personally and/or consider it offensive. So let me reiterate that I am not attacking anyone, mean no disrespect, and am not trying to force my opinions on anyone.

Leftwood said:To each, their own, and there is nothing wrong with that!

virginiarose said:How is a leaf on the ground considered a flaw.

that's not a flaw. I'm talking about something like in the middle of my pristine white clematis bloom, I splashed some dirt on it when I watered.

I removed a couple off of this one but not all, I'm not aiming for some super model airbrushed look, just don't want my eye to immediately go to the distracting spot, which originally it did. And I use it sparingly, only if it's really something distracting from it's beauty.

I think we are chatting about pictures in general as well as banners. I always take multiple shots from different distances and angles and then choose the best to contribute......I'm certain other do this........always striving for perfection.

Well sure! Banners are pictures. I must admit that my eye did go straight for the poop and I was blinded by it, I did not even notice what kind of plant it was, too busy looking at the poop. It's just me, I am easily distracted, so I take that into consideration. When I first started editing I spent hours trying to remove a poop stain off one of my hosta. LOL.

probably easier to go outside and wash it off!

That is what I was thinking after I destroyed my picture!

Haven't checked in here for a while! Just to clarify, yes, the height has to be EXACTLY 150. It will not accept a submission of a banner that isn't 150 pixels high. The width is a lot more flexible, as long as it is more than 1200. I've found 1500 to be my ideal, but some pictures just don't lend themselves well to that proportion.

Thank you for the update Angie.

First, I think it is neat that anybody can submit banners, not just a few select folk.

I tried my hand yesterday for a second time trying to make one. I have the actual making of the banners down. I take photos with the highest resolution. I just checked, they come out 4608 x 3072 before any editing. I use GIMP. After choosing a possible photo, I crop, going the length of the full image. Then I go to Scale Image; the short side, I change to 150. Most often what I run into is a photo not long enough. So...

What I am thinking is I need some assistance with the actual photo taking. I've not zoomed in as close, but when I go to view it at 100%, I find my photos are not as crisp as I'd like. And zooming in to focus on a butterfly or bee does not work for a banner. :)

Here is one I did yesterday, but after reading some of the posts in this thread, 1200 wide may not be ideal. And overall I am not real happy with it, though I like the plant. I shrank it again to fit into the post.


I did not read through every page on this post, so I might have missed something. I would appreciate any help.
Thank you.

When I make a banner, I look for an image that (at full resolution) has a nice pretty group of blooms taking up the entire image. Like this one for example:



Then I open it full resolution (I also use the gimp), zoom out so I can see it all, and then I use the razor tool to cut out from edge to edge a nice long thin selection that looks good. That'll usually give me a 500 high by about 5000 wide image. Then I rescale it down to 150 height and I end up with about 1500 pixels wide. I hope that info helps!

And please keep in mind, the ATP logo pushes the banner over and then puts the logo on. Only the first 1/2 of most banners are visible to most viewers. So that means either the right side or left side (I can flip them) should be in focus and pretty much the main interest of the banner.

I made some banners but not sure that I did them right. What's gimp?