Send Slides

An increasing number of juried exhibitions are allowing digital images as an entry option instead of slides or prints. I advise my clients to send slides if they have a choice, and in this article I'll explain why.

What You See Is What You Get
There's little doubt that the rush is on to embrace the digital era in juried exhibitions and art fairs. Many calls for entry now permit CD, email, or online submission of digital images in lieu of slides or prints. And each year brings more shows that have made the switch to 100% digital for entries and the jurying process. New technology brings with it new problems, though, and digital images are no exception.

The traditional 35mm slide may seem old fashioned, but it's a tried-and-true technology, even when the slide is produced from a digital image. If you submit a slide for a juried exhibition, you know exactly what the juror is going to see when the slide is projected at the gallery ... the same thing you saw at home. And perhaps most importantly, the colors in your artwork will look the same.

... But Not With Digital
With a digital image, the accurate reproduction of colors is not automatic and should not be assumed. The colors that you and the juror each see depend very much on how the computer screen or projector used to view the image is set up and calibrated.

The color of each pixel in a digital image is determined by three numbers, or values, representing the intensities of red, green, and blue light. Every computer screen or projector uses a slightly different formula to create the color from a particular set of values. This is "device dependent" color, and it usually results in inconsistent reproduction of colors when an image is viewed on different equipment.

If the computer screen or projector has not been calibrated, or "profiled", the colors a juror sees in an image of your artwork may not be the same ones you saw at home. A device profile is created by comparing the colors produced on a computer screen or by a projector against standard reference values. This profile is unique to the device and makes the color "device independent", resulting in more accurate and consistent reproduction of the colors in a digital image.

Get Calibrated
Too few artists submitting digital images, galleries requesting them, or jurors viewing them understand the importance of using a computer screen or projector that has been properly set up and calibrated.

Specialized hardware and software is required to create a color profile for a computer screen or projector. An entry-level package for profiling computer screens can be purchased for under $100 and will work for most artists and galleries. Packages for profiling a projector are more expensive.

So get your computer screen or projector calibrated, but until this becomes a common, accepted practice ... send slides.

And click here to learn more about color profiles in the Learning Center at ShootMyArt.com™.