Model Gallery - Submission Guide

Image Quality - Writing a Description - Other Considerations

Here are the rules for image quality for the gallery. If you follow ALL of these rules then your models may be published almost straight away. If not then it may take weeks, if not months, to edit your images or obtain replacements from you that are suitable. Consider that you have spent a lot of time and effort building your model, so shouldn't you devote the same level of care to presenting it to the world?

1. DO NOT USE THE CAMERA'S FLASH! This is the worst thing you can do! It washes out the colour and detail. It reduces contrast and creates a very harsh black shadow outline around the model.

2. Photograph the ENTIRE model. Make sure the end of the barrel is not cut off. The absolute minimum is one complete photograph of your model, this will become the primary images of your set.

3. FOCUS! Make sure that every part of the model is in focus. Most digital cameras have features that let you adjust for this. A tripod or other steady surface will help steady the camera while taking the photo.

4. Use a mono-colour background. A garish background will distract from the model. It also makes the file size greater. light to medium blue is the best choice. Do not use a fancy backdrop, although these may make your model look more interesting they add to the file's overall size, this size penalty will be paid in a reduction of image quality and the model will appear of lower quality.

5. Do not alter the image. Any processing in Photoshop (or whatever graphics editing software you use) will result in the loss of the original image data, which means that quality will be lost. It is best to upload (or send) ONLY raw unprocessed JPEG files directly copied from your camera.

6. Do not save the image at a high compression, use the maximum quality.

7. Do not resize the image. Resizing will result in the image losing data again.

8. Do not take the photograph indoors, use natural light. Indoor lighting will alter the colour of your model. If so then we will have to spend a lot of time colour correcting your images, sometimes even guessing the correct original colours is very difficult for unknown subjects.

1. Provide a detailed description of your model. The bare minimum is the model kit name and manufacturer, what modifications you made (if any), the after market kits used (if any) and the paints used and weathering techniques. Unit marking information is also interesting.

2. Follow the naming convention used in previous models in the gallery, this will help other modellers find your model in the listing. Always put the subject first, then any extra information. NEVER put the scale or model kit company in the title, rather put this in the description.

1. Do not upload several set of pictures per day. In consideration of other modellers try to limit yourself to one per week. Flooding the system with several sets of images at once creates a lot of extra work. It is also advisable if you uploading a model for the first time to check to see if your image quality is suitable before uploading more models.