Lakeside Living Column

An Excellent Advisory by Shelley Edson

 

ajijic-dancers(Ed. Note: Shelley will soon be leaving the Ojo, but we thought that by publishing this information, it might greatly help our readers, as well as Tod Jonson and Barbara Clippinger, who will be taking over the column in April.)

 What is the deadline for sending you material?

Deadline is 6 pm on the 15th for publication on the 5th of the following month.

What information should I include?

Events need a brief description – what is happening, the time, and location.

Cost of the event – free or donation or purchase tickets. If tickets are needed, where and when can they be purchased?

If reservations are required, who do they contact – and if applicable, last day they can make reservations.

Please try to make the event sound interesting to Lakesiders – that is, why should they attend.

It is okay to refer readers to a website for more information if your event/activity needs more space.

Please send us original material. The column should not look like an outdated copy of the Guadalajara Reporter. So please – send us something slightly different – to include pictures different from what was or will be published in the Guadalajara Reporter.

Information for past events should be fairly current.

If your event is going to be included in the El Ojo LCS section, we do not want to duplicate it in the Lakeside Living Column.

How long is too long?

Please limit an event/activity description to 50 – to 100 words or less as I have limitations on how many words that can be included in the column. Multiple events would be limited to 50 words each or less. Lengthy articles will be pared down – best if you do this instead of me. If you don’t have software that automatically does a word count like Word 2007 - just google “word count” - lots of programs out there where you just do a copy and paste to determine the number of words.

And please, send me one submission for the next month’s column.

What is the policy for pictures?

One picture is encouraged and must be high resolution – see below for more information. Image size should be at least 3” x 5” – can be longer on each side, but a minimum of 3” or 4” on the shortest side. Please do not send us the same pictures that were or will be in the Guadalajara Reporter.

For the subject, just remember that the picture will be small – perhaps 3” x 2” - in the El Ojo – so focusing on something that will show up well in a small picture works much better than a long line of people. And every picture should tell a story!

Image resolution describes the quality of an image when printed – and to oversimplify, just think of a pixel as a very very tiny drop of color – and the number of pixels in each inch of a picture determines the quality (resolution) of a picture.

For pictures on the internet, images are usually 72 pixels per inch. When you see them on your computer monitor or other display device, they look fine. But there are not enough pixels in most internet images to allow them to print at high quality, at least not without printing the picture very like the size of a postage stamp. An example is – a low resolution picture would need to be 25 inches by 25 inches in order to be downsized to a small resolution image suitable for printing.

For pictures that are printed (instead of viewed on your computer monitor), more pixels per inch are needed – how many is going to depend on the quality you need. For Lakeside Living and El Ojo, the minimum is 200 pixels per inch.

So what does that mean for your camera? Cameras will have different settings for resolution. Mine has large picture, medium or small. If I select large picture, my camera will now take pictures at 200 pixels per inch. If I select small, it will take pictures at 72 pixels per inch. Other cameras may have settings for high, low or medium resolution – check your camera instruction.

If you can’t find the setting, try searching on google - - use the camera name + model number + high resolution example: “sony E52-C high resolution.”

Tip – Also look for pictures that are large files – more than 300K – if smaller than that, it is probably low resolution. You can check file size when you attach the picture.

If you use your camera software or programs like Picasa to download pictures from your camera, they, too, should have options for resolution. For more information, check the appropriate help files that come with your camera software or that are available with programs such as Picasa.

And any questions, please feel free to email me: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

 

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