Published Oct 24. 2015 - 8 years ago
Updated or edited Jan 2. 2016

Submit a picture

About GFFPix - the User Picture Gallery

With the Global FlyFisher's fly fishing gallery - GFFPix - we're trying to create a homestead for the best fly fishing pictures on the web, and we welcome you to contribute to the collection.

The idea is to create individual galleries from each of the submitters as well as creating a steady flow on new, nice pictures for our visitors to look at.

We also use the pictures as a feature on our front page and offer our viewers a "picture of the week, day or even hour" - depending on the inflow of pictures.

We welcome anybody - anglers, non-anglers, children, spouses, amateurs, pros. Basically anybody with a relevant picture can take part as long as the picture adheres to the rules.

Please notice: this service is NOT meant to be a picture file deposit, where you can "borrow" free web space for your pictures to be displayed elsewhere. We welcome you to share your photos with us in this context, but will take measures to ensure that this service will not be turned into temporary free web space up for grabs.

Upload picture - requires that you are logged in.

Voting (temporarily disabled)

We urge people to vote for each other's pictures and comment on them if so inclined. Having your own pictures evaluated by other photographers is always fun and educating. We hope this can become a forum for critique amongst fly fishing photographers.

You can only vote for a certain image once, and even though it might be technically possible for a person to cast more than one vote for a certain picture, we will not tolerate excessive voting for one picture, and will disqualify what seems to be artificially high vote counts.

All that said we welcome you to GFFPix and hope you will enjoy the pictures as much as we do.


Tips for using GFFPix

GFFPix is very simple and straightforward to use, and basically you can just upload a jpg-picture and let us take care of the rest.

But you might get a better result if you spend a bit of time with your picture before submitting it. When using the system there are a few points you can observe.

The short version

  • Scale your image to 1024 pixels on the longest side and upload it.
  • We will assess the picture before we publish it, so it might last a little while before it is publicly accessible.
  • Since you are registered, the system will automatically create a gallery with your pictures.

...and the slightly longer version...

Set the size to 1024 pixels on the longest side

Size matters
First of all we recommend that you scale your picture so that it is 1024 pixels on the longest side. Your favourite picture-editing program will have a facility where you can set the pixel size of an image. Set the height to 1024 on portrait (vertical) pictures and the width to 1024 on landscape (horizontal) pictures. Don't mind the size of the short side. The picture will usually scale proportionally and the actual number of pixels on the short side will not matter. Same thing goes for the number of dots per inch (DPI). Leave this number where it is. It has no influence on the final result on the web.

The 1024 pixels correspond with the size of the largest copy of your picture on GFFPix. We create four copies of you images: one thumbprint with a long side of 200 pixels, one medium size picture with 600 pixels and one with the aforementioned 1024 pixels on the long side. The last copy is a small version for the front page of GFF, where we currently display the latest upload.

If you have no clue to what all this is about, just try uploading the image in whatever size you have.
Our system then tries to create the copies we need automatically.
We do set a size limit at 2400 pixels, so some files right out of the camera may be too big.

Scaling
If your picture is larger than 1024 pixels the system will scale it, sharpen it and save it again. This encompasses a potential loss of quality since the image-manipulating program on our server is configured to do this in one particular way no matter what type of picture you upload. Your image-editing program is probably a lot better at the task, so if you scale and prepare the picture yourself, the final result is almost sure to be better in the end. We will not do anything to the image if it has the right size from the start.

Sharpening
You can consider sharpening the picture after scaling it. Most programs have a sharpening filter - sometimes confusingly referred to as an unsharp mask. But use these filters with caution because they can introduce some really horrendous artifacts into the picture. We do recommend sharpening, but just be gentle...

JPG-quality
When you save your final picture as a jpg-file, you might have the option to decide how much the program will compress the image. The picture is compressed to ensure the best possible relation between file size and image quality.
Set this to a suitably high quality and don't worry too much about the file size. If your program has a quality lever ranging from 0 to 100%, select about 60-80% and inspect the final picture for quality. Some pictures can take a higher compression than others.

EXIF-information
Some camaras and some image programs encode the digital image with information about the picture - referred to as EXIF-information. GFFPix is able to read out this information and display it, so if your picture is EXIF-encoded, other users will be able to see a bit of technical information about it. Many photographers like to see such information, so if your software allows embedding EXIF-info, please leave the information in there. If this is pure nonsense to you, just do as you always do, and don't worry about it.

Uploading
Place the final jpg-file somewhere where you can easily locate it again and go to the GFFPix upload page. When the system asks you to upload a picture, click the Browse button and select the picture you just saved. Click the Continue button on our page, and wait for the file to transfer.

Transfer time depends on the size of your file and connection speed. It will usually just take a few seconds, but can last a lot longer on slow Internet-connections. Don't press the Continue button again. When the process is finished, you will be transferred to the next page.

Description
After the upload you will see a thumbprint of your picture below a small form. Enter the information about the picture in the form: a short description, the location of the picture, and up to three keywords.
You can be as detailed as you please with both description and location, but please limit the keywords to single words if possible, just generally describing the content of the picture. Short words like fish, flies, river, fight, cabin, view, waves etc. are great. We currently don't use the keywords, but plan to utilize them later on when we have enough pictures... and keywords.
Click Continue when you're done.

Categories
As the number of pictures has increased we have felt the need to have some kind of organization other than the chronological and the photographers. For this purpose we have created some categories, and we urge you to select the appropriate categories for your picture. You can select several if you want - even none, in none are suitable, but generally it should be possible to check a couple of categories.

Disable voting
If you do not want people to be able to vote on your image, feel free to tick the No voting checkbox. This will disable the voting facility and make the system omit the picture from all hitlists. The choice can be made individually for each picture and will not affect your average rating on the rest of your pictures

Yourself
Finally we need some information about you. We want a name and an email-address.
The name is just for convenience, while the email-address is your unique identification in the system. We use the email to correspond with you, but also to keep track of your pictures and create the gallery with only your pictures. You will have to give us a valid email-address in order to use the system.

Next time you upload a picture, the system will have recorded your personal information as a cookie on your computer and the form will already be filled out with your name and email.

Confirmation
Once you are done, the picture and your information has been stored on our server. We will send you a confirmation through email that the picture is registered, and soon after that have a look at your upload. If it complies with our rules and standards, we will publish the picture and email you the address, so that you can assess the result yourself.
If your photo for some reason is not suitable for publication, we will also email you, and explain our reasons for not accepting the picture.

Your own gallery
If you upload more than one picture under the same email-address, you can create your own fly-fishing gallery. You will be able to show others your pictures, and visitors on GFF will be able to see yours as well as other contributor's images in GFFPix.
As it is right now there are no bounds or limits apart from these rules, so feel free to upload as many images as you wish. Things may change later, but for now the scene is yours.


Rules for submitting pictures

  • The picture must be of a fly fishing relevant situation or subject.
  • The picture must be of a good photographic and technical quality as subjectively defined by the Global FlyFisher staff.
  • Only JPG-files are accepted.
  • The original picture file must be between 1024 and 2400 pixels on the longest side.
  • We recommend that you upload a good quality picture 1024 pixels on the longest side.
  • The system will scale all files larger than 1024 pixels on the longest side and delete the originals
  • The original file can be no more than 3 megabytes in size.
  • Pictures can be portrait (vertical) or landscape (horizontal) - or square for that matter...
  • The system will rename all files uploaded
  • The Global FlyFisher will need the name and a valid email-address of the submitter of each picture.
  • The email address will NOT appear anywhere on the pages. We just need it for validation.
  • The Global FlyFisher will need a description of the picture (caption) and preferably an indication of where and when it was taken.
  • It is the responsibility of the submitter to ensure that copyrights are respected and that people in the pictures have agreed to have the picture published.
  • The Global FlyFisher will accept no responsibility if an infringement on anybody's copyright or lack of consent takes place. That is the sole responsibility of the submitter.
  • The Global FlyFisher staff will evaluate every single picture and accept or reject it. Our decisions are final and not up for discussion. We will try to give a reasonable cause to the submitter.
  • No picture will be released to the public before this evaluation.
  • The Global FlyFisher may use the pictures in other parts the site, but will not use the pictures elswehere - online or in print.
  • The picture remains copyright of the original photographer, and The Global FlyFisher will not use it in any other way than here described without the original copyright owner's clear permission
  • The Global FlyFisher staff will reject any picture that does not adhere to these rules and exclude any submitter who repeatedly breaks the rules.

To further point you in the right direction

We do not reject pictures of catch and kill fish, but certainly prefer Catch&Release-pictures where appropriate. We will gladly publish a good portrait of dead fish by the water, but will hardly accept a picture of the same dead fish taken in someone's back yard or kitchen. This is not a place to advertise your large trophies, but a place to share nice experiences.

Fish pictures with people in them have a strong position compared to pictures with fish only. We like to see catches, but are much more biased towards catchers

Landscapes and sunsets are also welcome, but will we prefer pictures with fly fishing relevance in the form of fishermen, water or other fly fishing elements

Pictures of common tourist attractions may also be welcome if they are good and have relevance, but ordinary snaps from holidays are not our favorites.

You can read more about the process of uploading pictures in the User Guide above and a little about the thoughts behind this service in the About-section in the top.