John R

Thanks Mike, the info on Bridge is just what I am looking for. Of course a 1400 x 1050 will look better; when viewed 1400x1050. At 1024x768 the 1024x768, correctly prepared for that size, will look better. This is how it should be. I am saying v5 fails to show this, Windows, Irfanview and v4 of PtE do. On your last point I would say that the judge is not doing his job properly if he is not viewing the images at their correct size and using a non-calibrated monitor. I think often it may not matter since subject, composition, message, meaning will be far more important than detailed quality of the image but we are setting parameters for the competition and we are honour bound to view the images at those same parameters. Have you any experience of the any other software used for running competitions?

The judge is asked to view the images at 1024 x 768. If he/she does this an oversize image will nearly always be resampled down to 1024 and the entrant will be at a disadvantage - he/she is not in control of how the image will appear. Likewise smaller image than 1024 will either appear smaller (occupying a smaller area of the screen) and suffer lack of impact or (worse) be upscaled by the software and be considerable degraded. Hence the advice. "Images will be judged at 1024 x 768 and are therefore best submitted at that size. I can assure you that a 3000px original, viewed at 1024 will not look as good as a specifically prepared 1024 of the same iamge, viwed at 1024 - Just try it! (But don't use PtE v5 to do it - then they WILL look the same - and that is my whole point !)

And my point is that the 1024 x 768 should look better than the 1400 x 1050 when viewed at 1024 x 768 and yet in v5 it DOESN'T. In V4 it does. Therefore I feel V5 is not mapping a 1024 image correctly.

I would like to add that I hope Igor takes note of "bjc" remarks. Next to fidelity of display we need a facility to manage the images, move them around, delete them etc and this should not be too difficult. I have heard of PtE being used for this - in Project mode. I have yet to try that myself. Personally I can do without numbers appearing on the images and fancy databases of results - a spreadsheet can see to that. Display accuracy is a minefield. It appears no projector manufacturers are prepared to help and a I am told that Vista can change display setting without you realising it (the PAGB have just orederd two computers WITH XP, for that reason). No doubt we will look back in five years at this issue and chuckle a bit - it will all be sorted - but it is a bit of a pain getting there.

Sorry Dave, but I have posted so many messages about this issue to so many people and there are two threads going here too! I mean what I say. A 1024x768 image, displayed with the computer output set at 1024 x 768 does not appear any different to a 1400 x 1050 version of the same image - and it should be more detailed. It seems that this problem only exists in v5.x, the v4 available now on the wnsoft.com site seems OK.

Firstly, thanks for your help. I do use Windows, in our Digital KO, but, until now I prefered PtE for running a normal PDI comp. One thing that spoils the enjoyment of the audience is glitches in the presentation. So, I send the judge all the images before the comp and they mark them. On the night I then present them in +/- reverse mark order in a manually controlled PtE. But first we watch a PtE auto presentation of all the images. After the judge has talked us through the images we see a third PtE which is again auto and has the highest scoring images with titles and author names. The members love it. They also appreciate the fact that I give them every consideration in accepting the images - this is perhaps one reason why our membership is up by 33% and 75% of the members enter my PDI Comps. Back to the resolution thing. My experiment was remarkably simple. I took an image which had plenty of detail - it featured a small flower bud which was quite hairy. I prepared three jpegs SEPARATELY. One was the original size (already converted from RAW and cropped) of 1900 px width. The second was 1400 x 1050 and the third was 1024 x 768. When I vewed these in Windows, full screen with the display set at 1024 x 768 the 1024 x 768 looked sharper and more detailed than the other two images. I then popped the three images into PTE v.5.1. The three images LOOKED IDENTICAL - the "advantage" of preparing the 1024 had gone. I tried them in Irfanview - the 1024 looked best. I then discovered that I was not up-to-date with PtE and downloaded 5.5 - still the same. I then downloaded the old v4 version whice is now available and this displayed perfectly. I should have added that my v5 is a deluxe version - but I don't expect that that will make any difference. This all arose because one of the people judging one of our three PDI comps next year said, "Just send me the original files, not a PtE because it is not colour aware and doesn't display correctly". At present I still intend to use PtE on the evening but it will be v4.

You can have it both ways. Windows does it, Irfanview does it. Anything bigger than 1024 is shown 1024 anything smaller is shown true size. My concern is that PtE does not display 1024 accurately. It seems that the earlier version - prior to v5.0 does. Regarding rejecting entries - I would not want to do it. It is not too much to ask that the images are still displayed even if the preparation is wrong. Obviously we want a limit on file size though and I would reject big files. Where the person who incorrectly sizes or colour assigns their images will suffer is that their images will not be viewed as they hoped. This is why the VECC will accept anything up to 3000px but they say "the images will be viewed 1024x768 and are therefore best submitted at that size. Quoting print sizes - it is not the same. Prints have to be framed or put in boxes so it is fair to reject oversize stuff - if the rules state that. The L&CPU currently accept anything up to 20x16" (this will have to become 40cm x 50cm as the PAGB are changing from 2009). The sizing of PDIs is a problem for people, I have run PDI comps at our club for 4 years now and I am still getting 768px by 1024px submissions - from experienced members. Beginners I am prepared to help directly. John

Sorry but that doesn't help. The 1024 seems still to be displayed in the same way - though it is more difficult to make comparisons. Also, you would have to separately resize any files in your competition which were bigger than 1024x768 and you that means time and possible degrading of the image. I think the ideal projection program SHOULD resize images bigger than 1024x768 but display images smaller than 1024x768 at their true size. I have said elsewhere that the problem appears only to have arisen since v5.0

I think you must ensure that the program used for display resizes images which are too big. One of the first Nationals for PDIs was the Vale Of Evesham. They say that the image will be viewed 1024 x 768 and therefore is best submitted at that size, their actual limit is 3000px. The 3000px image will not look as good as a 1024 when viewed at 1024. The L&CPU caused consternation when they asked for images smaller than 1024 x 768 to have a black border to fill up to 1024 x 768. Those of us used to software which displays against black anyway were puzzled, but it can cause problems and you don't want your images displayed against white - this is a killer! You certainly don't want images to be enlarged either - that will destroy fidelity.

Sorry, I am a Newby here and we appear to have two threads discussing the same thing. This issue is my reason for being on this Forum. As I have said elsewhere the primary requirement of any program used to display images in a competition is that it is displaying them exactly as the author intended. PtE v5.5 appears not to display a 1024 x 768 image precisely, the older version now available on the website I think does. This is the result of my own experiments with both versions. Is is also said that PtE is not colour aware. I do not know how to test this. I would assume this is OK if all the images for your competition are submitted in sRGB. But this is a nuisance - what do you do about images which are NOT sRGB. To make it a requirement and disqualifying incorrect entries may result in upsetting a lot of entrants because, at Club level anyway some have trouble even with sizing. I think Bridge was used by the PAGB in the Great British Cup but you can get problems with images which have already been "flagged" before. The Federations are using a variety of programs.

I am looking again at Irfanview after using PtE many times as the viewer for digital competitions. The reason is that I am told PtE does not display images with true fidelity to size and colour. Following this criticism I tried images of different sizes in v5.5 and it appears not to display a 1024x768 image precisely. I cannot test how "colour aware" PtE is. I tried downloading the old PtE presently available on the website and that appeared to display the 1024 exactly. Regardless of image management the primary requirement of any program used in a PDI Competition is that it is completely faithful to the authors intension.