This page provides a step-by-step guide to beginning Adobe Photoshop users who want to format their photographs for the Butterflies of India website. Freely available softwares such as gimp and Photoscape may be more accessible to you and the general guidelines below will be equally applicable to users of these softwares, with suitable minor modifications. Before you format your images for the website, however, please read important guidelines under Contributing media files (photos and videos) to Butterflies of India.
1) Open your image which you want to process in Photoshop from File> Open or simply drag your image into Photoshop window.
2) For our website, the image width has to be 680 pixels with black borders of 10 pixels on each side. To alter the size of your image, go to Image> Image Size or simply press Alt+Ctrl+I. In the Image Size dialog box, change the width to 680 and don’t forget to select pixels next to it. Make sure that you have selected the ‘Scale Size’ and ‘Constrain Proportions’ options from the same window. This will make Photoshop automatically calculate Height when you change the Width of your image. Also, in the same window, set the resolution to 72 pixels/inch.
3) Now, select Canvas Size from Image> Canvas Size or by pressing Alt+Ctrl+C. In the appeared box, change the Width to 700 pixels. This will automatically add borders of 10 pixels on each side of the image. Don’t forget to select Black color in the Canvas extension color in the same window. This will, of course, make the border black.
4) Now, you have to add borders to the top and bottom. To do so, again go to Canvas Size and then in front of the ‘Anchor’, click upper arrow to add border to the bottom and vice versa. Make the border sufficiently larger on the top so that it can include scientific name of the butterfly and immediately below its common name with font Arial, size 24. For the bottom, make sure that you can accommodate location, date and the copyright statement with font Arial, size 18. If you can’t fit the location with date in single line, you can spill it onto second by increasing the border. Check out the media guide on the website to have an idea of how the borders should look like. Make sure that you leave sufficient space above and below the text. It should ideally be 5 pixels. If you really want to measure the pixels, enable Rulers by pressing Ctrl+R and then double click on any ruler. Select Units & Rulers from the drop-down list and choose pixels in Rulers option. These would enable you to measure the size in pixels in any portion of your image.
5) Assuming you have managed to add borders to the image, now you have to add the information about your species. Select Text tool from Tools (if you have not enabled Tools, go to Window> Tools) and drag your cursor on the image to add text. Make sure you italicize the scientific name of the species by selecting Italic from the font style (Ctrl+Shift+I is shortcut for this. To revert back to regular, again press Ctrl+Shift+I). Choose the appropriate font size for the respective text from the media guide. To type © symbol, press Alt+0+1+6+9.
6) Before you finalize the formatting, please ensure that the image resolution is 72 pixels/inch, and that the image is 700 pixels wide (including the 10 pixel-wide black borders on either sides). The height of the image, including species names, locality information and copyright holder name, should ideally be between 550 and 650 pixels, but this may be variable depending on the subject of the image and the shape of the butterfly.
7) All the text you entered in the image would be in different layers. Such a multilayered file cannot be saved as a JPEG files, which is the format required for the website. To “flatten” the image, i.e., to merge all layers into a single layer, go to Layer>Flatten Image. Now you can save the file normally in the JPEG format. This can now be used to upload on the website.
8) For some reason, if you want to save the layered file, save it either as a TIFF file or as a PSD file, which, unlike JPEG files, can store layers. To save these layered TIFF or PSD files as JPEG files to send to Butterflies of India, open the files in Photoshop and save them as JPEG files.
9) Finally, save your picture with the species scientific name as file name, followed by an underscore and your name, again followed by an underscore and the media code; e.g., PantoporiaHordonia_GauravAgavekar_aa601.jpg.
10) Send your final formatted image to the This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . They will upload your file online after review.
Note that this website uses subspecific names for media files and other information. Most people do not know subspecific names, or they are not sure about subspecific identification. You will also need the media code number to format the image. To get the correct name of the butterfly (sub)species and the media code, write to the This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or the This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Alternatively, submit your formatted image to these two teams and they will add this information to the photograph before uploading the file online.
Read additional guidelines under Contributing media files (photos and videos) to Butterflies of India.
Cite this page along with its URL as:
Agavekar, G. 2011. Formatting images for the Butterflies of India website. In K. Kunte, S. Kalesh & U. Kodandaramaiah (eds.). Butterflies of India, v. 1.01. Indian Foundation for Butterflies.
