Want your submitted artwork to print with maximum accuracy and quality? Then this guide is for you.
If you can’t follow a guideline, it will not impact the judging process. Many of us don’t have departmental access to otherwise costly equipment like a DSLR or a scanner.
If your work is accepted, our design team can work with you on a case-by-case basis to sort out any technical challenges.
For best results, we ask that you send us your work not only in high resolution, but in an uncompressed format.
For Photography
TIFF or flattened PSD
For Paintings, Drawings, Sculptures, or Other Physical Mediums
TIFF, flattened PSD, or RAW. Please scan 2D work and photograph 3D work.
- If your 2D piece is too large to fit in a scanner, please photograph with a low-noise camera such as a DSLR, ideally under even natural or studio lighting.
For Vector Graphics & Digital Illustration
PDF, SVG, AI, or EPS
For Digital Design (Raster)
PNG, TIFF, or flattened PSD
- JPEG and HEIC are compressed formats. But if you only have a JPEG, send us that. Please do not convert it to the uncompressed formats listed above, as this enlarges the file size without improving image fidelity.
- Submitting JPEGs will not impact the judging process—we merely want to see your work printed in the highest quality possible!
Advanced Color Handling (Optional)
Physical mediums:
If you choose to submit a camera RAW file photograph of your piece, please record an additional image in the same lighting that includes a gray card, white balance card, or neutral sheet of paper. Don’t submit this gray balance reference image until your work is accepted.
Photographers, digital artists, and painters:
Scripps College Journal accepts tagged wide-gamut images for print.
Normally, images for web are described in the standard RGB, or “sRGB” color space.
Wide-gamut color spaces, like Adobe’s “Adobe RGB” and Apple’s “P3,” can describe more vibrant colors outside the scope of sRGB.
If your image is untagged, we assume it is sRGB when we translate it into the print color space. So if you submit a wide-gamut image that isn’t identifying itself as such (untagged), the colors will print incorrectly.
Please leave your material encoded in its native color space if you are not well-versed in color management. That’s totally okay!