2: Prepare Images
Submissions
- Details
- Category: Whale Sharks
- Published on Saturday, 11 July 2009 03:57
- Written by Chris
- Hits: 693
How To Prepare Images For Submission
Preparing your images correctly and making sure you have the right part of the shark is crucial to our identification process. Please remember that this research and conservation is being carried out by volunteers, this is not a charity and we are not accepting donations; with that in mind, please don't create extra work for us and try to follow these instructions to a tee!
How The System Works
To make it easier for you to prepare your images for the database it is neccessary for you to understand how the software works so this is a brief introduction.
Essentially we are producing whale shark fingerprints. Due to the fact that a whale sharks pattern remains the same throughout its life we can use 3 reference points to map out the location of all the spots in a similar way that GPS works using satellites. The three reference points are crucial and are shown in the image below; they are the top and bottom of the 5th or rear gill slit and the trailing edge of the pectoral fin. We then mark out all the spots and the software compares the fingerprint to all the others in our database using spot pairs to compare similarities.
Photographing The Correct Part of The Shark And Preparing Images
If your images are high resolution as in the photograph taken below then you don't need to be so close to the shark as it is possible to expand the relevant area and still see all the reference points clearly. It is vitally important that the shots are taken as perpendicular to the shark as possible; in English that means at 90o to the shark, neither from above or below, nor from infront or behind! If the images are a little off perpendicular in any direction they are probably still admissable.
What we don't want is our email address clogged up with huge images so they need to be resized first. We only need the section shown in the orange frame below and the images should be at a resolution of 72dpi and the width should be between 500 and 800 pixels!
You can also take images from video but they must be as clear as possible and when you export as a still image make sure that it retains the right dimensions if you are shooting in wide screen.
We also need to know the date and location of the encounter, the estimated size of the shark and whether it was male or female! For details on how to determine sex please scroll down the page!
Summary
1. Get the right shot at 90o as above including 3 refernece points.
2. Crop your image in photoshop to include the section of the shark as shown in the orange frame above.
3. Resize your image to 72dpi and between 500 and 800 pixels wide.
4. Now you are ready to send the image to us with all the relevant information.
