Sending photos to The Oakland Press
Working at a newspaper, I receive many emails with photos. It’s nice that people typically email them as .jpg files. Those are the best. (We can also use tiffs). The quality of submitted photos is usually pretty good but sometimes not good enough for the process that photos go through to end up on a newspaper page. The printing process can stress the quality of a good photo.
For starters, the size of the photo needs to be 300 KB or larger, unless it’s a portrait picture of an individual. Even those need to be larger than 50 KB. We can't use photos that are copied from a website.
The next big thing is focus. If it is blurry to look at it, it will not print well. Digital cameras are great and inexpensive. But there is one thing people often don’t realize. You need to depress the shoot button slightly, to engage the automatic focus before taking the snapshot. That makes a sharper photo.
Photos with people in them are always preferred. We need the names of anyone in the photo, from left, unless there is more than 30.
As far as composition, check that there is nothing distracting or blocking the view of the point of interest. There are other things you can do to make the photo more interesting. If it’s an action shot, give room in front of the direction of movement.
If you have the opportunity for multiple shots, take several and then decide on the best 2 to send to the newspaper. We usually only use 1 photo per story.
If you have a business-related photo and story, send to kathy.blake@oakpress.com. For a local news story and photo, send to julie.jacobson@oakpress.com. For a feature-type story and photo, send to monica.drake@oakpress.com.
If you have any questions, feel free to call The Oakland Press newsroom at 248-745-4619.
For starters, the size of the photo needs to be 300 KB or larger, unless it’s a portrait picture of an individual. Even those need to be larger than 50 KB. We can't use photos that are copied from a website.
The next big thing is focus. If it is blurry to look at it, it will not print well. Digital cameras are great and inexpensive. But there is one thing people often don’t realize. You need to depress the shoot button slightly, to engage the automatic focus before taking the snapshot. That makes a sharper photo.
Photos with people in them are always preferred. We need the names of anyone in the photo, from left, unless there is more than 30.
As far as composition, check that there is nothing distracting or blocking the view of the point of interest. There are other things you can do to make the photo more interesting. If it’s an action shot, give room in front of the direction of movement.
If you have the opportunity for multiple shots, take several and then decide on the best 2 to send to the newspaper. We usually only use 1 photo per story.
If you have a business-related photo and story, send to kathy.blake@oakpress.com. For a local news story and photo, send to julie.jacobson@oakpress.com. For a feature-type story and photo, send to monica.drake@oakpress.com.
If you have any questions, feel free to call The Oakland Press newsroom at 248-745-4619.
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