Contributing Images to the Bugwood Image Database (BugwoodIDS)
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The University of Georgia Bugwood Network operates a set of educational web sites in cooperation with a wide array of federal, state, and private agencies, as well as with many individuals, colleges and universities. Images available through The Bugwood Network image sites (Forestry Images, Invasive.org, IPM Images, and Insect Images) can be used for educational and noncommercial purposes with no royalties and fees contingent upon credit being given to the photographer, the photographer's affiliation (if appropriate) and to the site serving the images (Bugwood.org) thereby ensuring that full descriptive and photographer credit information is available for every image. All commercial usage rights are retained by the photographer or designated image rights' holder. The Bugwood Network websites received over 147 million hits from 22.9 million unique users in 2007; they work and are being used around the world.
We very much appreciate your contributions of slides, digital images, or line drawings...after all, what makes The Bugwood systems valuable are the quality images in them. We believe that quality images that are properly credited, available at multiple resolutions and that can be accessed and used for educational purposes as needed and at no cost are valuable tools that can be used by educators to help educate our clientele or manage our natural resources.
The images in the Bugwood Image Database System covers plants, animals (including insects), fungi, bacteria and all other living things as well as also covering management and cropping practices specific to forestry, agriculture, invasive species, Entomology, plant pathology and other disciplines. If you have images that you think people would find useful in any of these areas, contact the Bugwood Network Staff to discuss how we can best capture that information and add your images or the images of your organization.
People ask what we want! In particular we are interested in quality images of organisms that are considered to invasive or exotic. We are also particularly interested in organisms that are considered to be pests in your systems. We also want good images of the things that you and your colleagues want images of...those are also probably the things of interest to others.
Factors to consider when preparing submissions
Quantity
We can work with any number of images, but submitting groups of 50-100 or- more images at a time work well and will not burden you with providing the needed information about each image. We assume that you took the image for a reason...we want you to tell what it shows to make it useful.
Slides
You can submit original or digitized photographic slides. If you wish to submit digitized slides, ideally they would conform to our current standards for high-resolution TIFF images, which are as follows:
- High-resolution scans typically 2400 dpi or greater.
- Scanned image files typically should be 10 MB or larger.
- The file format should be uncompressed TIFF. We will maintain the submitted TIFF files in our archive.
- Crop and rotate images as required.
- Submitted slides will be returned to the contributor.
Photographic Negatives
You can submit negatives to us to scan or you can provide images digitized from negatives. Ideally the images should be digitized directly from the original negatives to provide the best image for subsequent use. Use the guidelines outlined in the section on slides above if you scan them yourself.
Digital camera images
You can submit high-resolution photographs taken with a good quality digital camera. Consider to following guidelines to insure the best quality images are included in BugwoodIDS.
- Use at least a 4 megapixel digital camera if possible.
- Images should be taken at the largest size and best quality settings that the camera is able to produce.
- In most cases, digital cameras only produce JPEG files. If that is the case, please submit the best quality JPEG photos your camera can produce. Very good quality can be obtained in high-resolution JPEG files. However, if you should have TIFF or raw-format files or can take those, please send those as those are the highest quality images.
- If you send us JPEGS, We prefer that you send us the unedited, least compressed jpeg file available. We have personnel experienced in and capable of editing your image.
- JPEG uses a compression scheme that degrades the image each time it's saved, consequently it is important that you do everything possible to avoid repeatedly saving the file before submission. If you do decide to edit, crop or enhance the JPEG photo in an image editor such as Photoshop, before sending it to us, be sure to save the image at the highest quality possible and try to do all of your editing at one time to avoid repeatedly saving the file.
- Retain a copy of the original file from the digital camera in case you need to start the editing process over again.
Line Drawings
If you wish to submit high-resolution line drawing-type images for inclusion in The Bugwood Image systems please either:
- Send us the original documents for us to scan or if you wish to scan them and send us a digital file, please
- Scan and save the files as uncompressed TIFF format at the highest practical resolution.
- If the images are pen and ink drawings containing only black and white, scan the image as black and white TIFF image.
- If the images contain gray or color washes, scan the images as grayscale or color TIFF images as appropriate.
- Provide only line images that are in the public domain or drawings for which you hold the copyright.
- Crop and rotate the images as required.
- Please package all submissions as securely as possible. Digital submissions can be sent to us on CD or DVD. Please send all items to the shipping or mailing address below. It would be helpful if you send us an email notifying us both what you are sending to us as well as when you send it so that we can be on the lookout for them and schedule their processing. We will do everything possible to insure that your items are promptly handle, processes and returned expeditiously.
Providing data and descriptive information
Regardless of how you provide us with the images, you must provide us with identification and descriptive information about each image that will document what it is, what it shows and why it is useful. There are several different ways that you can do this.
- Write the information on the slide;
- Identify each image with a unique identifying number of text-string (like the filename) and send us a written or electronic file (such as Word, Excel, WordPerfect, etc.) that provides the descriptive information to us and references the image identifier you created. Here is a copy of the Excel Data Entry Form that we recommend.
- After we have digitized, edited, cropped and tagged the image, we will provide you with a URL address that gives you access to each image that displays the information we have about that image AND a mechanism for you to enter, correct or add identification and descriptive information about that image to add to the database.
- After all information has been entered and verified either you may authorize us to release the image for general availability or you can use the web-verification process, and check "Release Image" and click the "Submit" button to releases the image for availability through The Bugwood Image systems.
- Please join the Bugwood Image Database system at: http://www.forestryimages.org/join/ to ensure we have your current and correct affiliation and contact information.
Sending the images and information
Once you have gathered the images and information that you would like to send us you need to pick the method that will work best to send us the materials. Common methods include:
- Digital media
- CD's and DVD's
- Portable Hard Drives
- Bugwood IDS Online Upload Form - For access to this, see our Frequently Asked Question Page.
- Physical media
- Plastic Slide Sheets
- Slide Storage Boxes
Shipping and Contact Information
Please send the materials to:
Header for all package labels: The Bugwood Network The University of Georgia ATTN:Joe LaForest If using US Mail: P.O. Box 748 Tifton, Georgia 31793 USA If using UPS, FedEx, DHL, or other shipping service: 4601 Research Way CPES 113 Administration Building Tifton, Georgia 31794 USA
Contact information:
- E-mail:bugwood@uga.edu
- Phone: (229) 386-3298
