Submitting Your Photos

Your pictures always are welcome on the Train Order Pix web site, so please keep us in mind as you shoot and send your photos to us for posting. We gladly accept:

•  35-mm Color Slides (and color negatives), which always will be returned,

•  Color Prints, which will be retained unless their return requested, and

•  Digital pictures from either a camera or a scanner.

Caption information

The minimum information we need for each picture, either digital or film, is where, when, and train number (if known).

Slides and Prints (or Color Negatives)

Most post offices and office supply stores sell a sturdy, inexpensive photo mailer which works great and protects them well while in transit. Please mail your material to Train Order Pix, P.O. Box 16217, Rocky River, OH 44116-0217.

We'll be glad to scan your slides, prints, or negatives for you. We have high-end, professional scanning equipment for doing so, and your slides or negatives normally will be returned within 48 hours of our receiving them.

Digital Pictures:

These must be in JPG format, at least 6 x 4 inches in overall size, at preferably least at 160 to 300 pixels per inch (ppi) resolution, and should be without your having made any color adjustments on them.

This picture of the Image > Resize screen of Adobe Photoshop® shows the resolution number  circled in red -- in this case, 300 --  which we would like to see on your digital shots. Other photo-editing software has a similar screen somewhere in it -- if you don't readily see it, go to the Help screen and search for "image size" or "resampling."

Most digital cameras today produce images in the 160-300 ppi range, so you can send your pictures to us just as the images come out of your camera.

The 300 -- or at least 160 -- pixels per inch resolution really helps us because it allows us to make size and color adjustments without the picture quality degrading. (We'd prefer to make our own color adjustments to our standards.)

Yes, we know that all of the photographic and computer literature says that 72 ppi is sufficient for pictures for web sites. It is, and we use that resolution in the final step when we post the pictures. But if we get the original image at 72 ppi, it's darned near impossible for us to do any satisfactory resizing or adjusting.

So we'll really appreciate your submitting your digital shots at 160-300 ppi (or greater) resolution, and at least 6 x 4 inches in overall size, and letting us do the "darkroom work" to get them ready for the site. The kilobyte size of the picture file is not a problem for us or our mailbox.

We want your pictures to look good on this site, and if you can/will submit them at 160-300 ppi resolution, they will look good.

All that said, we still will accept photos at less than 160-300 ppi, and will use them if they don't degrade seriously in the processing.

Please attach your digital pictures to an e-mail -- usually 4-5 photos per e-mail works best -- and send the messages to photos@trainorderpix.com  Please put your caption information in the body of the message.

CD-ROM:

We know that some of you might want to submit your pictures on a CD-ROM disk, and that's fine with us. Please just follow the "Digital Pictures" suggestions, above, and everything will work great. Also, please be sure to enclose a sheet with the caption information for all of the pictures on the disk.

Policy Statement:

All pictures submitted for use on Train Order Pix must be sent directly to us by either e-mail or postal mail. It is our firm policy not to pick up photos from someone else's web site (for legal reasons).

Copyright Notice: All photos displayed on this website are copyright by the original photographers under the provisions of Title 17, United States Code (the Copyright Act), and may not be reused, distributed, or published in any way without the express written permission of both the photographer and Train Order Publishing. All photos on this website are licensed to Train Order Publishing.