Geograph - photograph every grid square

If you find a picture or its description particularly good or useful, you'll find links to heap praise on either in the thumbs pop-up menu which shows when hovering over the thumb symbol to the right of the main picture. Just click the appropriate link(s).

Contributors can see which of their pictures others found useful at http://www.geograph.org.uk/thumbed.php?type=&who=others .

You can also 'thumb' your own images to keep track of your own favourites. This is counted separately from feedback by others.

While you're at it, you can use the thumb pop-up to throw the image in one or several 'image buckets' - categories which classify the type of image, e.g. whether it is a close-up or a panorama, or if it shows people or landscapes. By doing this, you can help Geograph to narrow down searches and add value for other site users.

You can upload images of any dimensions, portrait or landscape, but the file size needs to be under 8 megabytes. We do resize them so their longest dimension is 640 pixels on the main photo page. Optionally, you can also release larger versions of various sizes for downloading and re-use.
http://www.geograph.org.uk/article/Larger-Uploads-Information

We only accept JPEG encoded images. If you have any image in another format it will need to be converted.

Ideally images shouldn't have a longest dimension of fewer than 480 pixels. While we might accept such images if they hold particular interest, we would really prefer a larger image.

We do record the EXIF headers from your original image, so it is advantageous to upload your original camera image or use image editing software that maintains the EXIF data if you want this information to be kept (but we don't currently make use of the data).

They probably look fine on your computer where they are auto-rotated but Geograph just takes the picture as stored. You will be shown a preview of the image during submission, if it looks wrong please use the buttons on the preview to rotate it before completing the submission process and clicking [I agree] as the rotation cannot be done afterwards.

[the beginnings of an answer]

Put simply, photographs are made of light. In good light, today's digital cameras make it difficult to take a technically poor photo. Sometimes, though, photos unavoidably come out dark or grey because the subject was in shadow, or it was getting late; worst of all, a cloud appeared overhead and followed you round while the distant landscape was bathed in sunshine. There are ways of making these photos reveal their subjects better.

This isn't a highly technical answer. It refers to features of commonly-used image editing or image enhancement software.

[to be continued]

Members of Geograph can (if you aren't yet, sign up by clicking the 'register link' top right on any page). Go to the forum ('Discussions' in the sidebar menu) and add any pictures you'd like to see in all their glory on the front page for one day only to this thread: http://www.geograph.org.uk/discuss/index.php?&action=vthread&forum=2&topic=17652 . They will then be added to the list from which the daily picture is picked. If you'd like to suggest a picture for a specific day, please say so - there's no guarantee though, as the day may already have a picture assigned to it. You can post a small selection of your own pictures, but it is nice to highlight other peoples efforts as well where you come across them.

There is one technical limitation to bear in mind: The front page picture has to fit in a landscape frame due to the page layout. If it isn't landscape format, it'll be cropped and the central section used. Sometimes that can work, but generally it's best to pick landscape formats in the first place.