Photo Submission Question

I just got the Photography Submission Specs. from a Magazine that I would like to submit photos to. They specify : PLEASE DO NOT MANIPULATE/COMPOSITE THE FILES IN ANY WAY. They want tiff or jpeg's

Wouldn't it be better for me to at least adjust the exposure and white balance in the RAW's before I convert them ?

Chances are they have an art department (or person) that will do it as they see fit.

maybe - but back in the days of submitting naegetive the art dept did this - I've always adjusted white exposure and white balance though - if you shot in jpeg this would be done in camrea so i can't see the problem here - it's usally people trying to sharpen and artifecting the images they want to avoid at alll costs...#

I've dealt with several magazines and they are all different. Some don't do any editing whatsoever (not even cropping, if you can believe that!) Others have very proficient graphic designers that want the "digital negative" so that they can do all the editing themselves.

Respect what they ask for - they know their needs better than you do. And by all means, don't crop - not even for composition. Often they want those "useless" parts of the image to put a fade mask over, and put text on.

They did specify "Do not crop the image " they will crop it.

It's just that I have a few images that are obviously underexposed and I can't help to think that it would be better to get them close while they are RAW's.

Diver-Down wrote in post #9813478
They did specify "Do not crop the image " they will crop it.

It's just that I have a few images that are obviously underexposed and I can't help to think that it would be better to get them close while they are RAW's.

In that case, I don't think it'll hurt to adjust the exposure. I don't think that will do anything to the file that would impede their ability to edit it the way they want. Same goes for adjusting levels, so long as your adjustments are very slight. I certainly wouldn't crop, saturate, or sharpen, though. Especially don't sharpen - editors hate that, as it is irreversible.