CU Boulder photography standards

SEE: www.colorado.edu/brand/how-use/photography for information on using photography in the CU Boulder brand.

Considerations for CU Presents and partner entities

• CU Presents does not use composite photography.
• Photos of events in venues should not display large sections of empty seats.
• Provide information on photography credits to CU Presents.
• Photos for the Artist Series are curated from a set of selects provided by each artist’s management, and may come with additional requirements, restrictions and requests for approval in layout.
• Photos for the Colorado Shakespeare Festival may require obtaining permission from one or more subjects and/or crediting one or more subjects to comply with various theatre union regulations.

At a minimum

• Images should be in focus, with little to no motion blur.
• Images should have sufficient lighting.
• CU Presents will do any needed image adjustments (cropping, color balance and so on).
• Headshots should be taken by a professional photographer when possible.
• Live (action) images should be taken by a camera on a tripod or other stabilizing device.
• Photos taken with an iPhone or a tablet will likely not be sufficient for print, unless the photographer is skilled.

Sizing

• Larger image files are always better.
• It’s much easier for us to scale down a photo and retain quality than it is to scale up and retain quality.
• Size refers to dimensions only, not resolution.
• Our minimum requested image size is 3600px x 5400px.

Resolution

• The minimum resolution suitable for print images is 300dpi.
• The standard resolution suitable for digital images is 72dpi.
• Resolution refers to the number of pixels per square inch in an image.
• The more pixels that are present, the better the details of an image are preserved, keeping it looking sharp.
• Resolution is not the same as focus; an out-of-focus image will not become in-focus if you increase the resolution.