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Topic ClosedPhoto Contest Rules

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Skylar McMahon View Drop Down
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Capt. BlowHard

Joined: April/05/2011
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Direct Link To This Post Topic: Photo Contest Rules
    Posted: February/28/2014 at 16:23

1. We will post one thread for each month, located in >>> HOT SHOTS <<<  Photography Section, for Photo Submissions.

The person who selects each month's subject theme, per Rule #6 & 8, will start a new thread identifying that  month's theme topic.

2. Entries are restricted to ONE per participant.

(If you post more than one on the thread you are automatically disqualified for that month's competition, although we do highly encourage you to create new threads with any additional photos not related to the Monthly Photo Contests that you wish to share with the OT.)
*** 
Changing entries: PM RifleDude or SkyMac if you would like to change your posted entry so that is removed from the voted poll thread at the end of the month. 

3. Photos for inclusion in any monthly contest must be submitted before midnight
of the last day of the month the topic was announced.

 

4. Photo you choose to enter must be taken within the month the topic is announced for a given contest.


5. Photo submitted must be taken by you.


6. By the 5th day of the following month a winner will be chosen by a poll thread created with all of the entries from the previous month's contest for everyone to vote on. Poll threads are for voting on the monthly photo contest entries only; do not post anything in those threads.

 

7. Voting criteria should be equally weighted toward the photo’s technical excellence, composition, artistic merit, creativity, adherence to the Photo Contest Rules, and relevance to the monthly subject theme. An important part of the monthly contest is challenging participants to select subjects that fit the monthly theme. (***i.e. you may really like that B-17 bomber photo, but if the monthly theme is “rivers,” it shouldn’t be considered a winning entry.)

8. The person whose photo is selected as the winner as determined by poll voting will then select a topic for the following month's assignment per rule #1.

9. Critiques on ways to use lighting, camera settings, composition and other factors to improve photo quality are accepted and encouraged.

(Hopefully participants will be open to constructive criticism and suggestions.)

10.
Post-processing photos to adjust white balance, color saturation, contrast, crop, sharpening, etc is allowed...as long as the original subject has not been altered by added elements from other photos to create a composite photo. Distracting elements may be removed from a photo to improve the composition, but nothing shall be inserted into the photo in post-processing that wasn't present in the scene when the photo was taken. 

Originally posted by Skylar McMahon Skylar McMahon wrote:

11. (ADDENDUM)

Originally posted by RifleDude RifleDude wrote:


Allowed: Pretty much any in-camera or post-processing technique for artistic effect that enhances a real photo taken by the person submitting the photo within the time constraints and remaining contest rules. This includes things like:
- exposure stacking or tone mapping for HDR
- focus stacking
- removing pimples from a persons face or softening skin tone
- correcting distortion, un-level horizon, etc. 
- cropping a photo to remove something distracting like a trash can, power pole, etc or to zoom in on the subject, or improve composition 
- using filters, either on-camera or in post processing
- changing color photo to black and white
- using longer shutter speed to blur motion
- selectively lightening/darkening a certain portion of an image for artistic effect
- removing chromatic aberrations, lens flare spots, sensor dust spots, digital noise, sharpening, etc.
- adding vignetting effects to an image border to draw more attention to the subject.
As long as you aren't adding a subject element or objects that were not part of the original photo file when the photo was taken, you're fine. In each case above, you are changing the way a real scene is viewed, not creating a fictional scene that never existed.

Examples of things not allowed: 
- Adding a Great White shark breaching out of the waves to a photo you took of a person surfing.
- Re-positioning any object in a photo you took because you didn't like where it was positioned in the scene when you took the photo. If you don't like where elements of a scene are positioned, take the photo from a different vantage point.
- Adding the sky from one photo to the landscape of another photo because you preferred the way the clouds looked in the former.
- cloning any object in a photo and scattering throughout the scene to make it appear there were more of the objects than were actually there when the photo was taken.
- Any "photo" that is the result of taking multiple photos of different subjects shot at different times and different locations and combining elements of each into a single composite photo.




Edited by RifleDude - July/07/2019 at 10:32
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