Photo competition, Rules

What exactly are the competition rules as checking out some of the properties of photo's i found one which used adobe photoshop 7.0 correct if i'm wrong but i believe this is against the rules.

Ok fair enough but fact that contrast can be changed leaves it wide open and vague as what is contrast in the world of photography. Contrast is not as simple as Bright and dull areas, so in my simple opinion maybe rather than leaving the rules as they are let the photographers do what they do and all the rest can do the same as there is vast difference in said photographs quality and other which leads me to believe is there was more than just altering of colour.

I think that it is unfortunate that "Photoshopping" has been associated with the Photoshop product.

If I were to enter the competition, then due to the file format of my main camera I'd have to use Photoshop to convert it to the relevant format and size for the competition. In doing that, the photo file would add "Adobe Photoshop" to the exif data........that doesn't mean the image was 'photoshopped' but simply save from Photoshop.

Other people use other similar products to save their images, that doesn't mean that the image has been manipulated.

In detecting changes to additions or subtraction from images, it is quite difficult to do or detect unless one can analyse pixel proportions or density.

If adjustment of contrast or sharpening (un-sharp mask) were not allowed in any photo then that would mean that all digital photos would have be barred as all have adjusted contrast and un-sharp mask added at some stage.

In conversations previously on this, I have said that if post-camera contrast were not allowed then that would be grossly unfair to people using a DSLR shooting RAW with contrast enhancement and sharpening enhancement turned-off on their camera (which is the proper way to do it to preserve detail), whereas most compact give a default contrast and sharpening enhancement in-camera.

ian

Whatever happened to blowing Bubbles for fun? Life is getting so bloody serious.

Kev.

maybe i might get my professional photographer friend to take a photo worth submitting
personaly i just point-snap-post!!... how simple can it be... if someone wants to alter their photo to give them that edge for the sake of winning then it just shows how sad they are!! who would have thought fun could be so complicated as it has been made the past while. on the subject of dslr settings... why do ye have to shoot like a pro for a bit of fun?... for some fun why not people with dslr's get a compact that shoots and posts pictures in a suitable format? john sorta has to take the entrants word for it but do we all who have the voting say??... like where do ye draw the line?

I personally use a DSLR, but when it comes to editing i just use microsoft paint to crop it and resize it to meet the 1MB requirement, I don't shoot RAW as this i believe could give me an advantage when coverting it back to Jpeg and i don't change the contrast.

Davey you're right but there is no way of telling how photo's have been edited without forensics type software.

This discussion seems very familiar to the one we had in the past about image quality.

I do not mind the rules as they are, on the other hand I would not be strange to abolish the rules completely either (perhaps my cultural heritage demands me to be boringly neutral, ww2 and all).

Yet again I do not see what DSLR camera’s has to do with it; breaking the rules by certain editing is breaking the rules no matter what camera. Please let people use what camera they want, and have at hand.

What is surprising to me however is that people that would like to be able to in this case edit their photographs, are automatically assumed to be elitists wanting nothing more than improving their chances of winning.

In my humble opinion that is no more than a generalisation.

Before all of this I was thinking of putting a Santa Claus hat and a beard on a photo of a fish for the crack, it would not have won the competition but could have put some smiles on people’s faces. That cannot be done as it would break the rules, I’m only saying this to illustrate that editing might not always come from a desire to win.

If people point and snap grand, but if other people find it FUN to take their time to take a better photo than they did the previous month, because they think it’s FUN then let them.

Like said I don’t mind the rules as they are, perhaps because I do not know how to use Photoshop, If I did maybe I would, who knows. But at the same time I would not mind if other’s used it or a similar program (if it was allowed).

Sometimes I get the impression that it’s the people that are against DSLR camera’s, high quality images or editing in this case are the ones that take the competition more seriously than anyone else.

Maybe we could have a competition one month in the future with just “fun” editing?

Melander

Edit: I hope I’m not trivialising the topic..

Melander

What I am interested in is why any questions come about like this. It is supposed to be a fun photo competition.

My take on cheating in anything is that cheating is a bit sad; and cheating will never make a person a "winner".

If there is a suggestion that some photos have been "photoshopped" as opposed to save via PhotoShop (trademark product that), then I've looked at all recent competition entries and cannot see anything that looks like "photoshopped" (and I can see which ones have been saved via Adobe Photoshop quite easily as well)
Hence, it would be a pity if suggestions have been made.

As has been said on so many occasions, DSLRs offer no advantage over compact cameras. Shooting in RAW and then converting to jpeg is not cheating.......no more than using a compact cameras already built-in jpeg converter and image enhancer is cheating (and not all compacts actually produce jpegs....some still only do TIFF).

On the other hand, the "Santa fish" in an above post IS 'photoshopped'

and so is this....

(well....no, it isn't actually done in Photoshop even though saved from PhotoShop.....just for the record. )

ian

i was speaking hypothetically with sarcasim above and wasn't taking a shot at anyone's photo, ability to take photo's or what camera they may be using (as it may have appeared)... was just wundering when are people gonna lighten up and have some fun without questioning photo's. it was said in the last thread how the organizer has it well ran (which i agree to) so trust their judgement... like could this not have been addressed by pm?

JohnH everything else is not automatically saved in photoshop as i checked the properties of others before bothering to post, Davey i can't see sarcasm in there as you can't really type sarcastically,can you. As could have been addressed in a pm yes but as i didn't give the exact picture means everybody else came to similar conclusions.

As for the question of is the competition suppose to be fun yes, but when you feel other people are increasing there chances by illegal means then that frustrates me personally.

I never knew that somebody had previously won through cheating, you learn something new everyday.

I think that the worse case of cheating is entering something that someone else took (eg ripping it off an internet site).

That would be (apart from any legality issues) gutter cheating.

I have had the pleasure to judge competitions in which some entries were stolen off the web.
A bigger insult was that the entrant thought I couldn't tell; and
what made the icing on the cake is that the stolen photos were actually crap anyway!!

Why do people wanna cheat? simply beats me as a totally alien thing to do in life.

ian

@Davey The main reason I responded was that the whole DSLR contra compact camera(which I cannot understand) came up again. It might have been sarcastic but I did not pick up on it, but like Jambomac suggested it’s not always easy in writing.

@Ian Jeez that is terrible, was that on this forum? I guess that at the end of the day if someone really wants to cheat I guess there is not much anyone can do about it unless you find the original.

I know there are allot of people who don’t know the copyright laws and use others photo’s etc. but there is no excuse for what you described. If it was here I hope the person was banned.
The only unknowing cheating I can think of would be to enter a photo that has already been posted in a thread. I often have to double check myself.

@John I really think it would be a shame to abandon the competitions, especially as I personally don’t think cheating is a problem here and also especially as there have been allot of entries in the recent ones. There is obviously an interest from us the users. At the end of the day I would rather have a cheater win once than closing the whole thing for everyone, we might just have to live with the possibility.

I do find that when there is a discussion about the competition there are several different opinions surfacing that we might not all agree with but that’s just part of being a member of a forum. I think most of us can agree that the competition is good fun which is the main thing.


Melander

JohnH i never asked for the competition to be shutdown or further ones stoped, all i simply asked was for the rules and was somebody in breach of said rules.

Rules could be changed to give more freedom to all some people might have a crappy camera but could be a creative genius.

Its funny how everything irish is run the same way things are broken and don't work efficiently, but why fix?

I don't think they should be abandoned, I really enjoy this side of the forum, it encourages people to take out cameras and share the photos for all to see.
I think the rules should stay the way they are and allow the people "running the show" do there job as best they can, and if people have any concerns about some of the entries they should be brought up through pm's as to avoid insulting anyone and keeping to the idea of innocent until proven guilty.
Cillian

The photo comps are good and should continue.

The rules are good.

As with any set of rules, there sometimes needs clarifications as, naturally, different terminology means different tings to different people.

Digital photography brings its own particular problems with the definition of "un-retouched", but my take on the rules is that processes ordinarily afforded to straightforward film-based prints can be done with digital.

No matter which format or camera one has, there is always going to be an allowable amount of scientific image manipulation (be it choosing high contrast paper, cropping, using low-quality lenses to get sharper un-digitised images as you have in by default in compact digitals).

Part of the normal art of photography is in balancing the contrast and framing the image....not cheating.

The definition of "photoshopped" needs some clarification as it is a word that is akin to "googlng" or "hoovering" but is even more ambiguous....but really, my take would be that addition or removal of image content not in the original photo file (apart from the allowable proportional photo cropping) is not allowed.

There are natural and unavoidable manipulations of images within all digital cameras. Even with film cameras, the lens itself is a special type of analogue computer that manipulates the images and does mathematical calculations of the object to determine what the image projected should be.

If we get down to fine detail of, say, not allowing contrast control then the only images that could be accepted would be un-changed RAW files (and even they have anti-alias filtration applied).....heaven help poor JohnH or other admin if they had to deal with receiving RAW files.

Using an air-brush to re-touch the gill colours, pasting some bog-wood over a dead fish in the background.....cannot be done to the image as a whole and.......are not allowed.

Stealing other peoples photos is not allowed (morally and irrespective of the competition rules);
re-using ones own photo that might have been posted somewhere 4 years ago is a difficult one though as digital photos brings us thousands of images easily and it is easy to forget what is what and where is where.

On the other hand, if, like this post of mine, the rules get down into the fine definitions then they would become meaningless, need a specialised knowledge of photo technology (which would defeat the object of a competition),and lose snappiness & simplicity.


Ummm....all that means is: keep "all as is", and simply continue submitting photos.
Honesty pays off in the end (although, cheats may sometimes 'win' a race in the short-term).

ian

Melander wrote:

@Davey The main reason I responded was that the whole DSLR contra compact camera(which I cannot understand) came up again. It might have been sarcastic but I did not pick up on it, but like Jambomac suggested it’s not always easy in writing.

i wasn't the 1st to mention them. thought my sarcasm would have been evident when i said i was going to get a friend to take my photo... basically saying who gives a shite. but anyways i was more less saying if some camera's shooting raw, because the owner likes the result, and has to edit that type of file in a program like photoshop then who are we to accuse them of cheating. i was hypothetically suggesting that we all only use a compact because if it automatically saves to jpeg that it would prevent participants from being accused of cheating... was saying that as in it would be very unfair to do so and that we should all certainly trust the organisers better judgement even if we don't trust the photographer.. that was more less it although i could have possibly worded it better origionally
like i said this could have been pm'd!

anyways there are some lovely pictures in this months competition making it hard to decide on a single vote but best of luck to everyone involved and happy christmas to all

davey_c wrote:

Melander wrote:

@Davey The main reason I responded was that the whole DSLR contra compact camera(which I cannot understand) came up again. It might have been sarcastic but I did not pick up on it, but like Jambomac suggested it’s not always easy in writing.

i wasn't the 1st to mention them. thought my sarcasm would have been evident when i said i was going to get a friend to take my photo... basically saying who gives a shite. but anyways i was more less saying if some camera's shooting raw, because the owner likes the result, and has to edit that type of file in a program like photoshop then who are we to accuse them of cheating. i was hypothetically suggesting that we all only use a compact because if it automatically saves to jpeg that it would prevent participants from being accused of cheating... was saying that as in it would be very unfair to do so and that we should all certainly trust the organisers better judgement even if we don't trust the photographer.. that was more less it although i could have possibly worded it better origionally
like i said this could have been pm'd!

anyways there are some lovely pictures in this months competition making it hard to decide on a single vote but best of luck to everyone involved and happy christmas to all

@Davey Thanks for the clarification.

I obviously understood that the first sentence about the professional photographer was for the crack. It was the latter part I was confused about. Maybe I should have understood, maybe you could have been clearer, it doesn’t really matter does it.

In the end we seem to agree about what this topic was really about.

Merry Xmas!
Andreas

Hi.
I would like to ask about size of the photo.
Rule says that it can't be bigger than 1024. Yesterday I send one this size and now it's showing smaller and in worse quality.
Could it be just one size to nobody need do anything with them later?

Regards,

pit

Thank you for answer John.
I don't have to win, I just wanted to show nice photo, not some photo. I think that no one would be disappointed to see his pictures nicer, too. Besides, it is very easy to do.
But this is your forum, and I respect that. I hope I have not offended you trying to show my point of view.

pit

I think I found solution. I checked size of photos in competitons and the optimal size is 769 pixels on longer side. I think it shoud help.

Quality is always loosing while hosting resizing image. There is something going wrong with sharpnes and makes image blured. When it doesn't do anything photo looks exactly as you sent it.
Thanks John.

pit