GA ERA CAMERA CLUB - COMPETITION RULES
Updated October 23, 2019
All submissions shall be formatted digital images and
competitions will be open to all current dues paid members of the Club.
All submissions shall be original work. No copyrighted or trademark
registered material can be submitted (e.g., photos of photos) unless you are
the owner.
Submissions are further restricted to those that do not
violate any company standards (e.g., copyright laws, appropriate computer use,
etc.). Please reference company rules (i.e., ERA, EIG, and any other relevant
policy) for further details.
After that, your submissions are only limited by the
technologies available to you to capture and modify the final image, within any
category constraints, to achieve the impact and message you desire to portray.
COMPETITION STRUCTURE
Each competition event will have up to three subjects,
i.e., THEMES. Each THEME will be further restricted to one of three
CATEGORIES. Members are permitted to submit a maximum of 2 images
per THEME. At a minimum, submissions shall start with at least one of your
photographs (i.e., a picture taken by the member, using a camera) as the basis.
Each jpg file submitted is considered one entry.
THEMES
Themes are selected by the officers and posted on the club
website calendar. The selection is generally done for a club year at a time and
is finalized several months before the next club year. If you have an idea for
a theme, please send your suggestions to the officers for consideration. We try
to get a mixture of topic based themes as well as technique based themes.
Additionally the OPEN theme has no defined subject and you should submit your
best shot.
CATEGORIES
ARTISTIC (A)
Artistic classification submissions require post
edits that push them beyond a traditional photographed image. Submissions can
be highly manipulated and can have modified/added elements.
TRADITIONAL
(T)
Traditional classification image submissions allow for
editing to improve quality and impact.
Specifically:
Allowed Edits:
Cropping, rotating, etc.
Adjustments to white balance,
exposure, contrast, clarity, saturation, vibrance,
etc.
Removal of small distracting items
(e.g., power lines, trash, etc.) limited to 15% of the picture area.
Stacking images of the same scene
taken in a small time period (aka bracketing) to improve dynamic range or depth
of field only.
Vignette is permitted however
borders are not.
Unpermitted Edits:
Addition of elements
High manipulations resulting in an
unnatural looking image
UNRESTRICTED
(U)
Unrestricted category submissions allow artistic or traditional edits to
submissions. OPEN theme submissions fall into the unrestricted category.
FORMATTING YOUR IMAGE PRIOR TO
SUBMISSION
File Properties
Please enter the metadata for your images. This will speed
up processing for the webmaster. For each image, enter your name (as
you want it displayed on the webpage) into the AUTHORS field. Also enter the
title for your image into the TITLE field. To access properties on a PC, right
click file and pick Properties and pick Details tab.
Filenames
Filenames for submitted images must be named using the
following format:
<Competition
Category>.<Your Image Title>.<Your Initials>.jpg
Example: MeltedFood.Marshmellows.AZ.jpg
Where,
<Competition Category> is
the name of the category for the competition. Abbreviations are permitted as
long as it is obvious.
<Your Image Title> is
determined by you. This is your title for the image. This should be unique for
each of your submissions.
<Your Initials> are
the initials of your name, either first & last or first-middle-last, or
however you prefer. In the event of duplicate initials for club members, it
would be advantageous for you and your "Doppelganger"
to compromise so that each are unique.
Note: Do not include the <>
symbols in the filename.
File type
File type for submitted digital images shall be JPEG (".jpg").
JPG Compression
JPG compression setting is up to you, but typically values of 85% - 90%
greatly reduce the file size with no visible effect on the image. Test this for
yourself.
Image size
During the competition meeting, images are displayed on
equipment that is typically a horizontal 16:9 aspect ratio screen. The viewing
software will scale your images as best as possible to fit this screen, however
sometimes with results different than you desire.
File size (i.e., kilobytes/megabytes)
File size shall not exceed the limits of normal external email attachment
capabilities, but this is typically not an issue with JPG files. Smaller
files load faster and file sizes between 500 kb and 3 Mb are typical. Very
large files (>>5 Mb) do not have any noticeable benefit on screen.
Color Space
Export your edited photos using standard sRGB (i.e.,
IEC61966-2.1).
Watermark
Do not apply watermarks to photos as judging is intended to be anonymous.
SUBMISSION
METHOD (EMAIL):
Put your full name along with the competition
month & year into the email Subject line.
Example: April 2020 Competition -
John Doe Entries
Send via email to gacameraclub@gmail.com
SUBMISSION
DEADLINE:
Sunday Noon (12 pm) prior to scheduled
competition date.