Advice

The thought of entering a club competition for the 1st time can be daunting to a new member. We have therefore put together this short guide explaining how to go about it.

It is important to read and understand the competition rules because these guidance notes can only be a summary. If you have any questions please speak to any member of the committee and they will explain how everything works.

Briefly however most of our club competitions accept entries either as prints or as digital entries to display on a screen  which are referred to in camera club jargon as digital projected images or DPIs for short.

In recent years there is a trend to call them Projected Images or Projected Digital Images PDI.

In an attempt to avoid unnecessary confusion we tend just to refer to entries which are not physical prints as Digital.

The club programme will tell you what competitions have been organised and when you need to have your entries ready.

Please note that some of the competitions will have themes or categories that your photo needs to fit into.

You should check with the rules to find out how many images you can enter. For Club competitions you can enter 4 prints and 5 digital. But special rules apply in the case of the Annual Exhibition and some other events.

Once you have chosen your images you simply head to Photo Entry via the Club website and upload your entry.

In the case of prints the competition rules require that these be mounted onto board. The board can be any colour you like and most people choose white or grey. The rules do stipulate that the complete mounted print must not be more than 4 mm in thickness. This is simply to comply with the rules for external competitions and to prevent the pile of prints getting too tall. If you use the ordinary type of mount board you would buy at any art supply store such as The Range you will find that the print fits the rules.

For our annual exhibition and other competitions where we intend to display the prints we require that the prints be on a specific size of board. This is 400 x 500 mm and again this is to comply with the rules for external competitions where the winning prints will be put into frames. You don’t need to make a big print though, the rules concern the size of the board, you can print any size or shape as long as it fits on the mount board.

For our other competitions there is no specific size requirement simply that the board be no larger than 400 x 500 mm or else it won’t go into our boxes. 

It is up to you how you mount the print. If you have craft skills you may wish to window mount the print which means that you fasten the print to a thin board and then cover it with another board with an aperture cut into it to show the print.

However for most competitions most members simply surface mount the print onto the board and that is all that is required. You can buy spray cans of special glue for the purpose but a lot of members find that double sided Sellotape is sufficient. Whatever method you use check that the print is firmly fixed to the board and is flat so that it does not come away in transit.

When you enter your print you must also provide the club with a digital file. This is to help the competition secretary organise the competition and maintain records.

The digital file should be our standard competition size which is 1600 pixels wide by 1200 pixels tall.

It is important that the judge cannot identify the author of the print so that the competition is judged anonymously. You must not therefore write anything on the mount which could identify you. However you must write the title of the print on the back.

Most members begin their competition career by entering the digital projected image section of the competition because this does not require you to make a print or spend any money mounting it.

All projected images must be the same size and in the same file format to make it possible for us to run the competition and judge them fairly.

The rules for digital projected images are given to us by our governing body the Photographic Alliance of Great Britain and we therefore require the image to be a specific size.

The size is 1600 pixels wide and 1200 pixels tall.

The size is 1600 pixels wide and 1200 pixels tall.

This can cause problems for beginners because it is unlikely that your camera produces an image that size. You therefore do need to use some sort of image editing software to resize the image.

It is impossible to give instructions for every camera’s software but there are tutorials available explaining how to do this in Photoshop. The best thing to do is just ask another member to show you how to do it.

Our Thursday evening Zoom meeting are ideal for getting this sort of advice.

Once you have done this you save the image as a high quality JPEG. You must choose the colour space sRGB, which is the normal default for most programs, to ensure that the colours will look correct on our projector.

If the shape of your image will not fill a rectangle 1600 pixels wide by 1200 pixels tall, for example if it is an upright rectangle or panorama then you can fill in the background with a solid colour. You can choose whatever colour you like but black usually looks best.

This used to be a strict requirement and if you are a perfectionist you should do it yourself to avoid artefacts spoiling your photo. However if you are a beginner or someone who struggles to resize images etc you can let Photoentry do this for you.

We suggest that if you do this you then click on the image in Photoentry and check that you are happy with the result. Photoentry will warn “Image resized from a low resolution image” if there could be a problem. It normally works just fine.

When you become a full club member you will receive a password and user name to enable you to log into PhotoEntry where you will find all the years events which are open to enter.

You will also find links to Advice on preparing entries and the Competition Rules

The site is straight forward to use.

• You select the competition you want to enter
• Click on the button [Add New Entry]
• On the next Screen give a Title to your photo.
• Note there is a checkbox/drop down labelled [Entry is Publishable] leave this as yes unless you don’t want the club to be able to show your photo in results etc.
• Click add entry
• On the next screen you get to upload a Jpeg image 

And that’s it you have entered

If there are problems with your image Photo entry will let you know. Usually everything is fine but if your image was too small or you have chosen a colour space other than sRGB you will get a warning.

If you click on your entered image Photoentry will display it full size so you can check the quality and colour. If it looks ok you can ignore the warning if not  you can change the image for another one.

You can change your entries right up to closing date so enter early so you don’t forget

Once a competition is Judged PhotoEntry records the marks received by images. This means there are a number of ways you can use this resource to improve your chances in competition or simply look at your own and other members images.

While a competition is still open for entries you can only see your own images and you can  add, remove or exchange them right up to closing date.

You can also rank them in case the competition is over subscribed. The ranking is anonymous it can’t be seen by other members or importantly by the judge.

Once a competition has been Judged the marks awarded are added to the record. Which opens up a series of options for you.

When you log in and select this years competitions you will see additional menu options

Show your entries in this group displays every photo you have entered this year. If the competition it is in has been judged you will also see its score and any award ie 1st place H Com etc.

Show series results displays the unofficial League Table. It currently looks like the image below. Members who enter Prints and Projected images have more scores to count so currently rank higher.

If you log into an individual competition that has been judged you will see your images from that competition with their marks and awards.

You will also see another option which appears after the judging is complete

View Entries for All Users

This enables you to replay the competition in the order they were projected on the night. You will see the titles of the photos, the Author and its score or award. 

If you have downloaded and saved the Judging audio made available a few days after the event you can play them together.