MONTHLY PROJECTION COMPETITION COMPETITION RULE

Revised November 8, 2022

The Projection Division of the Tacoma Photographic Society hosts a monthly competition and review meeting with optional critiques.  The meeting is held on the first Wednesday of each month except July and August when we take a summer break. The meeting is a hybrid meeting--both in person and zoom to accommodate all members. The meeting location can be found in the calendar event for each meeting and on the website Home page.  Google map

In Person - We meet at Curtis High School, 8425 40^th Street, University Place, WA 98466.   Turn into the small parking lot near the reader board and Big Rock.  Go to the outside door marked Staff Development Room.   Google map

Zoom – Members will be sent a zoom link prior to the meeting. 

Briefly:

• All the information on the TPS Competition General Rules page applies.
• Each member may enter up to four images into the Projection Division Competition each month.
• Up to two Theme and two Division open (only one of which may be "For Comment" and the other one must be for "No Comment").
• Submission – Typically from 17 to 10 days before the Review Meeting - see the calendar or Home page for exact dates.
  
• Max size is 1.5 MB at 1920 pixels wide x 1080 pixels high, JPEG 70% quality in sRGB color space.
  

Rules To Keep In Mind:

• All photos must originate in a camera, cell phone or drone camera, and must be created by the member.
• Photos must be edited by the maker. Editing is encouraged and expected in order to create the best possible "competition quality" photos.  Good editing skills will improve your chances for higher scores, more votes, and higher placements.  Your photos will be judged on many criteria including your capturing and editing skills.  Please read the Education web page titled "What Do Judges Look For" along with the page on "Photo Editing Suggestions".
  
• Images are submitted digitally in JPEG sRGB.
  
• Any enhancement other than overall color and contrast must be made by the photographer.
• You may not copy/photograph someone else's 2d artwork, including paintings, etchings, drawings, or other photographs.  Submissions depicting the process of someone creating an artwork are allowed for entry.
  
• Entries may be submitted only once in either the Print or Projection competitions unless the composition has been substantially changed. A near duplicate of a previous entry may not be submitted.  Photographs of the same composition taken at different times of the day or year or converted to black and white may be entered again.
• An image should not have any watermarks or other markings on it that might be used to identify the photographer.  Image titles cannot contain the photographer's name. Photographers must remain anonymous.  Do not put dates or numbers in your titles.  Please capitalize each word.  Also please do NOT post your images to facebook just prior to the competition--wait until after the competition date has passed.
  

How Each Competition Works:

• Projection Division Competitions are digital and submitted to, voted, and judged on the TPS website.
• Photos are uploaded to our website's competition page by our members.
• A panel of judges scores each image.
• Members cast their popular votes for the Theme competition only.
• The results are tabulated and presented at the Review Meetings.  After the meetings, the results are posted to the Website Competition Results Page and on the Home Page of the Website in the slideshow of winning images located in the top left corner.
• During the meeting, optional critiques are given by the members providing additional feedback to the maker.
• All members are encouraged to write constructive critiques on each image in the Competitions Results page.  Please use these as an educational resource to help improve everyone's capturing and editing skills so they may create the best possible images. In your critiques, try to tell what to do and how to make improvements to the photos.
  

Image Submission Requirements:

• Only JPEG files (.jpg) will be accepted.
• Image Size: 1920 pixels wide x 1080 pixels high maximum. Images larger than these dimensions will be automatically resized to fit. Images smaller than these dimensions will not be resized.
• Images must be Exported as sRGB color space - Photoshop will do the conversion.
  
• Titles – Capitalize the First Letter In Each Word!  For Example:  Splashing Bird (please use a space between words)--we can't correct your typos!
  
• Do NOT include your name, file number, or contest name in the Title! The website program will take care of this!
• Do NOT include "For Comment" or "Not For Comment" in the image title.  There is a separate area to make that selection.
• When you submit your photos, there is a box to type in the file number or other label of your photograph that can help you keep track of which variation of a photo you are submitting.
  
• Your monitor should be accurately color-calibrated according to the Gamut or color space of your monitor type.  Narrow gamut monitors will probably have sRGB color space. Newer wider gamut monitors will probably consist of Adobe RGB color space. Check your monitor color space information and calibrate accordingly.
• Remember to choose the Working Space in Photoshop and Camera Raw to match your selection on your camera along with the Photoshop Image Mode bit depth such as 16Bits/Channel.
  
• Files should be no larger than 1.5MB (Mega Bytes).
• Your monitor must be adjusted to a brightness level of 100 – 120 cd/m2, which is normal for photographic processing, printing, and viewing. Monitors for everyday use are often calibrated much brighter, which will produce a dark image on the monitors of some viewers. That said, the brightness of the viewer’s environment is a factor in determining optimal monitor brightness.  It is best to edit photos in a dark room with no ambient light.  Turn off the "automatically adjust brightness" settings for your monitor.
  
• Contact the Projection Team for assistance if needed.

Calibrating Your Monitor:

When presenting the images at the in-person review meetings, we make every reasonable attempt to ensure proper color calibration and brightness of our projector, but we do not make any guarantee that your image will be displayed with absolute fidelity.

View the entries on a monitor using the sRGB or Adobe RGB Color Space, which is color calibrated, and uses an intermediate brightness level.  Photoshop will convert RGB into sRGB when you use the Export > Save for Web Legacy selection. Buy a reputable monitor calibration system.  Monitors need frequent calibration.  In order to see a more accurate exposure level for your photos, turn off the "automatically adjust brightness" settings for your monitor.  Work in a dark environment with no ambient light.

Judging:

Images entered into Division Competition will be judged by a panel of four judges. One judge is designated as an alternate by the Projection Chair since members cannot judge their own images. Each judge will assign scores based on the following 5-point scale:

Scale:   10 (Excellent)  9 (Very Good)  8 (Average for club photo)  7 (Average for a snapshot)  6 (Fair – needs a lot of work)

See Judging Guidelines

Popular Vote:

Members are urged to apply the Judging Guidelines in their scoring.

All members, including judges, have the opportunity to vote on Popular Vote for the THEME and OPEN competitions.  Each member will receive a designated number of votes based upon the total number of entries.  For example:

Images will be awarded First, Second, Third Place, and Honorable Mention.

There must be at least 3 entries to hold a competition from 3 different members.

Judges ties will be broken by the highest scoring image from the Popular Vote.  If images are still tied, the ties will not be broken.  Members may not vote for their own images.

Schedule:

The general schedule for a Monthly Projection Competition is:

Please visit the Home Page of the website and the website Calendar for specific competition dates since dates may vary slightly due to holidays and unforseen circumstances.  

For questions or suggested changes to this page, please contact the Website Administrator.