PICTORIAL COMPETITION
Rules and Guidelines
IMPORTANT:
The Pictorial Competition Guidelines document is important to read prior to submitting to the competition.
The Pictorial Competition Guidelines document is important to read prior to submitting to the competition.
RULES:
Important: Absolutely no AI generated images will be accepted.
- Each photographer may enter a maximum of three (3) images per competition.
- Images previously entered in a Montreal Camera Club competition are NOT eligible.
- Digital images must be submitted to pictorial@montrealcameraclub.com by the deadlines established—see calendar for details.
- A maximum of eight (8) entries per year is allowed in any one category (Pictorial, Creative, and Photojournalism). If more than eight (8) images are entered into a category, only the first 8 images submitted will be used in the calculations for trophies, standings, and honours, etc.
- Digital images should be submitted with a maximum width of 3840 pixels and a maximum height of 2160 pixels.
- Files should be saved as .jpg images with a high-quality setting.
Important: Absolutely no AI generated images will be accepted.
SELECTING AND PREPARING IMAGES:
You are encouraged to take your time in selecting and preparing images for the competitions. Look at some of the excellent images submitted in past years or in other clubs and ask yourself “am I submitting a good image?” Have a checklist nearby and consider the following points:
You are encouraged to take your time in selecting and preparing images for the competitions. Look at some of the excellent images submitted in past years or in other clubs and ask yourself “am I submitting a good image?” Have a checklist nearby and consider the following points:
- Check basic composition, simplicity, balance, framing, background, use of lines and the Rule of Thirds. Does the image have impact? Will the judges say "Wow"?
- Check the subject’s position and focus (If you intend the subject to be in focus then it should be sharp. You may have intentionally softened the subject for a romantic effect or blurred the subject to show action and that may be perfectly fine.)
- Is the viewer’s eye drawn to the main subject or are there distractions such as over-exposed highlights or undesirable elements that can easily be eliminated using processing software? If your image is abstract or creative then different considerations may apply.
- Is the image correctly adjusted - appropriate sharpening, white balance, colour space (RGB or sRGB) and dimensions?
- Zoom into your image at least 100% to ensure there are no weird artifacts or sensor dust spots you might want to eliminate (clone out).
- Do not add frames around the image, nor include your name on the image.
- Images that are substantially modified in image editing software such as Photoshop, Lightroom, Corel Painter, etc., may do better in the Creative category.
Pictorial Quick Reference Guide (QRG)
