Competition Topics

A question from Aluther

"One question (as I am also kind of new here) – two themes that immediately came to my mind are not just photographing themes but might involve some preparation in a bitmap editor such as Photoshop. As this is a Pentax forum and gallery I assume the focus should be on what you can do with a camera and not so much what you can do after the shooting on your PC. Is this the case or is it OK to suggest a theme that might involve some digital preparation ??"

My opinion is that the judge sets the topic and people are free to enter or not.

One of the reasons I enter the PU completions is to stretch the types of photographs I take. For me post production would certainly be a new stretch.

That might be a very interesting stretch of comfort zones - mine included...

Mono involves some PP work, so why not? Any idea what he's he got in mind?

Sounds interesting to me.

No. I've have just extracted it from link. I thought it was worth a discussion.

If its something simple that can be achieved in a number of packages e.g. Picasa or even in camera not a problem.

It can be a one off experiment and maybe be limited to once every 6 comps?

Suck it and see.

Each judge sets his or her own theme. It's totally open, but as a general rule very complex and difficult ideas don't get as many entries.

We couldn't limit to once every 6 competitions because you can't predict who the judge will be and you can't tie that judge's hands as to topic.

John, I refer to the possible requirement of post processing. I'll soon depart a competition world where PP becomes a regular requirement. However I'm not against the idea of a modicum of PP. It was a for example.

In one sense, with digital imaging there is always a requirement for post-processing. Without resizing, cropping, Levels, maybe monochrome conversion and finally sharpening we won't have the best from our image anyway.

Digital images are by nature slightly soft, so at the very least that aspect needs to be tackled.

Did you have in mind subjects such as "Photoshop Fun" or something like that?

I`m a bit wary of this topic as I consider any photographic meddling - other than that which John has just mentioned - to be altering beyond the true image taken.
I use Picasa for the aforementioned "tweaks" but consider anything else to be outside the parameters of a good photo.It reminds me of my competition days when a "cooking" entry could be a sculpture in ice or a basket of hand pulled toffee flowers - beautiful,artistic,clever - but not really cooking !
Surely , as amateurs , in the most part we should be showing our skills with just the camera,lens,filter and lighting ? I too would be very unhappy competing with a PP oriented entry unless it was a specific requirement.

Respectfully

Tony

Tony, the way I understood the question that's what is being asked. Can a topic be set that would specifically require a PP technique.

The only topics I can think of that would specifically require a PP technique are montages, mono or Hdr. Possibly panoramas.

Talking of the competition, anyone any idea when it is going to be set?

Very soon, the judge is finalising his intentions as we speak.

Come be a bit more creative, duo, tri, quad tones and maybe a theme like vintage, IR photos also require PP.
I also remember we had a theme commercial for the fortynight, I believe it was Hefty who came up with that one.

I totally agree with Tony. I don't own a copy of Photoshop. Apart from aforementioned tweaks, everything I have is 'straight out of the oven'. IMHO anything else is creative graphics - not photography. (Sound of stamping foot)