General Rules
Identification
and General Eligibility of Entries
All prints should bear a title, the author's name and the name of the society clearly marked on the reverse of the mount. Similarly, slides should bear a title, the author's name and the name of the society. Digital Images must be submitted using a file naming convention whereby the first group of letters denotes the author’s initials, this to be followed by the title of the image. Titles will be used as a record of the entry, so special care must be taken if the author wishes to use the same title on different entries even if entered for different competitions. The usual practice is to add a sequence number as part of the title, for example Spring Pasture and Spring Pasture 2. The Competition Secretary will not include the sequence number in communications with the judge unless two images in one competition bear the same basic title.
All photographic work entered must be original to the author. It must not be a copy of someone else's photograph or artwork even when used as an element in a collage, whether generated photographically or using digital imaging techniques. This rule is included to protect the copyright of the author. A photographic work may be used only once in its submitted form for each competition. A derivative may be used later as may a presentation in a different medium, for example a slide and a print, but both should not be submitted at the same time for the same competition. Members are discouraged from entering subjectively similar images in the print and projected digital image sections of the same competition.
Rules Specific to Prints
Prints, including mount, must not be larger than 20" by 16". No minimum size is specified, but as a guide, it is usual for the print area to be at least 80 square inches.
Prints must be mounted on substantial card, usually with the card forming a border. Whilst it is the print that is being judged and not the mount, shabby mounting does detract from the quality of the print and is likely to let down even a good print. Always choose a mount that is in sympathy with your print. Fashions come and go, but monochrome prints are commonly presented on black, grey, white or silver mounts. Careful and sympathetic mounting is particularly important if the print is to be considered for inclusion in a Sileby panel (see below) where one odd mount in the group of six prints can severely detract from the overall impression. It is not unknown for prints and their mounts to be accidentally damaged in transit. Whilst every effort is made to minimise damage, authors should be aware of the possibility and should not submit anything irreplaceable. The possibility of damage should be taken into account when deciding upon a mount style and construction.
Monochrome
prints are defined as those with as many shades of grey as the author wishes.
Additionally, a print may be given an overall tint and still be considered as
monochrome. When selected areas are coloured, even when a single colour is
used, the print will be considered to be in the colour print category.
Rules Specific to Slides
In order to be categorised as a "slide", the image must have been originally captured on the piece of film that is submitted for competition. This rule is intended to exclude slides produced from a digital file.
Slides must be correctly spotted for projection and will be judged as spotted. Most slide mounts have a white side and a dark side, the former being designed to face the projector's lamp in order to reduce heat. When the image is viewed the right way up from the white side, the spot should be placed in the lower left-hand corner.
Due to the inability of some projectors to handle certain types of slide mount, only GePe glass, GePe glassless and Agfa CS (or equivalent rigid plastic) mounts are acceptable. The current plastic Kodak and Fuji mounts are not acceptable, as they are too thin. Older Kodak card mounts are also unacceptable. Entries will be refused if they are in unacceptable mounts. Glass mounts are recommended in order to protect the slide from scratches and fingerprints. Care must be taken when using glass mounts that all components are free from moisture and remain so otherwise condensation may occur that will cause the slide to cook when projected.
If it is necessary to crop the image at the mounting stage, this may be done using aluminium kitchen foil, folded to produce a clean, crisp edge and sandwiched in the mount with the transparency. If cropping produces a significant shift of the image on the screen, it is better to centre the image by masking on more than one side.
Rules
Specific to Projected Digital Images
Digital images must be submitted on CD and named as outlined above. They should be prepared such that the width of the image does not exceed 1280 pixels and the height does not exceed 1024 pixels. Images that are smaller than these dimensions will be projected at the submitted resolution, but images that are larger will be resampled by the viewing software. Although this will do a reasonable job, it will probably not be as good as the resampling algorithm in your image manipulation software. Formats are limited to JPEG and TIFF; those related to specific image manipulation applications, such as PSD, are not acceptable.
Some External Competitions that call for digital images will specify different maximum dimensions and currently the favourite is 1024x768 pixels maximum. When resizing images, you should always work from as high a resolution original as possible, resampling in one step to the required dimensions. Do not, for example, prepare an image for a Sileby competition at 1280x1024 pixels and then resample that down to 1024x768 for an External Competition. Rather, make the latter from the original file from which you made the 1280x1024 image.