Frequently Asked Questions

Your file needs to be between 3000 and 5000 pixels on the long edge. You don’t need to change your filename!

You sure can! In all categories other than In-Camera Artistry you can enter diptychs, tripdychs, … all kinds of polyptychs. (If you’re scratching your head at this point… a triptych is a collection of three images.)

Students enter the same way as all other entrants - purchase your entries and then submit them through "My Account"

While purchasing entries you are asked to enter the name of your educational institution so we know you are a student.

There is no separate student category - students enter in all the same categories, and are eligible for all the same awards and prizes as other entrants, plus the student award.

This is the ten million dollar question! Often a category will be pretty clear based on the subject matter. For example, if it is a photograph of a pet, then Pet and Animal is an easy bet.

Sometimes the amount of editing in an image determines where it goes; for example, if you have a wedding photograph that has little or no photoshop, then Wedding Classic might be the right category, while a wedding shot with lots of photoshop goes to Wedding Creative.

Sometimes the edits you’ve done to an image will mean it doesn’t belong in the category you might assume. For example, if you have an image of a wild bird, and you’ve used photoshop to remove a bunch of power lines behind the bird, that is a significant edit that bumps it out of the Wildlife category).

This is a really common question. If the editing on an image go beyond what is allowed for your natural category, you have to identify another option. So, for example, if you have an image of a group that you really want to enter into Travel , but you did a face-swap on one of the group members, that breaks the rules for Travel’s Single Capture post production rules. You might want to consider a category in the Classic post production group where face-swaps are allowed; perhaps Family might be a good fit depending on the subjects, or perhaps Portrait.

Yes you can, in all categories other than In-Camera Artistry. Sometimes it is useful to define the edge of an image using a digital mat or a border. It’s particularly important when you are doing a triptych! You can use a thin white/grey/black line as a border, or a white/grey/black space as a digital mat. The “mat window” doesn’t have to be rectangular; ovals are a popular choice for some images. If you want to use more adventurous borders or mats, perhaps using colour or other pictographic elements, you should consider a category in the Creative division.

Maybe! If the instructor or guide staged a setup, or directed participants, then you may not use those. That includes an instructor setting up lights for you to use. However, if your photograph was self-guided and not set up, for example on a photo walk with participants working independently, then that’s fine.

Titles are optional, but can help judges engage with your image by giving it meaning beyond what is immediately visible. For example, naming a place or moment for a landscape image, capturing an emotion or theme for a portrait, or providing cultural or historical significance for a documentary image. An effective title complements the image rather than describing what is already obvious. A short, evocative title is often more powerful than a literal or lengthy one. Many images are equally effective with a simple, straightforward title.

When you have the opportunity to use a context statement, it’s often best to provide factual information that provides an explanation of an image. Colourful or poetic titles/captions often don’t contribute to the image, and can sometimes distract. A good test for your caption is to see if it answers one or more who/what/where/when/why questions, information that provides either a deeper technical or contextual understanding for the judge. Wherever captions/context statements are allowed, they are optional, so you aren’t compelled to give one!

Absolutely - entering an image in a different competition does not disqualify you at all from entering the Australian Photographic Prize. You just can’t enter an image you’ve previously entered at the Australian Photographic Prize.

When you submit your images, you’re invited to upload your RAW files to Dropbox. If you have your RAW files, we highly recommend that you provide them, in case we need to check out your entry to make sure rules have been followed. When we get to finalist stage, it is not unusual for us to need to check RAW files, and we’ll reach out to entrants if they haven’t provided them yet, but if we can’t get them back in time then that entrant might miss their place in the finals. So if you have them, supply them!

We’re getting great questions from people that have In-Camera Artistry images to enter, but don’t necessarily have RAW files. For example, some cameras that do in-camera multiple exposures generate a final JPG, and may or may not give you intermediate images. And of course, shooting on film is a completely different story.

We want to encourage a wide variety of entrants, while still staying true to the ideals of In-Camera Artistry - unedited works where the exposure is masterful without any retouching. Here’s what we’d like you to consider.

1. Your entry JPG file (the image the judges will view) must be unedited. That means no exposure changes, no local adjustments, no global adjustments, no cropping, etc. If it is a scan from a film negative, cropping may be necessary (to remove sprocket holes and registration marks), but the crop should match the image portion of the negative. For a scan, a basic inversion is permitted.
2. For the RAW support files, supply files that will help us verify no changes were made to the original capture. An original RAW file is the best. But, for those times you’re unable to supply RAW files, you could include JPGs for an in-camera multiple exposure if that’s what your camera gave you, or a film scan showing sprocket holes, or even a document describing the process.

We totally recognise that the variety of capture mechanisms means it is hard to write rules to cover all bases. Do your best to get us what we need, and please ask us if you have questions!

Yes they can. In Round 1, when judges aren’t up against the clock, they have the freedom to spend time checking out all of your image. During the live judging (Round 2), judges need to assess your image quickly, but they can still zoom in to look at fine detail.

We do not provide your name or details to judges; they only have the image, and perhaps a title/context statement. Entrants' names are only ever revealed once the competition is over.

When our five judges score an image, when three of our judges (a majority of the panel) have scored within one scoring range, then the calculated score will be forced into that scoring range. For example - let's say our five judges score 82 81 81 78 70. The average score is 78 (rounded from 78.2). BUT, because three judges were in the Silver range (80-84), the score is pushed up to 80. The announced score for that image would be 80, Silver Award.

The Majority Rule can push a score up or down. The above example pushed it up to a Silver. The opposite can happen too; for example, if judges scored an image 76 78 78 83 87, the average score is 80 (rounded from 80.4), but with three judges in the Highly Commended range (75-79), the announced score is 79.

Why do we do this? The main reason is to remove extreme outliers from a score. If one judge is way down on 65 while the others are consistently in the 80-84 range, the impact of that judge's much-lower score is blunted. Similarly, if one judge is up in the 90's while the others are in the 75-79 range, the impact of that much-higher score is limited to pushing the score up to 79. This way no one judge can disproportionately influence the outcome based on their score alone, providing protection against any kind of unusual bias - and the collective assessment of the panel is respected.

Now... although no judge can disproportionately influence the outcome based on their score alone, that doesn't mean a high- or low-scoring judge is powerless to change things. This is where the challenge process comes in. When those initial scores come in, and that one outlier judge is way up there compared to their peers... they can use the challenge process to start a conversation about the image, followed by rescoring. So that high-scoring judge that saw something noteworthy in the image can talk about it and help the panel to understand what they see, and why they think the image deserves a higher score - and that's how they can influence the result on a rescore.

Absolutely not; in fact, there are many conditions where judges cannot judge an image, including judging images of a partner or close family member. We actively encourage judges to step away from images that they might know too well, especially if they know the entrant and have discussed the image. Judges are encouraged to step away from images where they have a bias; that might include a bias for/against the photographer if they are aware of them, or for/against the subject matter in the image. We don’t ask judges to explain why they’re stepping away, we respect that choice, and that’s one of the reasons we have a judging pool with other judges who can step in.