Photomatix HDR Challenge - Fall 2015

The Photomatix HDR Challenge is a photo contest that accept entries in two categories: Realistic HDR and Creative HDR.

See the winning entries of the previous contest (Spring 2015 HDR Challenge):

Winners previous contest in the Realistic HDR Category
Winners previous contest in the Creative HDR Category

Dates

The Fall 2015 Photomatix HDR Challenge Contest is now open. Entries will be accepted until the 31st of December 2015.

Update 31-Dec-15: To account for TWiP listeners who have been informed of the contest very recently, we decided to extend the deadline for submitting entries until the 5th of January 2016.

The winners will be announced by the end of January 2016.

Prizes

1st Prize Creative HDR:  US$500 Amazon Gift Card + Photomatix Pro Plus bundle license

1st Prize Realistic HDR:  US$500 Amazon Gift Card + Photomatix Pro Plus bundle license

2nd Prize Creative HDR:  US$200 Amazon Gift Card + Photomatix Pro license

2nd Prize Realistic HDR:  US$200 Amazon Gift Card + Photomatix Pro license

Amazon Gift Card may be replaced by an Apple Gift Card, if preferred.

Categories

The Creative HDR category applies to images of any scene processed with HDR settings in the style of Photomatix Presets such as Vibrant or Painterly for instance.

The Realistic HDR category applies to images of a high contrast scene made up of several exposures and processed with HDR settings in the style of Photomatix Presets such as Balanced or Natural.

If your image is processed in a style on the border between creative and realistic, you may choose whichever category you find the most appropriate. HDRsoft reserves the right to change the category you have selected, if necessary.

Contest Rules

  • Your image must be created using one of the following applications: Photomatix Pro, Photomatix Essentials, Photomatix HDR Plugin for Aperture or Tone Mapping Plugin for Photoshop.
    Your image may be created using the trial mode of the software. The presence of the 'Photomatix' watermark added in trial mode will not affect the decisions of the judges in any way.
  • You may post-process the image in other applications for colour adjustments or basic adjustments (e.g. levels & curves, sharpening), as well as noise reduction, removing objects or other processes that do not change the overall style of the image. However, you may not apply HDR-like effects (e.g. Topaz Adjust) or similar. If you are not sure whether the post-processing you are considering is allowed, you are welcome to ask our support.
  • You may submit up to three entries in total in all categories. For instance, you could submit three entries in one category, or two entries in one category and one entry in the other category.
  • You must be the sole owner and copyright holder of any image you submit.

HDRsoft reserves the right to reject any entry it deems to contain obscene, offensive, or otherwise inappropriate content at its sole discretion.

Judging

The Prize winners and Honorable Mentions will be determined by a panel of judges made up of a guest judge and ten photographers from the HDRsoft team.

The judges will review the entries for each category and pick two 1st Prize winners (one for the Realistic HDR and one for the Creative HDR category), two 2nd prize winners for each category, and up to 20 Honorable Mentions.

The 1st Prize, 2nd Prize and Honorable Mentions photos will be published on the HDRsoft.com website and posted on HDRsoft social media sites.

Guest Judge

Frederick Van Johnson

The guest judge of the Spring 2015 Photomatix HDR Challenge is Frederick Van Johnson.

Frederick has been in love with photography for the past few decades. He is founder and CEO of the insanely popular podcast network, This Week in Photo also known as TWiP. Frederick hosts the networks flagship show, TWiP, where he and a few other photographers get together to discuss news from the past week in the world of technology, politics, art and science as they apply to photography. [more...]

Frederick has been shooting professionally since 1989 - that's when he picked up his first camera - a Nikon F3. It shot film, was heavy, complicated and extremely impressive-looking. And it was just a basic camera; f/Stops, shutter speeds and ISO - that's it. Just the basics. Today, he shoots with high-tech mirror-less cameras and processes his "film" in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. So, things have changed a little.

Along with being the Founder and CEO of the TWiP Network, Frederick is also Chief Marketing Officer at Eyefi.com, and Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees at Brooks Institute.

Entry Specifications

The image you submit must be saved as JPEG and have a long dimension of at least 1000 pixels and no more than 3000 pixels.

If possible, please also upload the Photomatix Settings file you used to process the submitted image. This is a file with an XMP extension that you can create by selecting the "Save Preset..." item from the Preset pull-down menu of the Settings panel.

Entering the Contest

The contest is now closed.

If you wish to be notified of the start of the next contest, please subscribe to the Photomatix announcements.