How not to get marked down in competition
In a review of the past year of competition images, there were a number of reasons that images were marked down. Generally these issues did not cause the image to be rejected but it did lose it’s potentially higher grade. Typical judges comments were “I would have given this an honour but…” or “I would have given this image a merit but…”.
The common issues were:
- Distractions
- Cropping (to improve composition or remove distractions)
- Lack of detail in Shadows or Highlights
- Unsharp images
- Flat images
- Image needs straightened
Here are some Lightroom tutorials on how to fix the most common reasons images were downgraded.
Lightroom Basics
Distractions
Shadow and Highlight Detail
Sharpening
Fix Flat Images
Straighten
