IAPLC photoshop issue.

[naman]

Originally Posted by Norbert Sabat

What if you send 3 layouts (one from you, one "from" sister and one "from" wife) and for example you take 500th place, sister 200th and your wife win - when you look in to Mr Amano eyes what will you say? "I'm liar"?

This issue is easily resolved by changing rules to allow admission of several entries from one participant.
In any way, I wish I could see 10 entries from Masashi Ono or Norbert Sabat, or Steven Chong and others, and I do not want to see any tank below #150 (this year, last year >#100).

More over, Norbert, I have a "complain" to you - why don't you post on your web-site shots with bigger resolution for downloading? Your tanks definitely deserves this!
And wish to see english texts...
Please please please...

You know how big difference to see tank at 900x400 resolution and 3000x1000...

Question: if there is a 200 maximum points, how judges can distinguish >1000 entries?

Originally Posted by George Farmer

It will be interesting to see if ADA publish some definitive guidelines as to what exactly constitutes 'cheating'. But even if they do, I wonder how easy it will be for them to see this 'cheating'.

By setting minimal resolution of entries to 2000x900 pixels, and not manipulated RAW or TIFF only.

The rest is over here: IAPLC Rules Initiative - changes you wish to see

[Norbert Sabat]

Maybe petition to ADA about rules is good idea. I started similar thread on polish aquaplant forum

Originally Posted by naman

More over, Norbert, I have a "complain" to you - why don't you post on your web-site shots with bigger resolution for downloading? Your tanks definitely deserves this!
And wish to see english texts...
Please please please...

Thanks for that
Maybe in future i put higher resolution. Reason is that higher resolution use more my serwer resources . When i started photography and put some photos on my homeland DSLR-forum i started use more resources . I don't use free serwer like photobucket etc.
Second reason is that on bigger res. people can see my weakness (algae, plant condition etc)
My english like you see is bad so i guess my site never be in english ...maybe someone will translate it in future

[naman]

...

[Shadow]

Originally Posted by blue33

Of course it shouldnt mention using somebody name and actually is done himself.

There are many ways, you can re-arange your name, add middle name, use fake name, etc. Even last year (2007) grand prize winner did that. Check out rank 123 and picture from below link:

Creative Aquascape Union

What I'm trying to say, it is difficult to tell.

[Shadow]

Originally Posted by Norbert Sabat

I'm not. IMO this is some kind of lie when you made all aquascapes and after that wrote that "this layout was made by my sister" (when your sister don't even touch water in that tank)....

What if you send 3layouts (one from you, one "from" sister and one "from" wife) and for example you take 500th place, sister 200th and your wife win - when you look in to Mr Amano eyes what will you say? "I'm liar"?

I'm ok because no matter how many tank you submit it won't effect the judge decision. Even if you submit 1000 crap entries if will still be crap. Liar or not, well every one lie before. Some lie to protect others, do we call them liar as well? Or hero?

[Jur4ik]

imo it is difficult to figure out the frontier between little corrections and cheating with ps.

the equipment, the photographs use is mostly different - who has the best and the most expensive equipment has allready some bonus points because of the better photo of his tank.

difficult for an international contest to find the right way but i´m sure - NOT IMPOSSIBLE!

@ naman
привет по русски, спасибо за сылку на твой сайт, когда время будет обязателно загляну

[Norbert Sabat]

Originally Posted by Shadow

I'm ok because no matter how many tank you submit it won't effect the judge decision. Even if you submit 1000 crap entries if will still be crap. Liar or not, well every one lie before. Some lie to protect others, do we call them liar as well? Or hero?

You don't get my point. My point isn't how many submit you put in to contest or is this effect your rank but how you do it!!! For example:

I made tank for friend wchich don't know nothing about aquascaping, he only feed fish. After few months i take photo of this tank and send to contest. My friend after reading some info in net go to idea "Hmm, i have nice tank in living room so i will send it to contest". So...we have two different contesters with same tank and same photo (because i gave my friend photo of this tank). Everything is OK with rule 1people=1submit but which are "realy contester"? Me? - I made whole aquascape, take care about maintance, i take photo - or my friend? - he is owner of this tank, he pay for this.
We can go deeper. Photo of this tank above was taken by professional photographer which also send photo to contest (this is also photography contest, judging is by photo so he have right to send his own photo of this tank). So we have 3contesters with same tank and everything is ok with rule 1=1 but which of us is trully OK with "basic common law"?
Same thing IMO with sending tanks from family names. Is your work so don't speak that your sister made this work. You can send few tanks and then ADA judge wchich one is the best and going to the final contest.
This rule 1=1 is little crazy and should be change.

Don't speak about lie to protect others - this is totally different thing than problem that i talking about. In that case you don't protect nobody....only lie

[Anti-Pjerrot]

I think that it should be ok to enter several tanks pr. person. Truly if you want to be great, you can only focus on 1 or 2 tanks.

[Jur4ik]

Originally Posted by Anti-Pjerrot

I think that it should be ok to enter several tanks pr. person. Truly if you want to be great, you can only focus on 1 or 2 tanks.

dito

the thing Norbert talked about:

if you let an extra photograph take picture of your tank - i would buy the rights of his work - that this picture is only my property.

the point between the scaper and the owner of the tank - in my opinion the scaper is the artist - but how often the rights on the tank are property of the person who pays for all the fun.

-> there is definetly a need to change that 1=1 rule

[John N.]

Folks this has become a touchy subject and I know it is close to everyone's hearts. This reminds me of the Beyonce Knowles Photoshop Issue: Editting to be White?

Let me take this time to remind folks that we don't want to be pointing fingers at anyone or saying s/he cheated. Though it makes an interesting dicussion, we want to be respectful of our fellow aquascapers and friends. Assumptions and accusations based on them can lead to ill feelings for the accused and the people reading this thread.

First off, most people who enter into the ADA Contest are dedicated hobbyists who want to see how they compare and rank to others in the world. I don't think the motives are actually out to win the prize money necessarily. I see the contest as a chance to bring hobbyist together and not divide or ostracize them. Anyways, here are my thoughts.

Multiple Entries
Is it fair to enter multiple entries into a contest under family/friend's name?

No. It's not fair to other participants. However I do understand in nearly any contest, promotion, or event people will bend the rules. It does not make it right, but it happens. Whether or not this happened in this contest is not up for us to say. We can only make assumptions which are not fair to the ones we accuse.

Photo Editing
The judges evaluate the final photo, not the step-by-step photos of the whole aquascaping process.

The way I see it, we are creating pieces of Living Art when we create a planted aquarium. As artists we attempt to frame our works in the best light. There are folks who will hire/ask experienced photographers to that final photo of their aquascape, and there are folks who will edit and retouch these photos.

In the ADA Contest there were nearly 1200 entries. I'm sure most of the have some sort of photoshopping done to the photos (cropping, light/color balance, etc). Unless the contest begins to accepts allows RAW, unedited photos there's really no realistic way to monitor how much a photo get's editted.

Simply put a poor quality photo, even though it may contain a nice aquascape would probably not rank as high as that same aquascape taken with a better camera and touched up.

Anyways, the point I'm trying to make here is that ideally an aquascaping competition should be about the aquascaping layout, plants, and composition. In reality, the way we present our aquascapes in the judged photos are a large factor in how close we get to that top rank. If you can accept that fact, then the altered photos you may suspect and are apparent in many of the entries shouldn't surprise you.

-John N.

[Norbert Sabat]

Off top ON

Originally Posted by naman

More over, Norbert, I have a "complain" to you - why don't you post on your web-site shots with bigger resolution for downloading?

Heh..you give me idea for new gallery so i hope soon i put on my site photos in biger resolution (over 1000pix)..i must only find java script and make it happen

Off top Off

Sorry mods

[cezar]

Originally Posted by Shadow

There are many ways, you can re-arange your name, add middle name, use fake name, etc. Even last year (2007) grand prize winner did that. Check out rank 123 and picture from below link:
Creative Aquascape Union

This is what the winner wrote somewhere regarding the tank:
"This aquascape is created by my wife and i just give her some technical support."
Period.

[Mellonman]

Originally Posted by Anti-Pjerrot

I think that it should be ok to enter several tanks pr. person. Truly if you want to be great, you can only focus on 1 or 2 tanks.

For many aquascapers who have 2 or 3 tanks at home, and make every year 2 or 3 layouts in each tank, total possible entry could be 9...

Do you think ADA can (and wants to) deal with 3000 or 4000 entries in the contest ?
That's why (I guess) they changed the rules to limit entries to one per person...

[Shadow]

Originally Posted by Norbert Sabat

You don't get my point. My point isn't how many submit you put in to contest or is this effect your rank but how you do it!!!

I believe I got your point, you are seeing it from moral perspective and from that angle I agree with you.

[Anti-Pjerrot]

Good point Mellonman... I guess my point comes from that I cant manage to make more than 1 layout a year

[saintly]

the only way to get over image manipulation is to shoot raw. but you then alienate half of the possible contestants. even a tiff can be manipulated. its just an uncompressed version of a j-peg. i manipulate tiff's all the time.

BTW hi everyone from ukaps, my first post. i forgot i was a member here ooo and smiley central, please gorege, please, please can we have smiley central? just kiddin

mark

[aaronnorth]

i forgot i was a member here

I was just going to say the same thing lol.

Not everybody can afford a camera to shoot in raw or they dont want to buy one. It is a lot of messing just for a competition.

[iam_koi]

what happened to this?

[Anti-Pjerrot]

No idea. ADA got the ball and it was up to them to play it as they found best.

[cicjay]

Just looked through this thread and am quite amazed that its come up.
Seems sad that someone could go against the spirit of this hobby that we all enjoy for personal gain...


Did prefer the anubias though