Why, hello there. I am so happy to meet you!

• Admins
• Moderators
• Voting Scale
• Entry Requirements
  • Authorship and Ownership
  • Filesize and Dimention Regulations
  • Entry Regulations
  • Arena Requirements
• Topic
• Arenas
• Advanced Photography Arena
• Beginner Photography Arena
• HxH Photography Arena
• Tournament Photography Arena
• Definitions

Admins

The Worth1000 Photography Admins for the Advanced Photography Arena, the Beginner Photgraphy Arena, the Team Photography Arena, and the HxH Photography Arena are:

• kimbomac
• madame_ava
• meerkat

Moderators

The Moderators in the Advanced Photography Arena, the Beginner Photgraphy Arena, the Team Photography Arena, and the HxH Photography Arena help with editing forum posts and entry comments, as well as helping report entries in certain contests before voting starts for admin review. They are:

• johnnytitan
• LadyMin
• SigloV
• UnicornBabe

Voting Scale

The voting scale is the same for the entire Photography Topic. Ideally, an entry should recieve the same score regardless of which Photo Arena it is entered in. The following is a guide to help you map your individual prefernces on each entry to the 10-point scale used across the site:

2	Very bad. Anything voted in this range (1-2) should be flagged for low quality as it is seriously flawed. Absolutely a snapshot* without any merit.
4	Poor, but not without merit Not much effort afforded and probably snapshottish*. Has some problems such as a distracting background or compositional error.
6	Good. Most of the basics are well done (although not great or brilliant). Thought was put into composition, lighting and concept. They may not be amazing and may lack wow but certainly not a snapshot*
8	Very good. Professional and competent use of composition, lighting and concept.
10	Exceptional. Breath-taking and brilliant execution. Although rare, these jewels do exist.

What to consider when voting

Most contests do not specify a photographic style or end medium or context; a journalistic photo has a different esthetic and ideal than a successful stock photograph. It is therefore important to try and consider what the artist was attempting in his or her photograph and rate accordingly. Keep an open mind and consider the intent of each photo when voting.

Aspects to consider might be technical execution, artistry, success of message, and originality. Not all these will or should be weighed equally, but the good voter will consider their aptness to the contest theme and the intent of the photograph when voting. Of course there is room for personal preference; at the same time no photo should score low based on the failure of any one criterion.

Entry Requirements

These requirements apply to all Photography Arenas.

Authorship and Ownership

• You must be the original photographer of your entry - you have to be the one who pressed the shutter.
• The photographer should keep a copy of the original image with .exif information intact for verification purposes.
• You may use any type of camera - film or digital.

Filesize and Dimention Regulations
• Entries should preferably be web-sized - no direct-from camera uploads.
• Your entry must be sufficiently wide to be judged, which is enforced on Administrator discretion.
  We recommend a minimum of 400 pixels wide for vertical entries and 500 pixels wide for horizontal entries.

Entry Regulations
• Subject matter is to follow Worth's usual site guidelines concerning nudity, pornography, vulgarity, etc.
• You may not link to full-sized or alternate versions of your entry in your author's comments.
• You are only allowed to enter a photograph once in regular contests.
  Do not submit the same photo to another contest later - it will be disqualified. An exception will be made with Bonus contests and head to head (HxH) type contests. The reverse is also true. An image used in an HxH and Bonus contest will afterwards also be allowed in a regular contest.
• You may only submit 1 entry of the same subject/shoot per contest.
  Multiple submissions of the same themed entry in a contest is not allowed, i.e., 2 or more photos of your subject at different angles or compositions submitted as seperate entries. This rule may be relaxed for certain types of contests, and in this case, will be specified as an allowance in the specific contest rules.
• There is a limit of three (3) entries per user per photography contest.

Arena Regulations
• You must qualify to enter a specific arena by following its specific Eligibility Requirements.
• All entries to an arena must conform to the editing allowances for that specific Arena.

Topic

The Photography topic concerns itself with the capture of images on analog or digital media. The end result is strictly tied to the original capture, and although editing and beautification may take place, there is always a direct link of recognizeability and "truth" between the original and the final product.

Some photographic art stretches this definition in the pursuit of an artistic goal, where reality is modified or augmented, and in some respect the product approaches the topic of Effects (FX). One clear distinction is however, that all art created in the Photography topic is created by the hand of the Photographer; no outside sources or images are used in the telling of a story.

Arenas

There are several Photography arenas where different types of contests are created and available for participation by members with different capabilities and/or interests.

Beginner Photography	This is where most people will start, and will contain contests designed to develop in-camera skills.
Advanced Photography	This is where photographers will play who feel they have conquered the basics of their camera and picture-taking skills and wish to push their creativity a little harder.
Head to Head Photography	This is where members can engage in one-on-one contests, and contests with restricted players who develop their own contest themes and ideas.
Team Photography	This is a special arena for the annual Team Tournament where members sign up to participate as part of a team.

Each arena and the contests in those arenas have different eligibility requirements for participation. Eligibilty is based on the points earned for trophies and medals in contests within that one arena as so:

Gold:	9 points
Silver:	3 points
Bronze:	1 point

You should consult the FAQ for each separate arena in order to determine whether you are able to participate in those contests.

The Beginner Photography Arena

There are two levels of capability that will be catered for in this arena.

Beginner:

These contests all contain the word "Beginner:" before the contest title. This is truly the place for people just starting out. Although we've seen some amazing work here, it is often flooded with work from people just starting out. Entries of all quality will be accepted here (unless considered trollish) as long as they follow all the contest rules. If you have at least 27 Beginner points or 10 Advanced points you will be considered too good to enter the Beginners contests.

Intermediate:

These all have "Intermediate:" before the contest title. These contests allows members of varying experience to participate, but we do require a minimum of quality. In these contests it's even more important to be careful of backgrounds and of such things as being out of focus as you may be disqualified even if you follow all of the other rules set by the contest. Quality decisions will be made by the photographer moderators. If you have at least 27 Advanced points you will be considered too good to enter Intermediate contests.

If you are already ineligible to play in this arena, please have a look at the Advanced Photography arena for more challenging contests.

Photo Post-Processing Allowances

All contest levels allow:
• Rectangular cropping, rotation, and resizing of your image
• 1-2px wide black borders

Beginner contests also allow:

• Non-selective Hue/Sat adjustments
• Non-selective Brightness and Contrast adjustments
  including Levels and Curves
• Non-selective Black & White conversion and toning
• Non-selective Noise reduction
• Non-selective sharpening and gauss-blurring
• Non-selective white balance correction in RAW is also allowed
• Duplicating layers
• Layer blending modes

Intermediate contests also allow:
• Adjustment layers with applied gradient masks
• Duplicating layers with applied gradient masks
• All lens correction filters, including vignetting
• Perspective correction

The Advanced Photography Arena

There are two types of contests that will be catered for in this arena. All members are eligible for entering both these types of contests, as soon as they feel ready.

Advanced	These contests are really for people that have conquered the basics of photography,composition and post-processing. Images entered here require a higher standard of quality that will be decided by the photography moderators. Images considered snapshottish "unless deemed to have a special extra something" will be disqualified as well as images considered over/under exposed, badly composed, etc.
Bonus	Bonus contests are open to everyone, as they are really to help photographers learn new post-processing manipulation skills and to experiment with their images. The editing allowances will be stated explicitly in the contest description.

Photo Post-Processing Allowances

Advanced contests allow:

• RAW-level adjustments like white balance and toning
• All lens correction filters, including vignetting
• Rectangular cropping, rotation, and resizing of your image
• Adjustment layers
• Duplicating layers
• Blending modes
• Selective manipulation like dodge/burn, cloning
• Full freedom of masking
• Selective use of blur, sharpen filters
• Noise reduction
• Third-party (custom) filters as long as they use only your one photo file
• Perspective correction
• Borders, any size, color and/or creative

Unless specifically noted in the contest rules, no Advanced Arena contests allow:
• The merging of more than one exposure or file
• The addition of text or illustrated elements

In all cases, results must be reasonably photorealistic.

The Head to Head Photography Arena

This is where you get to make up your own rules about contests, and choose the players you want to play against. Set up individual contests between only a few of you, or call up any willing contenders to jump in and have a go. Please see the General FAQ for more details on setting up a HxH.

The Tournament Photography Arena

This arena hosts two bi-annual competitions: the Head-to-Head elimination-style Tournament, and the team-based photography tournament where groups of players collaborate against other teams. Both of these require participants to sign-up ahead of time, in special sign-up threads posted by an Arena admin a few weeks prior to the start of the tournament.

Each tournament has its own rules, revealed during the sign-up period. The tournaments also offer the winners special tournament trophies, coveted prizes indeed.

Definitions

Here are some common terms found throughout the Photography Arenas:

Bokeh	The term for the way a lens renders the out-of-focus portions of an image. A pleasant bokeh would imply that the non-focused elements such as the background blend in an esthetically pleasing way.
DoF	Depth of Field. The expanse or slice of an image or scene, depth-wise, which is in reasonable focus. A narrow depth of field means that only a thin slice is in focus, and the background is usually characterised as being washed out into a pleasant blend of color. A large depth of field indicates that almost everything is in the photograph is in perfect focus.
RoT	Rule of Thirds. This is a fundamental compositional aid whereby the subject or a main line in your photograph (such as the horizon) is placed one third from the edges of the frame.
Selective editing	Post-process editing involving the manual or arbitraty selection of pixels as opposed to working the whole image evenly. Cloning, marquee-selection tools, and masking are examples of selective editing. Hue/Sat Adjustment layers are not considered selective editing; it is the difference between "all blue pixels" and "these blue pixels".
Shoeboxing	Entering a contest with a previously created (and/or photographed) entry. Shoeboxing is forbidden in some contests, and will be stated in the description when not allowed.
Snapshot	A photograph taken casually, without consideration to background or composition. Other features might include an overpowering on-camera flash, or an uncreative angle or point-of-view when shooting small subjects.