CONTENTS

• In brief
• Upload Instructions for website version of image
• Upload Instruction for high quality version
• General considerations
• Judging and Awards Process

IN BRIEF

The November competition will be focused on online submissions of original images (i.e. taken by you) primarily acquired by the use of a microscope.

UPLOAD INSTRUCTIONS FOR WEBSITE VERSION OF IMAGE

• You must be logged in to the NCBS news site: LOGIN (top right of page) with the username and password that accesses your NCBS email account.
• Choose 'UPLOAD IMAGE' link from the right hand side navigation panel of NCBS News and you will be directed to the UPLOAD IMAGE page.
• From within that page: "Browse" to and choose the image of your choice. "Upload" the file
• Choose the appropriate gallery by modifying the 'Image Gallery' option on the page.
• Add a Title in the "Title" field

You must include the following information in the "Caption" field

• Location
• Details of the specimen
• Microscope used
• Any further image processing
• Year of creation
• Full name of image creator

Editing of the information for your own images - after you have uploaded them - is now possible.

UPLOAD INSTRUCTIONS FOR HIGH QUALITY VERSION OF IMAGE

If you want your image to be considered for a prize you must also provide us with some way to access the highest quality version of your image that you have. These will be necessary for printing of the image if it wins an award. Photographers who are taking photos expressly for the competition should use the highest possible resolution on their camera.

• If the image is 15MB or less, than you can email it to me (geoff@ncbs.res.in)
• If the Image is more than 15MB: Email me a link from which we can download the file. The easiest system for this is probably a Dropbox account (https://www.dropbox.com/ ) or any other of the many similar free services. Such services allow you to provide other people with a "public link" to the file (Dropbox public link instructions: https://www.dropbox.com/help/16)
  

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS

FIVE images will be allowed per person. Image size restrictions: 300 KB, 700 x 700 pixels.

Here are some details for those interested in the mechanics of Judging and Awards. We have two award categories: People's Choice and Judges' Picks.The number of awards in each category is decided at the end of each competition, and depends on:

• the overall quality and quantity of submissions, and
• the capacity of NCBS to print and exhibit the winning images.

The minimum number of award so far has been 3 (1 People's Choice; 2 Judge's Picks), the maximum, 10 (3 People's Choice; 7 Judge's Picks).

Peoples' Choice

Winners are decided by the number of votes lodged before 12 midnight on the final day of the month in which the competition is held (unless otherwise informed). Only NCBS community members can vote. People can vote for any number of entries, and can change their votes at any time.

Judges' Picks

We now have five judges, including our own resident art historian, Soumya James. Judges are provided with an Excel sheet with every image listed. They pick their top 'n' photos, where 'n' depends on the overall quantity and quality of the submissions, among other things, and is decided upon beforehand. Each of those photos is given a score out of 100, and the net scores are used (with some nod to normalisation i.e. we try to adjust for judges who score very differently) to determine the winners.

Some comments from Judges as to what they look for:

* I have scored them according to: imagination, technical perfection and appeal.

* First I filtered the photos based on relevance to the subject. Then I had three categories: Technique (focus, brightness, etc), Composition and Impact. These are all very subjective criteria, so I scored them in multiples of 10 in a scale of 100 (so that there is a space to insert a photo looking slightly less interesting in between). I weighted them as: technique: composition: impact = 1:2:2 as it is hard to do justice to technique in case of photos taken on mobiles or reduced to small JPEG.

Awards

Winning images are printed and framed and hung in various locations on NCBS Campus. At the end of a month (or so) of exhibition, they are replaced by later winning images. The images are then available to be used by their creators however they wish. Awards are announced by email to: all@ncbs.res.in

What winners should do

You will have already provided us with some way of accessing the highest quality version of your image. We will take it from there.