The Contest Designed by Photojournalists for Photojournalists

Compete with the very best in still and television photojournalism, in picture editing, and Web editing. Now in its seventh year, the Best of Photojournalism (BOP) is the world's leading digital photojournalism contest.

BOP is a project of the National Press Photographers Association.

• Number of entries allowed
• Editing Entry Preparation
• Categories
• Submitting your Entries

Overview

The Best of Photojournalism Picture Editing competition recognizes the individuals and publications that practice and promote great photojournalism through great picture editing.

Picture editing is a complex and multifaceted process. Picture editors identify the best pictures and shepherd them to the public eye. They ensure that the text and pictures work together to tell a story. Picture editors work to facilitate page design and layout that engages and enlightens readers.

Great picture editors help teach the photographers they work with to see and communicate more clearly and deeply.

The act of editing itself may be a team effort, or it may be performed by an individual, but it is never completely in isolation.

Changes in the 2010 Contest

In recognition of publications that appear in electronic form only, we are adding the category of Best Use of Photography: Electronic Publication (EU4). Submission should be four consecutive issues from the calendar year 2009. The expectation is that these publications are not infinitely updatable web sites, but rather electronically published edition that are regularly offered to readers.

Contest format

Entries in all Newspaper and Magazine Picture Editing categories must be submitted in PDF format, EXCEPT for the Best Use of Photography categories. The Best Use categories for print publications (EU01, EU02 and EU03) require hard-copy entries, and the new Best Use of Photography by Electronic Publications category can be entered either in PDF, or as a set of four URLs, one for each issue submitted.

Registering Yourself for the Contest

Everyone must obtain an identification code to enter Best of Photojournalism 2010. Please note that:

1. you must register even if you entered in a previous year
2. you cannot simply re-use last year’s entry code

Obtaining the code is easy: simply complete the online Contest Registration Form, and you will be given your unique Contest Identification Code within minutes.

Your Contest Identification Code will serve as your ‘name’ for the contest: you must include this 8-digit code on the Editing Entry Form (available once the contest opens in January) for each PDF or hard-copy edition you enter.

Note that if you are entering more than one division of the Best of Photojournalism competition (for example, Photo Editing and Web Sites), you can use the same Contest Identification Code for all divisions.

For entries in the Magazine and Newspaper Picture Editing categories, you can submit your PDF files by FTP. The FTP server address, user name, and password will be sent to everyone who fills out the online Contest Registration Form once the entry server goes online January 4th.

Preparing your Entries

The intent of the Best of Photojournalism Picture Editing contest is to judge the best of picture editing in each of the categories published during the past year. To that end, the contest judges should see exactly what the readers saw in print. Presenting a PDF with content different from that in the final printed publication is inconsistent with the goals and ethics of the competition. Entries that have been altered or re-edited for this contest will be disqualified. (Note that compressing your PDFs for screen display is not considered to be alteration.)

Modified “Smallest File Size” PDFs will be used to judge all categories except for the Best Use of Photography categories. Those categories (EU01, EU02, EU03) require complete printed editions of each publication.

Each entry in the Photo Editing division (whether in PDF or hard copy) must be accompanied by a completed Online Entry Form (available when the contest opens in January). The entry form takes your contest ID and category, and generates an internal "ticket" for the entry. The confirmation page provides you with a file name for your PDF entries, and a printable entry label for the hard-copy Best Use of Photography entries.

Number of entries allowed

There is no limit on the number of entries allowed per editor or editing team, but we encourage entrants to exercise “good editing” in entry preparation.

PDF Format Requirements

• Only “screen resolution” or “smallest file size” PDFs should be entered. As part of the “smallest file size” compression, images with resolutions above 240 DPI should be down-sampled to 150 DPI using bicubic interpolation.

  

• Font subsets should be included.

• If possible, the color space should be set to sRGB to ensure accurate reproduction on the projector.

• No slide show or special program should be used. Simply save each entry as a PDF file, using Adobe Acrobat or your page layout program.

• Multiple-page presentations must be assembled into a single PDF. They should be in reading order (using natural spreads) and not in printing order (printer spreads). This is critical if judges are to comprehend the sequence flow of pages presented to the readers of your publication.

  The requirement that each entry be saved as a single PDF file applies to all categories, including the picture editing portfolio categories (EM08, EN11, and EN12).

Categories

Assurance: The judging body will attempt to ensure that all entries are judged in an appropriate category. In some cases, that may mean that entries will be re-categorized. Entrants will not automatically be disqualified for choosing the wrong category; however, we strongly encourage entrants to use care in selection.

Magazine Picture Editing

Newspaper Picture Editing

The term ‘single page’ is defined in the newspaper portion of contest as a lone page (tabloid or broad sheet). A double-truck or center spread will be defined as a multiple page entry.

Best Use of Photography

Note: These categories must be entered with complete editions of the publications. (Please remove any advertising inserts or stuffers.)

Naming your Files and Folders

When your PDFs are imported into the contest database, the file names (and folder structure) are used to identify the category that the file is entered in, as well as to assign credit to the right entrant. Please fill out the Online Entry Form (available when the contest opens in January) for each entry, and use the file name it gives you.

To make it simpler to find your files if you should have a question, we further ask that you organize all your images into folders by category, using the 4-character Category code as the name of the folder. The category folders, in turn, should be collected into a folder named with your Contest ID Code.

Submitting your Entry

• All entries must be submitted on or before the deadline of January 30th, 2010.
• Make sure multi-page entries are stored in one multi-page PDF, rather than a folder of single-page PDF’s.
• Make sure your entries are labeled with the entry number or file name from the web site (not just your contest ID).
• Entries that are not named/labeled appropriately will not be accessible in the web preview.

Submitting Online

Online entry has been an important part of the Best of Photojournalism contest, and has greatly improved the ease of entering. Now, with the advent of all-PDF entries for the Magazine and Newspaper Picture Editing categories, those efficiencies are being carried over to the Photo Editing division as well.

To reduce upload times, and to simplify troubleshooting if there is a transfer problem, you must create a single compressed archive of all your images in ZIP format, and upload that compressed archive to the server, rather than transferring each PDF file individually.

To do so,

1. Organize your PDFs into folders, and compress the top-level folder (which should be named with your unique contest ID code) in ZIP format. You will end up with a file called something like (using our example folder name above) 00032853.zip

   This will be a single large file containing a group of your images in compressed form, plus all the organizational/folder structure information.

   Mac OS X has a ZIP compression program built-in: just right-click or control-click on your folder, and choose "Create archive of “folder name”" from the context menu.

   If you are using Mac OS 9 or Windows and don't have a compression program, there are free versions of StuffIt (which will do Zip compression), 7-Zip, WinZIP, and other ZIP compression programs online.

2. Connect to the contest FTP site and upload this compressed file to the server (after the contest opens in January). You may not see progress updates as the file transfers, but it will still transfer.

   The uploaded files are then scanned for viruses, expanded, and processed. You will be emailed when your individual images have been entered and are ready for viewing.

PDF entries sent by FTP must be received by the end of the day on January 29th, 2010.

Submitting Entries by Mail

In addition to direct online submission, PDF entries can also be sent in on CD or DVD, in either Mac or PC format. All disks must be labeled clearly:

• Label each disk with your contest division (Photo Editing), plus your name and organization. The label must be legible.
• If submitting more than one disk for your entries, please number the disks. (for example, ‘1 of 2’, ‘2 of 2’...)
• Indicate on the label whether the disk is formatted for Mac or PC.

All entries in the Best Use of Photography categories for print publications (EU01, EU02, and EU03) must be shipped, as those categories require full printed issues of your publication (see the category rules for details).

Mailing Address:

Please mail disks, and hard-copy entries from the Best Use of Photography categories (with attached Entry Labels) to:

All entries which are shipped to NPPA must be sent on or before the deadline of January 29th, 2010. The postmark or shipping label date will be used to confirm shipment times for entries received after the deadline.

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For more information, email the Contest Coordinator.