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it was brought to my attention by other members that some people were cheating in the photography contest .i will not name anyone,i will only say to those people, that they are only fooling themselves as there is no prizes to the contest,and the only way you will ever know what other people think of your photos is by being honest yourself.
to all other members thank you for being honest on your ratings and comments,we can only benefit from it
thank you

Last edited by eye_c on Feb 4th, 2006 at 10:41 PM

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I do not enter photo contests. I do not like pictures that have been manipulated in photo shop because your again, only fooling yourself and hiding what you can not do with a camera. I don't look at online photo contests because I could care less what people do in PhotShop or other software that repairs poor pictures. So cheat all you like.

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I am curious as to what you both call cheating, I am a long time student of photography and have like most of my peers recognized the alteration of an image electronically as the natural evolution from darkroom manipulation thus the nickname it has garnered “Digital Darkroom”. Manipulation in the darkroom was a necessity to achieve a print in the early days of film photography and continues to this day. I agree that if the contest spells out what can be done to an image for it to be included and that is ignored it should be considered cheating for that particular contest however I think that the “Photoshopping” of most images should be recognized for what it usually is, the artists attempt to make the photo as true to the scene or to his or her creative idea as they can get it.

I continue to fall back on my belief that if any of the photographers that you revere from years gone by were working today they would be leading the way with Photoshop or other similar photo manipulation programs.

This is just my opinion but one that is echoed in multitude amongst today’s best photographers.

And not to be insulting but I have found that those who raise the clarion of photo purism are often looking for an excuse as to why there images aren’t as good as others, thinking that if there were a level playing field they would be by comparison, better I hope that is not the case for you two.

Good luck with your photographic endeavors, I hope you both do well.

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the cheating im talking about has nothing to do with photoshop or manipulation of a photo.
its regarding ratings and comments,and how some users have 2 or more user names to up their rating and lower everybody eleses for them to win.

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Ray,
Eyc could very well be right. It has happened many times here and on other sites. In fact another site that I am on that since I've been busy havent posted to the past month.. I was told they just found someone who had many id's and voted for himself many times for POTW and would win.
The owner of the site exposed him to everyone.

I'm beginning to think that if we find out who the cheaters are.. we expose them to all on the site.. instead of keeping it a secret. I'm hearing that just about every photo site out there that alows users to vote find cheaters voting for themselves.
Maybe if someone knows they could evenually be caught and exposed to all on the internet.. this will be a deterent to even play the silly game of cheating

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Sometimes I do get to places just when God's ready to have somebody click the shutter. -Ansel Adams

Last edited by rct4905 on Feb 11th, 2006 at 09:52 PM

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I can't say I'm aware of any "cheaters"at Byte,but I have noticed that there are many members who feel they somehow have the luxury of simply entering the contest and making few or no comments themselves.Every week it's the usual suspects who provide about 90% of the comments...and I know who they are:-)
Andrew

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So because I do not enter online photo contest's this is your blanket statement

""And not to be insulting but I have found that those who raise the clarion of photo purism are often looking for an excuse as to why there images aren’t as good as others, thinking that if there were a level playing field they would be by comparison, better I hope that is not the case for you two.""


Photoshop is not photography, or developing. Now if the person posting the picture stated he or she post manipulated a photograph the layman then might understand how they got the effect. I think it's normal for that part to be left out.

I didn't say anyone was cheating. I said go ahead and cheat if you like in the online photo contests. Makes no differance to me.

Last edited by on Feb 12th, 2006 at 05:18 AM

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***sigh***

.. someone is cheating
.. someone is not commenting enough
.. someone is using Photoshop too much

It's like Groundhog day at this site...

Come on folks, life is too short for this pettiness.

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there is a lot of angry people here,i was just being polite and i belive that by my statement alone,i was doing something about it,hopefully the people involved will read this statement and do the right thing.

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eye.............I'm not angry at all. It's just the way I feel. Digital (photoshop) art is not the same as digital photography.

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Have not noticed any cheating here although if as has been stated it is happening well the simple way to stop it would be to leave the voting of the winner to the judges or moderators.

As for what sw2cam is talking about with photoshop, what a crock of ..... for years Ive sat back and watched people with their own developing studios win photography contests while those who relied on straight from the camera shots developed by the local store rarely won, they manipulated as much as any photshopper did, you dont really think that Ansel just took his shots straight from the camera do you??? By the way, one can not make a bad photo into a good one, you still have to understand the camera, composition etc. I think Im not too bad at photoshop but give me a really badly composed out of focus shot and no matter how hard I try I cant make it a winner. The whole point of this forum is that it is digital, the contest allows for some editing and if photoshop is used so be it.

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aladyforty

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I agree that the cheater or cheaters should be exposed. The only way to stop it is to let everyone know who it is and to remove that persons comments and ratings. I am no expert photographer, but it is fun for me to see what others think of my photos. To have someone bash a photo just to bring down my rating makes it difficult for a beginner to really know how good or bad a photo really is. I have become a little disheartened as of late due to the lack of comments some photos receive. (mine included) I have tried to make comments on other peoples photos, but like I said, I am a beginner and most of the time I can only say if I like a photo or not. For me to critique a photo seems unfair since I am still learning myself.

I think the problem is rampant on most photo sites though and not just this one.

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Pam Teague

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I have been out a few weeks, so just caught this thread.

I can confirm that there has been some games being played - specifically, a potential finalist for several weeks worth of POTW competitions giving lower scores to other POTW scores while, through friends or a second registered name, pumping up their own scores.

Quite bothersome, but in the end, really has not effected any POTW winners to my knowledge. I think this "gaming" can help one become a downselect finalist, but does not create enough votes to swing the finalist competition. The best way for us not to allow this to happen is to vote fair and to make sure we cast our votes in the POTW finals.

Of course, others have noted - we are entering this for pride of our photography. Ironically, I don't see how anyone could be proud to win while playing games with others.

BTW, I have always been a big supporter of the photography of all of those who have added comments to this discussion. We seem to be arguing amoung the honest and sincere.

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One thing that can "help" is to only let each IP address have one sign-on (screen name).

Last edited by on Feb 14th, 2006 at 02:12 AM

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I don't think that would work as you could still access multiple accounts from multiple computers

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