I wanted to send my entry in a local photography competion and one of their rules is the below.
"Only cropping is allowed. No other form of editing, ie color adjustment is allowed. Entries are tantamount to disqualification upon editing."
My question is...is burning and dodging a photo a form of color adjustment? How about sharpening?
Thanks.
Sometimes the organizers of the contest are not photographers or imaging people, thus having swallow understanding of digital file formats.
Also it depends on the type of contest and genre.
If the photo is one where you can control lighting, then I would see burning and dodging as serious cheating. If a photo is where the photographer has no control in lighting ratio, then I can accept burning and dodging. Also if something can be done the same with film, then I would also feel that its within honorable limits of photography. BW film masters back then dodge and burn often, nobody can call them cheating.
On sharpening, I would also say its acceptable and without fraud. If you shoot JPEG, files are already sharpened by the camera. If you shoot RAW, raw processors applies a default sharpening upon export. Resizing the file will lose original sharpness also, so its only reasonable to bring it back. But when you sharpen as a form of correction, eg your critical sharpness of the eyes weren't there, or you selectively sharpen a perfectly ok picture to enhance certain parts, eg the eyes, then I would fault you if I am the judge, but I would not disqualify you. Again, in film days, photographers also sharpens with a technique known as
Unsharp Mask, which is what the Photoshop filter is named after.
That is why I say it depends on the contest and the genre.