How do you fancy winning an Olympus E-300 DSLR, or even a C-8080. Or better still, how about £2,500 to spend on whatever you like from Olympus? acclaimed, award-winning E-series digital SLR system? Then you need to enter the 2005 What Digital Camera Photographer of the Year competition.

The contest is comprised of five rounds, launched during the course of 2005. All you have to do is to submit a single image that you think illustrates that month?s theme. It can be a straight, digitally captured photograph, or one which has been significantly enhanced on the computer (whether shot on film or digital).

The best three images submitted for each round, in the judges? opinion, will win the prizes that month, and will also go forward to the Grand Final, where WDC readers and AOL members will be able to vote online for their favourite. The winning image will win its creator a fantastic Olympus DSLR system worth £2500.

Remember that we?re judging the images on their impact and merit alone, irrespective of how much work has gone into their creation, so you don?t have to go mad with Photoshop to win ? a grab shot of the kids stands just as much chance. But we do have a special award for best use of image manipulation (see below).

The Best Use of Photoshop Prize

To encourage you ?Photoshoppers? out there we?re also offering a stunning Olympus M:Robe worth £370, at the end of the competition for the best example of digital manipulation. Of course you don?t have to use Photoshop ? any image editing software will do.

The Rounds

How do I enter?

Entrants may submit one image only per round. Images must be in digital form, either by e-mail or on CD. They must conform to the following criteria:

• Images must be between 15x10cm (6×4″) and 30x20cm/A4 (12×8″) at 300ppi – that’s 1,800-3,600 pixels wide and 1,200-2,400 pixels high
• Entries must be saved as high quality JPEGs (if e-mailed), or JPEG or TIFF if on a CD
• The entrant’s name and age must appear in the file name: eg. joebloggs42.jpg (The age is only required in case we have more than one entrant with the same name).
• Images must be embedded with the following information: Entrants name, phone number, e-mail address, image caption (where taken, etc), camera/lens used, exposure info (if known). Information can either be attached by using the File Info feature in Photoshop (File > File Info) or by adding a blank strip under the image (by enlarging the canvas) and using the type tool.

ENTRIES SUBMITTED BEFORE THE ON SALE DATE FOR EACH ROUND WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED

Entering by E-mail

• You should enter by e-mail if your JPEG file is smaller than 3MB (when saved).
• Address your e-mail to: wdc@ipcmedia.com
• The subject of the e-mail should be ‘Photographer Of The Year -‘ followed by the one-word title of the round you are entering
• In the body of the e-mail, please give your name, address (with postcode), phone number(s), plus all relevant picture information (caption, camera etc)
• 
  Make sure to attach your correctly sized/saved entry to your e-mail before sending

Entering by Post

For JPEGs larger than 3MB (closed) and TIFF files, please burn your image onto a CD, and send it to us with a covering letter containing your name, address, phone and e-mail contacts, plus all relevant picture information (caption, camera etc). Send it to: What Digital Camera, Photographer of the year/Round, (where the word ‘Round’ is replaced with the one-word title of the round, i.e. ‘Family’), IPC Media, Kings Reach Tower, Stamford St., London SE1 9LS.

Entering from AOL

Type ‘Photographer Of The Year’ into the white box at the top of your AOL browser. Or go to the AOL Technology channel and click on the link.

Data Protection Act

If you’d like to receive e-mails from WDC and IPC containing news, special offers and product and service information, please write ‘Yes e-mail’ in your e-mail or covering letter.

What Digital Camera and IPC would like to contact you by post or telephone to promote and ask your opinion on our magazines and services. Please write ‘No WDC’ in your e-mail or covering letter if you prefer not to hear from us.

IPC may occasionally pass your details to carefully selected organisations so they can contact you by telephone or post with regards to promoting and researching their products and services. Please write ‘No other companies’ in your e-mail or covering letter if you prefer not to be contacted.

THE RULES

The competition is open only to photographers whose primary source of income is not derived from photography. Entries must be sent in high-quality digital form, and comply with the criteria set out above. Entrant and image information must be provided, as described above. Only one entry per person per round is permitted. Entries may be shot digitally, or taken on film then scanned and manipulated on a computer. Copyright of all entries must reside entirely with the photographer entering them and should not have been published before in any UK photographic magazine. Images will not be returned unless accompanied by a self-addressed envelope. Copyright of all entries remains with the photographer but What Digital Camera, AOL and Olympus UK reserve the right to use entries, without payment, in any feature, gallery or promotion associated with the competition. All entrants agree to any publicity in connection with this competition. Employees of IPC Media Ltd, AOL, Olympus and their families, may not enter this competition. Prizes are as stated and no cash alternatives will be offered. If, for any reason beyond Olympus? control, it is not possible to provide the stated prize, Olympus reserves the right to award an alternative prize of no lesser value. The Editor?s decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.