Photoshop Contests

How do I enter Photoshop contests?

Before you get started, make sure to read the Posting Rules. Entries that invite or could result in unwanted legal/law-enforcement attention will be deleted as well.

You can see upcoming Photoshop contests at https://www.fark.com/contests. TotalFarkers are able to see and participate in Photoshop contests that haven't gone live yet (one of the perks of TotalFark). TotalFarkers have anywhere from a couple days to a week to enter the contest before it's open to all Farkers. The contests page will list the date when the contest will go live. Once it goes live, all Farkers will be able to participate and vote until the contest closes, which is generally around a week later.

To participate in Fark Photoshop contests you will need only the following five things:

  1. A Fark account
  2. Image Editing software compatible with your OS (Adobe Photoshop/Creative Suite, The GIMP, Corel Draw/Painter, etc.) Fark.com does not endorse any specific product. These are just examples.# An image that is within Fark's file size limits. (The exact numbers are at the bottom of this document)

Most image editing software comes with helpful tutorials. If you can't find exactly what you are looking for, try the following links. Some are free, some are not. Your mileage may vary.

There are help and tutorial sites provided by software creators/vendors themselves:

Other informative sites include:

The Fark Photoshop/Audio Edit Forum is also an excellent source for advice. If you have questions regarding your Photoshop such as "Is it within the boundaries of acceptable?" drop in the Photoshop Forum and ask. At least one mod is there most of the time and they'll be able to answer your questions. When in doubt, especially about Safe For Work/Not Safe For Work entries - ask before you post.

Additional Photoshop requirements that are not covered by the Posting Rules:

  • Unmodified results of image searches (Google et al) that you have not altered do not count as "Photoshopped" images and are not valid entries. This includes images that are merely resized using the Photoshop program (but are otherwise unmodified).
  • Images created with text generators do not count as photoshopped images. The same applies to text-only changes (or things like text balloons).
  • Images that do not include the original contest image (or parts of it) will be removed.
  • Place-holders for NSFW images are fine, but are not for commentary on Fark's posting rules or policies.
  • Images that are broken (or break at a later point) will be deleted.
  • When you post your image, don't forget to click the enable voting button for your entry.

Additional Photoshop etiquette items:

  • It's a good idea to test your ability to link images before you post your contest entry. Use the Scratchpad to test in.
  • Please note that it is frowned upon to enable voting on an entry that builds on a previous Farker's work (whether it's in a "Photoshop tennis" or not.)
  • Refresh threads before submitting. While nothing prohibits you from posting an entry that is visually similar to one already posted by someone else, you may wish not to enable voting as a courtesy.
  • While "taste" is not a prerequisite for participation, it's still a good idea to check these guidelines every time you consider posting something that might be offensive.

File sizes

Tip - In newer versions of Photoshop the "Save for Web" option under the file menu is your best bet for keeping file sizes manageable. Our viewers still stuck with 3G cell service (or dial-up!) will thank you.

Images which exceed 16 MB will be automatically rejected. Entries larger than 850 pixels wide or 1500 pixels tall will be automatically scaled, proportionally, to a maximum of 850 x 1500... and images that remain larger than 8 MB after that rescaling will also be automatically rejected. But it may look slightly better if you rescale it yourself first.

The reason for the 850 pixel width limit is so the whole site will look decent on a 1280 pixel wide display. While many people creating Photoshop entries may have 1920x1080 or larger 4K/5K displays, most people viewing the site use laptops or tablets that average 1280 pixels wide.

The reason for two different limits is to enable uploading of most multi-megapixel digital camera shots as-is (which are often well under 16 MB), however, we still try to prevent threads from being filled with multiple multi-megabyte animated GIFs. Experience has shown that those tend to be technically problematic for some browsers -- especially on mobile browsers that have limited CPU and memory for handling pages full of moving images. People tend to get mad when you crash their older phones, after all. It's also rough on the server side (memory and CPU) to generate thumbnails for large animated GIFs with lots of frames. That's why there's a 8 MB post-resize cap, and why there's also a limit on the number of frames in an animated GIF (currently 500).

Any images are stripped of metadata and rebuilt, so that different sized thumbnails can be made for both desktop and mobile. For animated GIFs, this means a frame-by-frame breakdown, rebuild, and re-optimize. Sometimes the files get larger when this happens, due to differences in animated GIF optimization algorithms. (We've tried several over the years.) Sometimes that means a file that was under the size limit before uploading might end up over the size limit afterwards. There's unfortunately not a lot we can do about that.