Category Archives: Uncategorized

Finding subject matter in this week’s challenge isn’t going to be a problem – composition and lighting are going to be king.   The Top three will win Pixoto Pro for a year.

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THIS WEEK’S CHALLENGE
“Hands and Feet”
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To enter:

1. Submit a new photo under: Portrait & People / Body Parts
2. Tag the image with “PWChandsandfeet”

Submit your Entries Now

Prizes:

• Top 3 Entries will win a year of Pixoto Pro
• Winners will get Award Badges, 1000 Points plus 1,000 credits for future image submission
• A blog post will highlight the winners

Rules:

• Photos must have hands and/or feet as the primary subject matter
• A majority of the frame must covered by the subject
• Minimal postprocessing allowed – but keep it real (use of special effects will be disqualified)
• Humans only please
• No nudity
• Enter as many images as you like – only highest scoring one will be chosen for top 10 winners.
• Images must be submitted/resubmitted during the week
• Images must be tagged “PWChandsandfeet”
• You may resubmit an image already on Pixoto, but please be aware that ImageScore, awards and points for the image will be reset upon resubmission
• Duplicates of previously uploaded, and not deleted, Pixoto submissions will be removed
• Entries that do not comply with the above rules will be disqualified (a PWChandsandfeet-dq will be placed on the image)

Another great week with some truly inventive imagery in our Flashes at Night contest sponsored by Gary Fong.   You can view all of the entries here.  Congratulations to the winners!  

Don’t forget about this week’s challenge: Instagram.

#1: Rusty Sessions – Ogden, UT, US

Wins a Gary Fong Lightsphere Collapsible Pro Kit ($183.55 value)*

#2: Albin Bezjak – Ptuj, , SI

Wins a Gary Fong Lightsphere Collapsible Basic Kit ($129.55 value)*

#3: Paige Engel – Ocean City, MD, US

Wins a Gary Fong PowerSnoot ($70.15 value)*

#4: Jaime Singlador – Antipolo City, CALABARZON, PH

Wins a Gary Fong Origami Difuser ($32.55 value)*

#5: Gregg Eisenberg – New York, NY, US

Wins a Gary Fong Origami Difuser ($32.55 value)*

#6: Baktiar S – Kupang, Nusa Tenggara Timur, ID

Wins a Gary Fong Origami Difuser ($32.55 value)*

#7: Jaime Singlador – Antipolo City, CALABARZON, PH

Wins a Gary Fong Origami Difuser ($32.55 value)*

#8: Albin Bezjak – Ptuj, SI

Wins a Gary Fong Origami Difuser ($32.55 value)*

#9: DuÅ¡an Marčeta – Novi Sad, Vojvodina, RS

Wins a Gary Fong Origami Difuser ($32.55 value)*

#10: David Terry – West Jordan, UT, US

Wins a Gary Fong Origami Difuser ($32.55 value)*

Last week we launched a super cool integration with Instagram and this weeks challenge is to make the best use of that medium.  All you have to do is connect and shoot and you could win.

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THIS WEEK’S CHALLENGE
“Instagram”

To enter:

1. Connect with Instagram on your settings page
2. Shoot with Instagram during the week (your images will be auto-submitted to Pixoto)

Prizes:

• Top 3 winners win a year of Pixoto Pro* 
• Top 10 Winners will get Award Badges, 1000 Points plus 1,000 credits for future image submission
• A blog post will highlight the winners

Rules:

• Photos must be shot with your mobile phone and uploaded using the Instagram connection
• Photos must be shot during this week (no posting of older photos)
• No nudity
• Entries that do not comply with the above rules will be disqualified (i.e. moved to another category/subcategory)

*Only one PRO membership per member – existing pro members will have their membership fee credited back.

Competition has gotten so stiff on Pixoto that it is becoming increasingly hard for many members to win any awards at all.  To try to give our less experienced members a place of their own we have added a new category “Novices Only”.  This category has subcategories which represent the majority of the main categories on Pixoto and are a good place to start on Pixoto before moving on to the “big leagues”

The Rules:

• Critiques/comments by more experienced members are welcome!
• No cash prizes will be awarded
• If you have won a single Top 5% or better award in a main category (not including mobile or photoshop art) you are now in the big leagues so stay out.
• No photoshop art images allowed

Here are the subcategories:

• Abstract
• Flowers & Plants
• Landscapes
• Macro
• Objects & Still Life
• Pets
• Portraits & People
• Sports
• Street & Candid
• Wildlife

We’re so proud of the creativity of our members.  Road Signs was definitely a challenge (they aren’t the most attractive objects) but our members were incredibly creative and managed to capture some stunning, and sometimes funny imagery.  You can view all of the entries here.  Congratulations to the winners!  The top 3 get a free subscription to Pixoto Pro.

Don’t forget about this week’s challenge: Flashes at Night.

#1: Jon Marshall – Edinburgh, Scotland, GB

#2: Stephanie Ostrander Bishop – Talala, OK, US

#3: Melanie Kern-Favilla – Patchogue, NY, US

#4: Marwin Javier – Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, AE

#5: Filippo Bianchi – Milano, Lombardia, IT

#6: Albin Bezjak – Ptuj, , SI

#7: Ross Hutton – Edinburgh, Scotland, GB

#8: Celso Creer II – Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, AE

#9: Edwin Mendoza – Dubai, Dubai, AE

#10: SweeMing YOUNG – Sitiawan, Perak, MY

We are so excited to see the huge response to our first weekly challenge “Black & White Profiles” – sponsored by Zenfolio which received nearly 2,000 entries.  You can see all of the qualified images here.  Each of the top 10 players will receive a one-year Zenfolio subscription and other Pixoto perks, as promised.  

Don’t forget about this week’s challenge: Road Signs.

#1: William Lee – Portland, OR, US

#2: Gondo Siswanto – Surabaya, East Java, ID

#3: Sofian Anwar – Banjarmasin, South Borneo, ID

#4: BMT Fine Art – Baltimore, MD, US

#5: Bagoes Wahjoedi – Jakarta Capital Region, ID

#6: Celso Creer II – Abu Dhabi, AE

#7: Michal Orzech – Kraków, Malopolskie, PL

#8: BMT Fine Art – Baltimore, MD, US

#9: Sarah Power – Tulsa, OK, US

#10: Aleksandar Milosavljevic – Niš, Central Serbia, RS

Last week’s challenge was a huge success with nearly 2,000 images submitted. Thanks to everyone who participated. This week we’re going even more obscure to really let you get those creative juices flowing with “Road Signs” – Pure, color photography avec road sign.

Submit your Entries Now

How to enter:

1. Upload a new photo to Pixoto
2. Put it in the Fine Art Category (any subcategory)
3. Tag the image with PWCroadsigns

Prizes you can win:

• #1 image will be featured in the Pixoto.com sidebar and be viewed over 100,000 times
• 1st-3rd place win a free 1 year Pixoto Pro subscription (a $71 value)*
• Top 10 winners will get Award Badges, 1000 Points plus 1,000 credits for future image submission
• A blog post will highlight the winners

Rules you should follow:

• Photos must include a road sign shot so the face is legible
• Keep it natural! NO HDR or Excessive Image Enhancement. If the image looks fake in any way – we’ll disqualify it
• Photos must be in full color
• Qualified Images will be chosen based on ImageScore
• Images must be submitted/resubmitted during the week
• Images must be tagged PWCroadsigns
• You may resubmit an image already on Pixoto, but please be aware that ImageScore, awards and points for the image will be reset upon resubmission
• Duplicates of previously uploaded, and not deleted, submissions will be removed
• Entries that do not comply with the above rules will be disqualified

*Limit one membership per winner.

Submit your Entries Now

We’re excited to announce today our first “Pixoto Weekly Challenge” a themed contest that challenges our members to take photos of a new subject every week. Winners will receive recognition on our Blog, in the Sidebar of Pixoto.com as well as Badges, Points and Credits.

This Weeks Challenge:
“Black & White Profiles”
sponsored by Zenfolio.

Contests will be announced on Sunday
and submissions must be in by the
end of the week (Saturday at Midnight GMT).

Submission Deadline: Saturday, April 21st at Midnight GMT

Winners announcement: Wednesday April 25th

To enter:

1. Upload a new photo to Pixoto (B&W profile, only one eye showing)
2. Put it in the Portrait & People category (any subcategory)
3. Tag the image with “PWCprofiles”

Submit your Entries Now

Prizes:

• #1 image will be featured in the Pixoto.com sidebar and be viewed over 100,000 times
• 1st-5th place win a free year of Zenfolio Premium (a $100 value)*
• 6th-10th place win a free year of Zenfolio Unlimited (a $50 value)*
• Winners will get Award Badges, 1000 Points plus 1,000 credits for future image submission
• A blog post will highlight the winners

Rules:

• Images must be in Black and White (sepia is not allowed)
• Profiles must be of a man, woman or child and only one eye may be visible (i.e. a true profile shot from the side)
• Qualified Images will be chosen based on ImageScore
• Images must be submitted/resubmitted during the week
• Images must be tagged “PWCprofiles”
• You may resubmit an image already on Pixoto, but please be aware that ImageScore, awards and points for the image will be reset upon resubmission
• Duplicates of previously uploaded, and not deleted, Pixoto submissions will be removed
• Entries that do not comply with the above rules will be disqualified

*Limit one membership per winner.

Are you not satisfied with the number of votes your images are getting on Pixoto?  Now you can do something about it: just press the DuelBoost button next to any image, pay 10 credits, and your image is guaranteed to get 5 additional duels in the next 24 hours.

Details:

• Images that currently are “unpaused” or “Boosted” may not be boosted
• You can boost anybody’s image – not just your own
• Boost images as many times as you like
• Votes will come in randomly over 12-24 hours in order to prevent cheating

Some background

By far the most common question we get from avid Pixoto users is “Why isn’t my image getting more votes”.  The answer is usually “because your Image has stabilized and, based on its ImageScore, will now only get duels periodically.”  This is because our algorithms allocate the most votes to images that are doing the best – this fact is the reason Pixoto works at all.  One thing we didn’t really grok until recently was that while in aggregate the system might be getting the best results possible – individual members were feeling slighted.  Essentially they wanted more votes for their images and there wasn’t anything they could do about it.  On Pixoto, a higher number of votes doesn’t mean a higher ImageScore – it just increases the confidence in the score the image has so adding more votes to images actually helps the system overall.  By pricing DuelBoost at 10 credits for 5 votes we’ve assured 15 additional images get at least one more vote than they would have thereby improving the accuracy of the system even more.

Happy Boosting!