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At times, a photo looks blurry after being captured with a digital camera or scanned. That is one reason why, whether you are a traditional film photographer or a digital photographer, knowing your way around a simple software program such as Adobe Photoshop will likely help you win. Learn how to do a slight amount of digital sharpening after you scan, with a image-editing program such as Adobe Photoshop; investigate the "Unsharp Mask" or "Smart Sharpen" functions in your software.

You should especially be careful to not overly compress a JPEG file when saving. We recommend uploading images with the least amount of compression as your connectivity can allow - if you are on slow connection, you may not be able to wait for a big file to upload. In any case, settings above 8 (or 80% or the equivalent in your software) are generally saf

Picture Perfect Exposure

We understand at BetterPhoto that images look different from one computer to another. What may be dark on a PC may appear extremely light on a Macintosh, for example. Therefore, judging exposure takes a back seat to judging sharpness. But it is still important.

Is it underexposed? Is the snow blue instead of white? Is the image faint and hard to see? Does it look like it may have been a nice image before it was poorly scanned?

Does the photo show pleasing colors with clarity and correct exposure? Can you make out the details in the shadows. Clarity and resolution of the photo - being able to enjoy the details of an image - mean a lot to the judges. They look at how well exposed the image is and, unless the photo is black and white, how well color is captured.