Frequently Asked Questions

What is this site all about?

This site is created for following purposes:

Photoshop contests: There are 2 types of contests. Contests with a given source image and contests with a given theme. Users submit their photoshopped images in these contests. Later on, people can vote on these entries to determine a contestwinner. Great prizes can be earned in these contests. Below, you can read more on how to participate.
Art portfolio's: with your personal albums, you can organize and share your photoshop images.
Photoshop tutorials: Improve your photoshop skills by reading our exclusive PS tutorials! Each tutorial is linked to a practice contest where you can 'test-run' your new skills.

Does it cost money to be active on this site?

No. Photoshop artists help making this a great website, so we will keep everything free of charge.

Can I win anything on this site?

Yes, you can earn real money in various different ways:

End in the top 3 of a photoshop contest. The higher the level, the more you win.
Subscribe and win a jackpot contest.
Challenge someone for a 1vs1 contest for a amount of credits. The winner earns the credits from the loser of the 1vs1 contest. (go to 'my challenges')
Write quality photoshop tutorials. The higher the quality of your tutorial, the more you earn. (go to 'my tutorials')

Where can I submit my problems/questions/suggestions?

If you have any questions or problems with registration, uploading images, ... simply send a mail. Also, suggestions for improvements are always welcome. Send your e-mails to support@photoshoptalent.com

How do I sign up?

Go to the registration page and fill out the form with your desired username, password and e-mail. Registration is free and takes only a few seconds. After signing up you will receive an e-mail to activate your account, so make sure to use a valid e-mail address. (avoid using free e-mail addresses such as hotmail, yahoo, ... as they might block out certain e-mails.) Please note that multiple registrations per ip-adres to manipulate contest results will be logged. After you activated your account, you can log in and start.

What to do after registration?

When your account is active, you can start creating your personal albums in the 'my albums' section, practice your skills with the photoshop tutorials, win prizes in the contests, vote and comment on other images, ... Please make sure that all images are owned by yourself and not copyrighted by someone else. If you do have copyrighted images, you will need permission from the owner. We do not allow images with watermarks.As a registered member you can also participate in the contests.

What are all these numbers on my profile stats card?

With this card you can keep track of your history on this site. You will see the following numbers:

Talent: your talentpoints are calculated according to how many contests you win and how accurate you vote. While your talent goes up, you can participate in advanced and pro contests to win bigger prizes.
PST Points: your PST points show how active you are on this site. You will get extra advantages in the future when your activity goes up.
Activity Rank: your activity on this site compared to others.
Albums: the number of photoshop albums you have.
Album Entries: the number of images in your albums.
Contest Entries: the number of images you submitted to the contests.
Votes Placed: the number of votes you placed in the contests.
Vote Percentage: the percentage of images you voted on since you registered.
Vote Power: this number indicates how important your vote is(min. 0, max. 1000) Please read below how votepower works.
Comments Placed: the number of comments you placed in the contests.
Contests 1st place: the number of contests you ended on first place.
Contests 2nd place: the number of contests you ended on second place.
Contests 3rd place: the number of contests you ended on third place.
Average Score: the average score over all contest entries you ever submitted.
Top 3 Percentage: the percentage of your images that ended in the top 3 of a contest.
Total Credits Won: the total amount of money you ever won on this site (100 credits = $1).
Total Credits In Account: the total amount that is not paid out to you yet (100 credits = $1).
Thumb Up Comments: the number of comments you placed that received a thumb up. The author of an image can approve your comment if he/she thinks your comment is useful.

Apart from these numbers, your profile shows your contest portfolio (all finished contests), your albums, the latest comments you received and the latest comments you placed.

What is a photoshop contest?

In a photoshop contest people manipulate existing images to something completely different in photoshop. Once a new image is manipulated, it gets submitted for the contest. From that point, other people can vote on the image. At the end of a contest, the image with the highest score wins the contest. We have two types of contests:

Contests with a theme: in these contests a certain theme is given. You can make an image from scratch or manipulate an image in photoshop to match the theme. No input image given here.
Contests with an input image: in these contests we provide you a hi-res image to manipulate in photoshop. Basically, you can do whatever you want with the image. Just try to impress as much as possible for the best results.

Can we win anything in these contests?

In most contests, you can win credits. 100 PST credits are worth $1 (USD). The higher the contest level, the more you can win. (see lower on this page). You can use your PST credits to participate in special jackpot contests, to challenge other members or make a request to payout your credits. To avoid any 'hit-and-run behavior', you'll have to meet the following requirements before requesting a payout of your PST earnings:

1) A balance of $20 or more in your PST account...
2) A minimum of 3 entries that finished in the top 3 *OR* 3 published tutorials under your name.

When you have a balance of $20 or more in your account, you can request a payout by sending a mail or PM on the forums. Usually this payout is done with paypal, but if you prefer a different method or paypal is not available in your country, simply explain it in your mail!

How often do new contests start?

Each week(on thursday) we start at least 8 different contests. A few theme contests and a few contests with a source image. Apart from these regular contests, we sometimes start big prize contests and custom contests.

How much time do I have to submit my entries in the contests?

Most contests run for 10 days. Once a new contest starts, you have 8 days to submit your entries. After these 8 days, the contest goes into 'vote only' mode for 2 days. After these 2 days, the contests ends and the winners are announced.

What material can I use in my contest entries?

Using your own images in your contest entries is the safest. For images from other sites, there are some rules.

General copyright rules:
- If there's an explicit copyright notice on the site of the image or on the image itself, don't use it.
- If the image is copyrighted in the form of a free license, you can use it if the source site clearly mentions this.
- If the owner of the image requires you to ask permission, include proof of this permission with your submission on PST, either in the description, the comments or the stepsguide of your entry.
- If you have doubts if something can be used or not, search something else instead. It's better to play safe if you want to keep your entry in the contests.
- Some images on sites don't mention anything about copyright. This does not mean it can be used by anyone for any purpose.

What else can NOT be used in your entries?
- Cartoons from magazines, cartoon screenshots from tv, cartoons from other websites, ...
- Images of products and services protected by trademark.
- Movie posters and movie screenshots.

The best places to find quality high resolution images can be found on royalty-free stock image sites. You can find a whole list of them on our resources page.

Are contests divided into skill levels?

Most contests are free for all contests, which means everyone can participate and win the credits. However, few contests work differently:

Free For All Contests: Everyone can participate and win credits.
Beginner Contests: Only users with a level lower than 10 can participate.
Leveled Contests: For leveled contests there is a minimum level requirement to participate. Prizes in these contests are higher than in regular contests. Raise your level by winning contests and by voting accurately.

How can I participate in a contest?

1. register for free
2. click on an active contest you want to participate in.
3. click on the 'add an entry for this contest' link.
4. upload your image.

Can I submit more than 1 entry per contest?

Yes. Each contest has a maximum number of entries, but this is more than 1 in most cases. But remember, quality is more important than quantity!

How are contest winners determined?

Contest winners are determined by voting on a 1-100% scale and by voting on specific aspects like perspective or colors. Each registered user can place a vote per image and the weight of this vote is determined by the votepower of the user. Please read below how to gain votepower. When the contest ends, the image with the best score wins the contest. In case of a tie, the image with the most votes wins. The winner of a contest will be announced on our news page each time a contest ends.

What does votepower mean?

Each user has votepower. Votepower represents the importance of your vote. The higher your votepower, the more important your vote. When a new user signs up, he/she starts with 0 votepower. Once the new user has 7 finished entries, he/she can start gaining extra votepower by voting accurately. Your vote counts as 1 vote when you have 100 votepower. When you reach votepower 400, your vote counts as 4 seperate votes, and so on ... A votepower of 199 or lower means your vote counts as 1 seperate vote. A votepower below 100 does not count in the final result.
Accurate voting means within a specific range, determined by the average value of all votes placed on that entry. When you vote within this range, your votepower increases and the closer you vote to the average vote, the more votepower you gain. When your vote is outside the range, your votepower decreases.
An accurate voterange is always 40 points wide. The following examples explain what will happen in different cases.

VOTEPOWER CALCULATION: EXAMPLE 1

The final score of an entry is 65%. This means you will gain votepower if you voted between 45% and 85% on that entry.
Here are some examples of votes placed on this entry:

user 1 voted 10%: decrease of 3 votepower (Max Votepower Lost)
user 2 voted 37%: decrease of 2 votepower
user 3 voted 41%: decrease of 1 votepower
user 4 voted 45%: no change in votepower
user 5 voted 53%: increase of 1 votepower
user 6 voted 65%: increase of 3 votepower (Max Votepower Win)
user 7 voted 70%: increase of 2 votepower
user 8 voted 85%: no change in votepower
user 9 voted 87%: decrease of 1 votepower

VOTEPOWER CALCULATION: EXAMPLE 2

The final score of an entry is 22%. This means you will gain votepower if you voted between 2% and 42% on that entry.
Here are some examples of votes placed on this entry:

user 1 voted 2%: no change in votepower
user 2 voted 10%: increase of 1 votepower
user 3 voted 22%: increase of 3 votepower (Max Votepower Win)
user 4 voted 30%: increase of 2 votepower
user 5 voted 44%: decrease of 1 votepower
user 6 voted 70%: decrease of 3 votepower (Max Votepower Lost)

VOTEPOWER CALCULATION: EXAMPLE 3

The final score of an entry is 80%. This means you will gain votepower if you voted between 60% and 100% on that entry.
Here are some examples of votes placed on this entry:

user 1 voted 1%: decrease of 3 votepower (Max Votepower Lost)
user 2 voted 52%: decrease of 1 votepower
user 3 voted 60%: no change in votepower
user 4 voted 71%: increase of 1 votepower
user 4 voted 81%: increase of 2 votepower
user 4 voted 80%: increase of 3 votepower (Max Votepower Win)

It is not encouraged to just vote a 100% on the entries you like and 1% on the entries you don't like. This is not accurate voting.
Also, to make the final score of an entry more accurate, there's a jury panel with a fixed high votepower of 2000. Meaning that their vote has 20 times more weight than a vote from someone with votepower 100.

What are all these different things I can vote on?

First of all: each entry can be rated with a 1-100% scale.
When someone submits an entry, he/she has the choice to add the following optional votebars:

perspective
shadows
colors
originality
humour

Others can vote on each of the optional votebars you add with a "very good", "good", "average" and "bad" scale. Each of these optional votes carries 1/5 the weight of the general 1-100% scale. Meaning that if you add all 5 optional votebars, combined they carry the same weight as the general 1-100% scale. To get a good accurate score for your entry, it's important that you add all optional votebars that apply to your entry.

When a contest ends, you can view a small report that explains on what others voted.

Here's an example of a complete voting scenario for one specific entry:

ENTRY SCORE CALCULATION EXAMPLE

Step 1:
an author submits an entry and decides to add 3 optional votebars to the entry: colors, perspective and humour.

Step 2:
entry shows up in the contest and others can give general votes ranging from 1 to 100%. On top of that, they have a choice to vote "very good", "good", "average" or "bad" on 3 different aspects: colors, perspective and humour.

Step 3:
In this simplified example, we use 4 different voters:

user A is new to the site and starts with 100 votepower , so he has to prove himself as a good voter to increase votepower. He decides to give 67% to the entry and rate the perspective as "good". He does not vote on colors or humour.
user B already has some more votepower, 355. This means her vote counts for 3 times more than user A's vote. She decides to give 61% and rate perspective and color as "very good".
user C has maximum votepower (1000). His vote has 10 times more weight than user A's vote. He decides to give the entry 58% and rate perspective as "very good" and colors as "good".
user D has only 20 votepower. His vote does not count for the calculation of the final score. However, the vote does count for the calculation of his new votepower he will get after the contest ends. He votes 54%.

Step 4:
All votes are in now, and the contests ends.
To calculate the score, optional votes excluded:

(vote from user A) + (vote from user B) + (vote from user C) + (vote from user D)
=
(1 * 67) + (3 * 61) + (10 * 58) + (0 * 54) = 67 + 183 + 580 + 0
=
830

So since there is one person with votepower 100, one with votepower 355 and one with votepower 1000, this means the entry scored 830 on 1400.
Reduced to a 1-100 percentage, this equals 830*100/1400 = 59 % (INTERMEDIATE SCORE)

Step 5:
Ok, so now we have the result from the general votes. We can now take the optional votes into account.
Optional votebars count for 1/5th. The author of the entry has chosen to add 3 optional votebars and no one in this example voted on humour. So we are going to calculate the result on 140 points first. (100 for general votes, 20 for perspective and 20 for colors)

As a reminder: a "very good" vote counts for a 20/20 vote, "good" counts for 15/20, "average" counts for 10/20 and "bad" counts for 5/20.

User A voted only on perspective: good. Since he has 100 votepower, it means 1 vote for 15/20 on perspective.
User B voted on all 3 optional votebars: very good. Since she has 355 votepower, it means 3 votes for 20/20 on perspective, 3 votes for 20/20 on colors and 3 votes for 20/20 on humour.
User C voted only on perspective: bad. Since he has 1000 votepower, it means 10 votes for 20/20 on perspective and 10 votes for 15/20 for colors.
User D didn't vote on any of the optional votebars.

Ok, so adding it all up :

Perspective: (1 time 15/20) + (3 times 20/20) + (10 times 20/20) = 275/280 - Which is equal to 19/20.
Colors: (1 time 20/20) + (10 times 15/20) = 170/220 - Which is equal to 15/20 Now we combine these scores with the result of the general vote:

59 / 100 + 19 /20 + 15 /20
=
93/140 - Which is equal to 66% --> FINAL SCORE OF ENTRY

Step 6:
Now the contest is over and the scores are calculated, each of the voters who gave a general vote on this entry, will have an increase or decrease of votepower. Let's take user B for example. Her votepower was 355 before she voted on this entry. She voted 61% and the final score of the entry is 66%. This means she voted only 5% different from the final score and will therefore get an increase in votepower of 2 points for her vote on this particular entry. If she voted this way on all entries of the contest, she will gain a significant amount of votepower. Now suppose she vote exactly 65% on the entry. This would mean she will have a maximum increase in votepower of 3 points. In what scenario would she lose votepower for this entry? If she voted more than 20% different from the final score, she would have lost votepower. The further away from 65%, the more votepower she loses.

How do I decide how much percent to give an entry?

In general, your vote should be based on a combination of different factors and on personal taste. Voting is partially subjective, but here are some guidelines (written by hilleke) on what to think about when you vote and how to increase your votepower:

Average entries (not terribly bad, but nothing special) you could give between 45 and 59.
Higher than 60 is really good (not just copy/paste, or overuse of filters...).
Higher than 70 is really very good (very original or really standing out).
Higher than 80 is amazingly good (like some of the all source entries for example, or very arty ones).
Higher than 90... Maybe one or two entries every week? Or one or two a month? I rarely give that high. You have to go "WOW" or fall of your chair if you wanna give that much.
Lower than 45... Only filters, or obvious mistakes like very bad shadows or wrong perspective.
Under 35 : The really bad ones. Chunky chops, only using filters,...

What are talent points?

Talentpoints are a measurement of how often you win on PST. Your talentpoints are linked to a certain level. The more talentpoints you get, the higher your level. A higher level allows you to participate in high level contests, which have bigger prizes than the normal contests. In the following table, you can see how much talentpoints are needed to get to each level:

Tier 1	Tier 2	Tier 3	Tier 4	Tier 5	Tier 6	Tier 7	Tier 8
lvl 1: 0+ lvl 2: 30+ lvl 3: 40+ lvl 4: 50+ lvl 5: 60+	lvl 6: 80+ lvl 7: 100+ lvl 8: 120+ lvl 9: 140+ lvl 10: 160+	lvl 11: 200+ lvl 12: 240+ lvl 13: 280+ lvl 14: 320+ lvl 15: 360+	lvl 16: 440+ lvl 17: 520+ lvl 18: 600+ lvl 19: 680+ lvl 20: 760+	lvl 21: 920+ lvl 22: 1080+ lvl 23: 1240+ lvl 24: 1400+ lvl 25: 1560+	lvl 26: 1880+ lvl 27: 2200+ lvl 28: 2520+ lvl 29: 2840+ lvl 30: 3160+	lvl 31: 3800+ lvl 32: 4440+ lvl 33: 5080+ lvl 34: 5720+ lvl 35: 6360+	lvl 36: 7000+ lvl 37: 7640+ lvl 38: 8280+ lvl 39: 8920+ lvl 40: 9560+

When a level 12 contest starts for example, you will need to have 240 or more talentpoints in order to participate.
Besides that there are 'free for all' contests (anyone can participate) and beginner contests(only users with level 9 or lower can participate).

How can I earn talent points?

Earn talentpoints by winning contests

You can earn talentpoints by ending in the top 7 in a contest. The higher your entry ends, the more talentpoints you earn. Also, the higher the contest level, the more talentpoints can be earned. The following table show the amount of talentpoints that can be earned in all the different contestlevels. The horizontal indexes represent the contest level (1-25) and the vertical indexes represent the final rank (1-7) of an entry.

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17
1	35	37	39	41	43	45	47	49	52	54	57	60	63	66	69	73	76
2	30	32	33	35	36	38	40	42	44	47	49	51	54	57	59	62	65
3	25	26	28	29	30	32	34	35	37	39	41	43	45	47	49	52	55
4	20	21	22	23	24	26	27	28	30	31	33	34	36	38	40	42	44
5	15	16	17	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	26	27	28	30	31	33
6	10	10	11	12	12	13	13	14	15	16	16	17	18	19	20	21	22
7	5	5	6	6	6	6	7	7	7	8	8	9	9	9	10	10	11

Example: Your entry finishes third in a level 15 contest means that you will earn 49 talent points.

Earn talentpoints by winning 1vs1 challenges

You can also earn talentpoints by challenging other users for a 1vs1 contest. The higher the level of your opponent, the more talentpoints you earn if you win the challenge. The following table shows how many talentpoints you win for each opponent level:

lvl 1: 1
lvl 2: 2
lvl 3: 4
lvl 4: 8
lvl 5: 16

lvl 6: 18
lvl 7: 20
lvl 8: 22
lvl 9: 24
lvl 10: 26

lvl 11: 28
lvl 12: 30
lvl 13: 32
lvl 14: 34
lvl 15: 36

lvl 16: 38
lvl 17: 40
lvl 18: 42
lvl 19: 44
lvl 20: 46

lvl 21: 48
lvl 22: 50
lvl 23: 52
lvl 24: 54
lvl 25: 56

lvl 26: 58
lvl 27: 60
lvl 28: 62
lvl 29: 64
lvl 30: 68

lvl 31: 76
lvl 32: 84
lvl 33: 92
lvl 34: 100
lvl 35: 140

lvl 36: 180
lvl 37: 240
lvl 38: 300
lvl 39: 380
lvl 40: 500

Earn talentpoints by writing quality tutorials

For each accepted tutorial you earn credits and talentpoints. The more complex tutorial, the more you earn.

How can I sponsor a contest?

If your website or company wants to advertise on this site or wants to have a company logo contest, you can do this by offering a valuable prize to the winner. Apart from your prize offer, sponsoring is free. Go to this page to make your request.

How can I suggest a contest?

So, you have made some great photos yourself and want them as a source for a contest? Or you have a cool a idea for a theme contest? Go to this suggestion page and share it with everyone!

Can I request my own custom contest?

Yes, you can request a custom contest. A custom contest is an 'extra' contest organized by one of the users of this site. In a custom contest you can also hand out prizes, with the credits you won, or with your own money. Go to this custom contest page and submit your images.

What can I do with all my photoshop art?

The images you made that are not meant for the contests, you can upload in your photoshop albums.

How many images can I upload in my albums?

There is no limit on the amount of images in your albums as long as all images are legal and copyrighted by yourself. We reserve the right to take legal action against any illegal activity on this website.