How To Participate In Pxleyes Contests

So you want to participate in one of the Pxleyes contests and don’t know where to start?

Here’s a quick and easy introduction on how to get started. First you need to get yourself a free account here.

Once your account is active, you can use this guide to upload your work to the contests or simply watch the instruction video made by Giulia.

The Contest Rules on Pxleyes…

First things first! Before participating in any contests, it is important to read the FAQ and Guidelines! Yes, it’s a long and boring text, but it will certainly help you to have more fun, keep your reputation up and get the most out of your stay here!

“The HELP Menu with FAQ and Guidelines”

Picking a Specialty and a Contest

Next thing to do is select in what type of contest you’d like to participate. We have 4 types of contests: Photoshop, Photography, Drawing and 3D.
First, click on “Contests” in the top menu… Then you can view all contests per specialty by pressing the right icons.

“The Types of Contests on Pxleyes”

Checking the Level of the Contest

First of all, if you’re a new member, you will have to start with beginner or any-level photoshop contests.
Pxleyes works with a level-based system. The more you win, the higher your level will become. Everyone starts with level 1. Advanced contests on Pxleyes are for people with higher levels.

On the screenshot below, you can see where the required level is mentioned. “any-level” basically means: everyone can participate, no matter what level.

When a contest says level “10+” it means that your level has to be higher than 10 in order to participate. When it says “10-“, your level has to be lower than 10 in order to participate.
After you found a contest you want to participate in, simply go to the contest page to download the image if it’s a source contest, or read the theme if it’s a theme contest.

“The Levels of the Contests”

Submitting your Entry to the Contest

So you’ve selected a contest with an interesting source image or theme, you made an entry for it and you want to upload it.
There you will see a big green upwards arrow. Simply click on that to go to the upload page.

“The Contest Upload Button”

Input Details of your Entry

“Submitting your entry and fill out the details”

• 1. Give a title to your entry.
• 2. Describe some things about your entry. For simpler entries in a beginner contest, you can describe here how you made your entry.
• 3. Click the browse button and select your image from your harddrive.
• 4. In this comments box, you can chose: public (all comments from other users can be seen by everyone), private (only you can see comments from other users on your entry), no comments (other users are not allowed to comment on your entry, only vote).
• 5. Save full resolution. It is recommended to do this, so people can judge your work in more detail.
• 6. It is always recommended to upload a step by step guide. A step by step guide shows all your intermediate steps, from when you started to work on your entry until the final result. To do this, save all important steps as separate images when you’re working on an entry. Note that In a beginners contest it is allowed to skip the step by step guide for simpler entries. However, it’s important to mention all techniques used
  in the description box in this case!
• 7,8,9,10,11. If any of these things are present in your entry, you can tick the boxes. If you do so, people can vote on them. This is completely optional, if you just want your entry judged on a 1-100 scale only, simply leave the boxes unticked.
• 12. If you decided to upload a step by step guide, you’ll need to do it after your entry is uploaded. So it is recommended to publish the entry later, after your step by step guide is uploaded aswell.
• 13,14. You have to tick these boxes in order to upload your entry. Make sure your entry complies with them, otherwise your entry will be pulled from the contest.
• 15. Add extra words here to describe your entry. This is simply used for search functionality.
• 16. Finally, you’ll see 10 boxes where you can post urls. If you used other images to create your entry, it’s very important to provide links to them. It’s impossible to judge an entry properly without knowing what sources were used. If you used no external sources, you can leave these boxes empty. (The anchor text is the text that will be used for your link.)

Finalize your Upload

All fields are ready? Simply hit the “upload image” button. When your image is uploaded, you’ll see the following screen. If you’re going to make a step by step guide, you can do so now.

“Successful Upload”

Edit Your Entry

Next, go to “my stuff” -> “my contest entries”. There you’ll see your entry and the possibility to publish (= making it show in the public contest) and edit your entry.
You’ll also see a link called “Make a step-by-step-guide”… We’ll look at this next.

“My Contest Entries”

Adding a Step by Step Guide

A step by step guide shows a linear progress of your work. If you want to upload a step by step guide, you need to save a bunch of pictures while you work on your entry.

The steps upload process is similar to the entry upload process. Simply describe what you’ve done in your step and browse to the step image on your harddrive. Even with the steps, you can provide possible source urls that were used. When you’re done with this step click the “upload step info” button and you’ll be asked if you want to upload another step.

“Making a Step by Step Guide”

Done!

And you’re done! Contests run for an average of 10 days and people will be able to vote and comment on your work… You can follow up your comments under “my contest entries” or on the contest page.

Good Luck!

Author: MrMonty

MrMonty is the founder of Pxleyes - He takes care of the site's development in php/mysql. He also works as a freelance PHP and .NET programmer and can be contacted via the site's contact page.