I just sent this to the gentleman after he asked me where my RAW files were -
"To be honest, I do not feel comfortable or ethical sending out my RAW
files to have them "processed" by someone else. These images will not be
mine as I envisioned them. I do very little post processing.
Ocaissionally, depending on the camera, I might have some dust cloning to
do. Even if only for dust removal, the images would have opened up an
image processing program.
I know you have rules, but you asked me to participate with the images you
picked. I would very much like my images to be "judged" as they are.
Ethically, it is the only way for me to to participate. It is how I
intended them to be seen. If this is not acceptable, then I ask my images
to be withdrawn and my money refunded."
This was his response to the above -
"We can not understand why you think someone will process your image,
in the last email and all our rules, we clearly said it, we do not support
any post processing. Then why would we do it? All the image submitted to
us is original raw files or jpeg which are not opened in any post processing
software. If you can not take photographs which are not good
in original, then its your technical understanding of photography, which
is poor, we will publish the image as it is. We award the original image,
not a post-process image.
You said - "Ocaissionally, depending on the camera, I might have some dust
cloning to do do. Even if only for dust removal, the images would have opened
up an image processing program."
You also said - "I would very much like my images to be "judged" as they
are." Then you send edited images and talks about ethics? You said, "as they are"
- dear Keith, how can a edited image is "as they are"?
Well we value your opinion, but can you tell us, how we could know that you
only did the dust removal without seeing the original file?
Anything is possible in Photoshop, how can we trust it?
The award rules are same for everyone. We have suggested those as we know
they might score well by the judges, if you want your photograph to send
the judge, submit again to the member's page, and we will give team to
our jury."