Striking Image - Info & Submission
Rules, Criteria, Categories, Prizes, and Resources
Competition Information
- Submission deadline March 1st 2022 - Extended to March 7th 2022!
- Maximum two entries per person: one for the regular categories + one for the artistic category
- All entries MUST
- be made via our submission form
- have been acquired on an optical microscope at the University of Calgary
- be from biology-related research
- be colour blind friendly (see Resources section)
- be limited to 100MB
- NOT contain embedded text (i.e., arrows, scale bars)
- NOT contain multiple panels
- Regular entries MUST:
- be in the .tiff or .tif format
- NOT have been post-processed unless limited and adequately justified and described
- be accompanied by a 300-character lay summary (see Resources section)
- Artistic entries MUST
- include both the processed (.gif, .jpg, .png, .tiff, or .tif format) and the raw (.tiff or .tif format) images
- be accompanied by a brief description of processing steps
- Submitting an image implies that you (the submitter)
- hold the rights to this image in terms of intellectual property and/or have obtained all necessary permissions to do so
- give permission to the Striking Image Competition organizers to use your name and image in connection with the contest
Notes: You are not giving up the IP of this image to us or any other party; Files will be retained by the Striking Image Competition organizers
- Failure to comply with these rules will result in disqualification
- Technical excellence (25%): focus, resolution, contrast/SNR, dynamic range, saturation (unless required to highlight dark features), depth-of-field, use of light; how demanding is it to acquire this image?
- Artistic merit (25%): design (balance, proportion, framing), use of colour/shape/space, uniqueness, impact on viewer, composition (rhythm, patterns)
- Scientific merit & communication (25%): lay summary (see Resources section) explaining the nature and/or the significance of the image/research within a broad context
- Colour blind friendliness (25%): how colour blind friendly (see Resources section) is the image?
REGULAR – will be judged with respect to all criteria
- ACHRI: Images acquired in the ACHRI Imaging Lab
- HBIAMP: Images acquired in the Hotchkiss Brain Institute Advanced Microscopy Platform
- CMF: images acquired in the Charbonneau Microscopy Facility
- LCI: images acquired in the Live Cell Imaging Laboratory
- OPEN: Images acquired anywhere at the University of Calgary
ARTISTIC – will only be judged with respect to artistic merit
Processed “artistically appealing” images acquired anywhere at the University of Calgary (any image processing/segmentation/rendering is allowed)
- Gold, Silver, and Bronze winners for each categories
- Grand prize for overall regular category winner
About Colour Blindness & Colour Blind Friendly Images
- colour blind awareness: stats, causes, diagnosis, types
- considering colour blindness in manuscripts
- ImageJ tool to simulate colour blindness
About Lay Summaries
- lay summary guidelines and examples for simplifying some scientific terms
- example of 300-character lay summary (modified from Nikon Small World)
Trichome (fine outgrowths), stomata (small pores), and vessels of a southern live oak leaf. All three are essential to plant life: trichomes (white) protect against extreme weather and insects; stomata (purple) regulate the flow of gases in a plant; vessels (cyan) transport water throughout the leaf.
