Conservation and Photography Rules

- The Underwater.kr Online Competition is open to entrants of all skill levels.
- Each entrant needs to submit a photo of themselves.
- Photographers can only submit photos taken by themselves.
- Entries must be saved in JPEG format, saved at maximum quality(size, width, height) and sRGB color space.
- All of submitted images must contain EXIF data (recorded by the camera).
- Images may be optimized (i.e. adjusted while maintaining the integrity of the image), but not altered such that an image does not reflect the actual subject matter. Photographers can only perform basic toning, cropping and minimal spotting of images.
- Acceptable Photoshop actions are: Rotate, Crop(not more then 10%), Sharpen, Curves or levels, Saturate (up to 10%).
- On the evidence of software analysis, any photograph that is discovered to have been falsified or substantially altered will also be disqualified.
- All images need to have been taken underwater.
- Images that have won or placed in photo contests with winning entries, may not be submitted. A winning image is defined as follows:

• any image that has placed 1st, 2nd, or 3rd in any contest that has resulted in prizes worth $100 USD or more.
• any image that has placed 1st, 2nd or 3rd in a major photography contest (to be determined subjectively by judges).
• any image that has placed 1st, 2nd, or 3rd in any photo of the year-type contest. Photos of the day, week, or month are fine, as long as they have not resulted in prizes worth $100 USD or more.

Conservation Rules established by EPIC®. Conservation rules will apply to all entries, and decisions will be final. Entries suspected of exhibiting the following behavior will be disqualified:
Marine animals should never be stressed or endangered for the sake of a photo. Entries will first be screened by our judges. Entries exhibiting the following behavior will be disqualified:

1. Divers visibly damaging the environment (e.g. gear dragging or kicking up sand)
2. Animals with signs of stress (e.g. puffed puffers, inking octopus)
3. Animals moved to an unnatural environment or risky location
4. Animals being fed (especially with artificial food from divers)
5. Marine life being touched (e.g. coral polyps, seahorse tails)
6. Divers exhibiting poor buoyancy control

- Photo contest staff and judges are not allowed to enter the contest.

RIGHTS AGREEMENT

- Ownership and copyright of all entries remain with the photographer. Underwater.kr & our media partner reserves the right to publish entered photos without compensation for promotional purposes only, including, but not limited to publication on Underwater.kr websites and magazine for future contest promotion.
- All photographs used by Underwater.kr must include the photographers copyright information.