Like I said before, I don't think this is the main reason why there is so little participation.
I mean, a good graphic artist, bends everything to their own. They build a house from a rock and a new car from a wrecked car..
I think the main reason for lack of competitors, is the 'aww-factor'. How long has it been that you checked out a contest and said 'WoW' at least 5 times?
We lack good choppers... We got a few, but we got less than 10% of what we used to have here.
There are those who chop for fun, and there are those who chop on a more serious level and take the votes and feedback more serious as it tells them if what they make is liked or not.
This site, besides the contests, has nothing much to do anymore with Photoshop.
I mean, there is little to no space for discussion about art. Feedback and critique is often waved away or ignored. The tutorials are as old as the website and barely updated and the forum are full of games and chit-chat. So why would a good graphic designer sign up here? What's there for a challenge? I'm not saying nobody signs up here, but the number of newcomers is too small, especially highly experienced designers.
So I would be very interested in finding ways to attract graphical designers.
I also tend to believe it wouldn't hurt to check out the competition.
Have you ever checked out Worth1000? I bet most of you have. When you see the images there, you go like WOW!! Why is that? Because the site is full of skilled choppers. Some in a professional way, but most of them are just people who like to play around in Photoshop. How come the website is still attracting new designers? Because the best designers are there. People always want to be around the best, and that's what this place is missing right now. Good, skilled and most of all ACTIVE choppers.
Pro's like Rey, Claf, Vokaris, Bogonet, Anfa, BC, Sjitske, and so on.. (sorry if I didn't mention your name, there's a huge numbers of Pro's in the galleries... just names that popped up)
Put at least 10 of them in a daily contest and you got a huge competition going in less than a month. If 10 pro's participate, more and more people will want to participate. It stimulates, it wants you to be better. You will see polished, skillfully executed entries with good ideas and you know that if you want to be in the top 10 in a contest, you just need to push a little extra. And that's exactly what makes you a better chopper.
So how do you get more pro's participating? I don't know
I think more 'activity' in organising would be step number 1
I mean, 1 H2H each year is a little bit low. Why not having 2 at least?
Reunion contests... Why only reunion contests? There's so much more things to organise.
For example: Provide, once a month, a contest with a black&white photo which everyone needs to color.
Or create individual H2H's where people can vote (if they want to).
I remember this site used to have a individual challenge oppurtunity. Why is that taken away? It would be great to challenge someone and have the people vote for which is best in H2H...
Update the tutorials... Let Photoshopcontest.com turn around Photoshop and learning Photoshop.. The site needs to breath Photoshop.
25 votes? We barely got 20 competitors in every contest. What the heck do I need 25 votes for?
Adjust it automaticly to the amount of participants. People are free to do what they want with their votes, but a lot of people just vote for everything and everyone. Since a vote from a sharp eye counts as much as a vote from a friendly-voter, I think it needs to be polished aswell.
Ohwell.. Many ideas, but in the end it's just ideas. I could go on about this forever. I think our boss is not really interested in Photoshop, therefor, not many good ideas are coming from his side.
How about our moderators? I'm sure they got work to do here, but they don't even follow the website's F.A.Q., so what's the point of being a mod then?
Reorganisation
