About postwork in Photoshop

Design Heretic · 2026-05-15T05:12:50-04:00

I have a few questions about post-work in Photoshop for contests. I haven't participated in contests for a few years because I became quite disillusioned with the quality of work from some winners and even honorable mentions, while my own renders did not even make it into the honorable mentions. At the same time, RenderHub is constantly promoting my work across all social media platforms and even in printed materials, and both printed editions contained one of my artworks. Because of that, I started wondering whether my previous contest entries may have been set aside - or perhaps even disqualified - because of the amount of post-work done in 2D software such as Photoshop. That is why I would love to better understand the limits of allowed post-work in Photoshop when it comes to contest submissions. Here are a few questions I would appreciate clarification on: - Am I allowed to paint or draw additional shadows and highlights over my 3D render in Photoshop? - Am I allowed to add effects such as particles, smoke, dust, lens flares, glow effects, or similar post-production elements? - Am I allowed to adjust or add depth of field and camera lens effects during post-production? - Am I allowed to modify colors in Photoshop, such as saturation, hue, color balance, or color grading? - Am I allowed to adjust brightness, exposure, contrast, levels, or similar image correction settings? I am asking because I would like to clearly understand what level of Photoshop post-work is considered acceptable for contest entries. Note: To clarify, I'm old user of Photoshop platform on a professional level, and I don't count in as valid photoshop techniques new AI tools integrated in Ps these days. I'm talkin only about pure skill.. :D Thank you in advance for your clarification.

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