Answers to common questions about ShotJudge.
ShotJudge is an AI-powered photography competition platform. It provides image analysis scored against real federation criteria (IPF, RPS, PAGB, PSA, FIAP), a personal photo vault with automatic tagging, a distinction panel builder, and live digital scoring for camera club competitions.
ShotJudge uses Claude by Anthropic to analyse your images. The AI acts as an experienced competition assessor and scores each image on impact, composition, technical quality, creativity, and storytelling. Scores use your federation's actual scale (1-15 for IPF, 1-25 for PAGB, pass/fail for RPS). The AI provides specific strengths, areas for improvement, and competition readiness notes.
The AI is calibrated against real competition scoring data and uses federation-specific criteria. It is a guide, not a guarantee. Your analytics dashboard shows how closely AI predictions match your actual competition scores over time. Most photographers find it a reliable indicator of relative image quality within their portfolio.
Yes. ShotJudge works for individual photographers. You can upload images, get AI analysis, build distinction panels, and track salon acceptances without any club affiliation. Club features are optional.
Go to My Distinctions, create a new panel for LIPF, and drag your best images into the 10 slots. The AI assesses each image individually — LIPF does not require a theme or cohesion. Mixed genres are fine. Click "AI Assess" for feedback on which images are strongest and which could be replaced.
ShotJudge supports IPF (Ireland), RPS (UK), PAGB (UK), FIAP (International), PSA (USA), BIPP (UK), The Societies (UK), and MPA (UK). Each federation has its own scoring criteria, distinction pathway, and assessment model configured in the system.
Yes, unless eligibility rules prevent it. ShotJudge tracks eligibility automatically — if an image has been entered in a competition series before, it will be dimmed with an explanation when you try to enter it again in the same series.
Open any image in your vault, scroll to Competition History, and click "Add Competition Result." Enter the competition name, score, placement, and date. These manual results feed into your analytics and distinction readiness tracking.
Club admins create competitions, set scoring rules, and assign judges. Members enter images from their vault. On competition night, judges score on their phones while images display on a projector. Results appear in real-time. The system handles anonymous judging, multiple categories, print and digital entries, and automated awards.
Yes. Generate a display link from the competition page and open it on the projector laptop. The competition controller runs from the admin's phone. Images advance automatically, judges score on their devices, and the projector shows each image full-screen with live score updates.
Free clubs get 20 members and 3 competitions. Standard (from the equivalent of 10 per month) adds unlimited competitions and live scoring. Premium adds barcode print management, unlimited members, and priority support.
Yes, there is a free tier with 30 vault images and 5 AI analyses per month. Pro and Elite tiers offer more storage, analyses, and features. You can upgrade or downgrade at any time.
Pro gives you 500 vault images, 100 AI analyses/month, and up to 5 distinction panels. Elite gives unlimited vault storage, 500 analyses/month, unlimited panels, and priority AI queue.
You keep access until the end of your billing period, then move to the Free tier. Your vault images are never deleted — you just cannot upload beyond the free limit or run more than the free number of analyses per month. You can resubscribe at any time.
Your vault is completely private. No one can see your images, AI scores, panel plans, or analytics unless you explicitly enter images into a competition or share a review link. Judges only see images during active judging sessions. Your images are never used for AI training.
JPEG, PNG, TIFF, and WebP, up to 50MB per image. RAW files need to be exported to one of these formats first.