Photo contests that ask for RAW files in 2027, and when
We re-checked the rules of 11 open photo contests on 21 October 2026. All 11 ask, or keep the right to ask, for RAW or original files. When they ask, what they accept and how long you get.
№ 03 · The journal
WinPhoto Journal
Filed under raw-files. All entries →
Photo contests that ban AI images for 2027, and how they check
16 of the 22 verified photo contests open now or later this season ban AI-generated images; 12 ask, or may ask, for RAW or original files. Contest by contest.
The Sunday Submission № 04 — Your Photograph Is Now Guilty Until Proven Innocent
You can win a major photography competition and still be ordered, weeks later, to prove your photograph is what you say it is. Contests now reserve the right to demand your RAW file, and a growing number ban AI outright — so the same image can be a clean entry at one and a disqualification waiting to happen at the next. For a hundred and eighty years a photograph was believed by default. That contract has quietly reversed: your photograph is now presumed guilty until you prove it innocent, and it is the honest photographer who pays. What that costs you, what each contest is really asking when it asks for your file, and how to know — before you pay — exactly what you will be made to prove.