Judging a DPW Monthly Contest begins on the 1st of the following month and continues through the end of the day on the 6th. For example, if you are judging the August contest, you can begin judging on September 1st and will need to complete judging by the end of September 6th.

Judging a DPW Monthly Contest consists of picking 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners and at least 12 Judge's Picks.

You do this by looking through the entries on the contest page, viewing any you wish larger, and then chosing candidate winners. Feel free to select as many candidates as you want - at any time, you can review them, and remove any to narrow it down to the final number.

Finally, you drag and drop three of the winners to the top as your 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places, and then commit your selection of winners.

Pick both place and Judge's Pick winners by hovering your mouse over a thumbnail and clicking on the green circle with a plus sign. When you do, the artwork will disappear from the page. No worries, you can click the View Candidate Winners button to view your currently chosen candidates at any time.

Of course you can also click anywhere else on a thumbnail to open the standard pop-up to view the artwork larger.

All winners, including the three place winners and the Judge's Picks, win a free month as a DPW Featured Artist.

Picking Constraints

Only one entry per artist can win a place or a Judge's Pick per contest.

Our goal is to have 15 new featured artists each contest, so if any of your selected winners are already permanent DPW Featured Artists, then please pick one additional Judge's Pick beyond the 12 for each place winner or Judge's Pick that is already a permanent DPW Featured Artist.

Additionally, do not pick an artist for a place if they have won a place in the last 6 months.

To make all this easier, there are icons on each thumbnail to show you who is a permanent featured artist and also who has won a place within the last 6 months:

Click the View Candidate Winners button to view only your currently chosen candidates. While in this view, you can remove a candidate by hovering your mouse over a thumbnail and clicking on the red circle with a minus sign. This works only when you are in the View Winners view.

After clicking the View Candidate Winners button, you can click the Rearrange to Rank Place Winners button to pick the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners. Do this by simply dragging your 1st, 2nd, and 3rd picks to the front of the line of your candidates.

You only need to drag and drop the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners. The order of the remaining Judge's Picks does not matter.

When, and only when you are done selecting all the winners, click the Commit Winner Selection button to commit your winners. Then, on the 8th, your selected winners will be announce on the contest page and receive notification emails.