The YPU Exhibition is an annual competition run by the Yorkshire Photographic Union. The YPU is made up of OVER 60 clubs, from Settle to Bridlington and from Whitby to Sheffield. The exhibition takes place in May, hosted by a member club.
RCPS invites all of its members to enter the YPU Exhibition with their own choices of images (in some clubs, only the club can choose the entries). Each member can submit up to 10 prints and 10 projected digital images (PDIs). Those images which achieve a judges’ score of 13 or above may be ‘accepted’ into the exhibition and thus displayed publicly. Higher-scoring images may win a certificate or even an award. Check out our club performance at the YPU Exhibition over recent years. You can also see results by member in the Members’ section of our website, once you’ve logged in.
Our YPU representative is Richard Egan.
RCPS members can enter from 8 December 2025 until midnight on 9 February 2026.
General information
- Please read the YPU rules. Some are provided below, but there are more detailed rules. Pages 4-6 include essential guidance for each category, as well as photo-editing and AI. For example, post-processing is not permitted for the Nature, Record and Travel categories.
- Entry form & uploads – All entries come first to RCPS, using RCPS’ own online YPU exhibition entry forms. Please don’t enter via the YPU Portal.
- The cost – Each image you enter costs £1.50. Please pay RCPS when doing your entry form and uploads; we will then pay the YPU.
- Image titles – There are strict rules about image titles: max 32 characters, including spaces; don’t include any membership numbers; don’t include any punctuation (such as . , ! ? “); and be aware that any typos, or extra content in image titles, will automatically carry through and appear in the exhibition catalogue if your image is accepted. MAKE SURE YOUR IMAGE TITLES MATCH EXACTLY: in the FILENAME, on the MOUNT, and on the ENTRY FORM. And if any of your images have been awarded a credit in any other salon, you must use the same image title.
Key dates
- Submit using the online form/upload page from 8 December 2025 until midnight on 9 February 2026.
- Hand your mounted prints over to Richard Egan at club on 2 or 9 February 2026.
RCPS’s last submission dates are before the YPU’s own final deadlines, because we have to do some admin before we can send all of our club entries over to the YPU.
Print submissions
- Handing in: Bring your print entries to club night. You must also provide a digital reference for each print (same size/rules as for PDI entries); upload these via the Dropbox links accompanying the entry forms, just as you would with our own competitions.
- Mounts must be 400x500mm (+/– 2mm tolerance), and no more than 4mm thick to ensure that any winning prints fit the YPU standard display frame. Mounts can be of any plain colour, but must not include a border outside the image. Write your image title, and an arrow indicating ‘up’, on the back only. Do not write your name. Cover over your name on any labels from prior competitions, and remove any velcro.
- Delay in returning prints – If accepted into the YPU Exhibition, prints will not be returned until the annual November YPU reps meeting (ie November 2026). If a print is then selected for the YPU touring print portfolio, it won’t be returned until November 2027 – because it will have been on a nice jolly all the way around the country. Even if not selected for the YPU Exhibition, a print could still be selected to go into the PAGB portfolio for a year, so it won’t image be returned until February 2028, at which point it will just about qualify for a pension!
PDI submissions
- Sizes for PDIs (and digital references for prints) are the same size as for our own club competitions. Therefore, regardless of format (landscape, portrait or square), no image can more more than 1600 pixels wide, and no image can be more than 1200 pixels high. Here are some free editing software options – Photopea is good for resizing.
- Colour space: Save your files to the colour mode sRGB IEC6 1966-2. In Photoshop, for example, you’ll find this in the menu: File > Convert to profile.
- Image format: Save your images as JPGs using “baseline (standard)” format, not “progressive” format. If you need help, please ask.
- Maximum image size is 1.9Mb.
Categories
| Prints (10 categories) | DPIs (9 categories)) |
| Open Colour Open Monochrome Architecture & General Record People, Portrait & Figure Studies Sport Action Nature Travel Scapes Creative Young Photographer | Open Colour Open Monochrome People, Portrait & Figure Studies Sport Action Nature Travel Scapes Creative Young Photographer |
Paying for your entries
Each PDI or print entry costs £1.50 each. So if you enter 10 prints and 10 PDIs, your total would be £30. There’s no minimum number of entries.
We much prefer online payments (bank details are on the entry form/upload webpage). If you can’t do that, please pass cash to Richard Egan. You don’t need to tell Richard Egan or Judith Hooper (our treasurer) that you’ve paid; they will reconcile receipts by cross-checking with the entry forms. All payments must be received by midnight on 9 February 2026.
Your results
At the time of the exhibition, the YPU publishes the scores for every image submitted. These are available on the YPU portal, but can only be seen by the image author:
Any questions?
Contact our YPU rep, Richard Egan.