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The Raw file is a pure digital and camera centric interpretation of the scene and is almost meaningless as far as the skill of the photographer taking the shot. In the case of Nikon even the camera settings entered on the camera are not transferred to ACR nor are any other converter (as far as I know) other than Nikon`s own converters.
If you mean that you would like a category with absolutely no manipulations at all then I would support that as I am useless at Photoshop!
However do bear in mind that even with film the skill of the photographer was almost secondary to the skill of his ability to produce great prints. Raw processors now replace the processing and printing of film and having a Raw category would be like entering your unprocessed roll of film!
An out of camera jpg or tiff would be a better test of a photographers skill. I believe the fact that it was created "in camera" is recorded in the EXIF data, as is any subsequent editing programmes used, which would then preclude it from the category.
Given the controversies thrown up by this competition though I would make sure that the Data could not be hacked before having such a category.
I also think that the Black and white section should return, I was very surprised that there was none this year!
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