We are excited to see your light microscopy images and will use the images on our website and in our newsletters, social media, and other media content.

Whether it’s stunning structure, vibrant colors, or science meets art, this is your chance to showcase your best light microscopy images. We’re excited to celebrate the creativity and talent within the microscopy community.

We can’t wait to see what you’ve been imaging!

View past submissions and winners here!

Download a printable Image Contest flyer and a BINA flyer to hang in your core facility!

(Printable Image Contest Flyer – French) (Printable BINA Flyer – French)

(Printable Image Contest Flyer – Spanish)  (Printable BINA Flyer- Spanish)

Prizes/Awards:

The Top 3 images from different individual submissions will receive a monetary prize and be featured in our newsletter and on social media!

The core facility with the most users submitting entries will also receive a monetary prize, so encourage submissions from your fellow core users.

The BINA Community attending the 2026 Community Congress will vote on the People’s Choice Image, which will be announced at the event. Winners of the Top 3 contest are not eligible for the People’s Choice Image award.

Rules:

• • Submissions must be received by: noon Eastern time Aug 31, 2026

• This is a contest for personal submissions only- team submissions are not accepted, although others can be acknowledged

• • You must be a BINA member based in Canada, USA, or Mexico to be considered for a monetary prize, but we welcome submissions from all bioimaging scientists.
    •  BINA Membership is free, join here: bioimagingnorthamerica.org/join
  • Only light microscopy images (not stereoscope images or electron microscopy) will be considered for the Top 3 prizes
  • The original/raw data should be available if requested
  • AI generated images may not be submitted, and any use of AI should be disclosed
  • Images must be acquired by the person submitting the image

• Image must be a single file in *.jpg or *.png format for compatibility purposes – no other file formats will be considered. 

• • Image file must not exceed 500MB in size, and should be sufficiently high resolution for web viewing

• A maximum of 3 submissions is allowed per person (submit a new form for each) 
  • Only one image submission may place in the Top 3 per person

• Priority for Top 3 images will be given to those who have not been winners in the previous 2 years
• Re-submission of images from previous BINA contests is not allowed
• Reasonable image processing/enhancement is allowed for artistic purposes, but all alterations should be reported
• By submitting this image to our contest, you confirm that you are the copyright holder of the image and are giving the Association of BioImaging North America Inc. permission to use this image for media purposes, including but not limited to: website, social media, flyers, event advertising, and videos.  You are releasing this image under a non-exclusive, royalty free license in perpetuity (CC-BY). You will be cited as the source of the image using the name you provided above.
• Images named with political or otherwise inflammatory titles will not be considered for a prize and will not be posted on the BINA website.

Tips & Tricks

• Great resources for preparing images for publishing/sharing and reporting relevant imaging parameters include,
  • Community-developed checklists for publishing images and image analyses. Nature Methods volume 21, 170–181 (2024) ( see BINA’s session discussing this publication on our YouTube channel)
  • Montero Llopis, P., Senft, R.A., Ross-Elliott, T.J. et al. Best practices and tools for reporting reproducible fluorescence microscopy methods.Nat Methods 18, 1463–1476 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-021-01156-w
  • Marqués G, Pengo T, Sanders MA. Imaging methods are vastly underreported in biomedical research. Elife. 2020;9:e55133. Published 2020 Aug 11. doi:10.7554/eLife.55133
  • Cromey DW. Avoiding twisted pixels: ethical guidelines for the appropriate use and manipulation of scientific digital images. Sci Eng Ethics. 2010;16(4):639-667. doi:10.1007/s11948-010-9201-y
• We recommend cropping the image, adjusting brightness and contrast, reporting any non-linear adjustments, including maximum projections and gamma adjustments, and adjusting color look up tables for artistic and eye-catching images.
• We recommend removing any additional layers on the image (including text labels and scale bars), but including full descriptions in the accompanying text.

Image contest closed for 2026

If you have questions please contact us at contact@bioimagingna.org in advance of the submission deadline.