ImagePress – How to build a simple photo contest website with WordPress and ImagePress

This guide assumes you already have a WordPress website (self‑hosted or managed hosting) and can log in as an administrator. You do not need to write code; you will use menus, pages, and the ImagePress settings screen.

What you will get

• A public gallery of approved photos
• An upload area for entrants (with optional login)
• Voting using ImagePress “likes” (you can rename them to “Vote”)
• Moderation so nothing goes live until you approve it
• Optional categories for themes, rounds, or age groups

Step 1: Install ImagePress

1. In WordPress, go to Plugins → Add New.
2. Install and activate ImagePress.
3. You should see a new ImagePress section in the admin menu (often under your custom image post type or ImagePress settings).

Step 2: Let people create accounts (for a typical contest)

For contests, entrants usually need their own login.

1. Go to Settings → General.
2. Turn on “Membership: Anyone can register”.
3. Save changes.

ImagePress can require users to be logged in to upload; that pairs well with this setting.

Step 3: Run the ImagePress setup wizard

1. Open ImagePress → Setup (or the Setup tab under ImagePress settings).
2. Create default pages — this usually adds pages such as “Gallery”, “Upload”, “Profile”, “Login”, “My Account”, and “Terms & Conditions”, each with the correct shortcodes already inside.
3. Optionally create example categories — you can rename or delete them later.
4. Set “User registration” to “Require user registration” (recommended for contests).
5. Set “Image moderation” to “Moderate all images” (recommended) so new uploads stay pending until you approve them.
6. Save all changes.

If URLs look wrong after setup, go to Settings → Permalinks and click “Save Changes” once (no need to change anything). That refreshes WordPress link rules.

If you create these pages yourself (or want to check what the setup wizard inserted), add one shortcode per page in the block editor using a Shortcode block (or paste it in the classic editor). Use [imagepress-loop] on your Gallery page; [imagepress-add] on Upload; [cinnamon-login] on Login; [cinnamon-profile] on Profile (if you use a public profile page); and [cinnamon-profile-edit] on My Account / account settings. Terms & Conditions is normally a normal page with your own text and no ImagePress shortcode—only legal copy and links. Save each page, then add them to the menu as usual.

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Note: In the plugin’s preset page creation, the Terms & Conditions page may be created with the same block content as the previous step in some versions; if that happens, replace the body with your terms text (no shortcode required). The five shortcodes above match what page-setup.php uses for Gallery, Upload, Profile, Login, and My Account.

After your pages exist, tell ImagePress which page is which so links, logins, and profile URLs work. Open ImagePress → Authors. At the top, under General Settings, choose your Profile page from the Profile page dropdown (the one that contains [cinnamon-profile]), paste the full Login page URL into Author account login page (the page with [cinnamon-login]), and choose your My Account / profile editor page in Author profile edit page (the page with [cinnamon-profile-edit]). Set the author slug there too (for example author or profile)—this controls how public profile links are built. Still on the Authors tab, scroll to the Author Profile section and use Account Settings to pick the page users land on after they log in (often the same as My Account). Click Save on that screen. If you created pages with the setup wizard, some of these may already be filled in; always verify they match your real pages. (Optional: under ImagePress → Settings, you can set a different Upload redirect if you want people sent to a “thank you” page after submitting a photo—that is separate from login redirect.)

Step 4: Add your contest structure with categories

Categories in ImagePress are used to group photos (e.g. “Landscape”, “Youth”, “Round 1”).

1. In the WordPress admin, find ImagePress image categories (or the taxonomy for image categories — the exact label may match your menu).
2. Add one category per theme, round, or rule group.
3. Use slugs you can remember; some shortcodes use the slug, not the visible title.

Step 5: Put key pages in your menu

1. Go to Appearance → Menus.
2. Add the new pages (“Gallery”, “Upload”, “Login”, “My Account”, etc.) to your main menu.
3. Save the menu.

Visitors should easily find Upload, Gallery, and Login / Register.

Step 6: Turn “likes” into “votes”

ImagePress counts likes on each image; for a contest, treat these as votes.

1. Open ImagePress settings and find the section for like/unlike labels (often under Authors or similar, where vote wording is configured).
2. Change the “like” label to something like Vote and the “unlike” label to something like Remove vote (or your preferred wording).
3. Save.

Now the gallery behaves like a voting gallery from the visitor’s point of view.

Step 7: Show a leaderboard (most voted photos)

Your Dashboard tab in ImagePress lists shortcodes. Useful examples:

• Show images sorted by votes: use the gallery loop with sorting by likes (as documented on your dashboard), e.g. a “Top photos” page with the shortcode that sorts by likes.
• Show a compact list of top entries using the [imagepress] widget shortcode in likes mode with a count, as described in the plugin’s shortcode help.

Create a new Page, paste the shortcode from the documentation, publish, and add that page to your menu as Leaderboard or Results.

Step 8: Approve submissions (moderation)

1. Go to the list of images (custom post type created by ImagePress).
2. Open a pending submission, check the photo and details, then publish (or approve) when it follows your rules.
3. Reject or delete entries that break the rules.

Step 9: Optional — one upload page per category

If each contest category should only accept certain photos, you can use a fixed category on the upload form (see ImagePress shortcode docs for [imagepress-add category="your-category-slug"]). That hides or fixes the category so every upload counts in the right group.

Step 10: Optional — awards and winners

ImagePress includes Author Awards and a [cinnamon-awards] shortcode for listing awards. You can use this for judges’ prizes alongside community voting, or run a purely “most votes wins” contest without it.

Practical tips for non‑technical site owners

• Write clear rules on your Terms page and link them from the upload area.
• Test the flow yourself: register a test user, upload, approve, vote from another browser or incognito window.
• Default role: ImagePress setup may set new users to Author so people can manage their uploads; keep that unless your host or policy requires something else.
• Theme: Your WordPress theme should support featured images for the best results (ImagePress relies on WordPress featured images for entries).

What ImagePress is not (be transparent with readers)

• It does not replace a lawyer for contest rules, GDPR, or prize draws — add your own legal text.
• Voting is based on the plugin’s like system; deterring fraud (multiple accounts, bots) may need extra tools or manual checks depending on how serious the contest is.