I am really uncertain about what is or is not allowed. Plagiarism I see as a problem with masks being published in magazines and special software auto altering photos often it's contained in meta data and it is up to the judge to look when awarding marks with DPI but with printed work we rarely declare printed by Kodak or mounts by XYZ and since marks are deducted when printing or mounting is poor really we should. The templates have art work to give the images a faded in and rough cut edge and are clearly enhancing the image but not really any different to buying ready cut mounts.

Putting a note on the meta data masks from Digital Photo would mean it's not plagiarised as you have declared the fact as we would in the references in a report. The reading of meta data by judges however has been a bone of contention as if we don't have our name in the meta data then the image may be stolen but if we do then the judge can cheat and see who's image it is.

We are told however our name should not appear in the meta data so until that is changed we must assume the judge will read it and so declaring items in the meta data where it's not our own work will mean we can't be assured of plagiarism even if we know unlikely the judge will read it.