Tutorials
Notes on the Club's Competitions and preparing your prints for competition

Preparing your Prints

19/05/2021
Printing

There are many ways to get your images printed. Many Club Members have their own printers, whereas others use commercial printers: some recommend www.dscolourlabs.co.uk. The digital file is uploaded online and the print arrives in the post, often the next morning if uploaded early in the day.

Mounts

Although Club Rules do not stipulate a size of mount for competitions, please note that prints entered into SCPF and SAPA competitions are required to be on mounts that are exactly 50 x 40 cm. It is therefore helpful if mounts can be this size.

Members often use www.cotswoldmounts.co.uk for buying mounts pre-cut to 50 x 40 cm. To facilitate this, Gerry & Jenny Howard enable Club Members to save money by buying in bulk, thereby economising on postage costs. Colours available are Pale Ivory and Antique White Textured, and recently Ice White has been added as a possible choice for mono work. If you want to take advantage of this, please contact them direct on gerry.howard@btinternet.com or speak to one of them during a Club evening.

There are two main ways to mount prints:

• The simplest way is to stick the print straight onto the board. Here is a tutorial on Simple Print Mounting.
• Alternatively, you can cut a window in the board, using a mount cutter. Here is a tutorial on Print Mounting using this method.

Tip: Mount your print slightly nearer the top than the bottom by perhaps a centimetre or so. It will look better on the display stand.

Labels

All print entries must be clearly labelled – on the top left side on the back of the mount. As a minimum, this must include the image’s title, the photographer’s name and the group into which the image is entered (Advanced or General). For your own benefit, this could also usefully add the date of the competition and the judge’s name.

The label will be annotated with the judge’s score during the competition.

Here is an example of a possible print label:


FORDINGBRIDGE CAMERA CLUB

Title: [Title of Image]

Photographer: [Your name]

Date: [Date]

Judge: [Name]

Group: [Advanced or General]

Score: ……………………….


Don’t Forget …

Digital versions of prints also need to be uploaded onto PhotoEntry because this is the way that the Club keeps track of images entered into competitions. See guidance on Preparing Your Digital Images and PhotoEntry Step-by-Step Guide.