Hi everyone:
In looking back at our monthly SSCC competitions over the past few seasons, a noticeable trend has emerged. While our “Novice” competitions have generally seen a healthy number of entrants in the Projected category, there has been a relative dearth of entrants in the Print category. We suspect the reason may be that many Novices have not yet taken the plunge to purchase their own photo printers. However, given the wealth of reasonably priced, high quality, online print services, the lack of a personal printer should not be an impediment to entering our print competitions.
Using online print services is quite simple – upload a digital copy of your photo, specify the type and size of the paper to be used – and usually within 10 days to 2 weeks, receive in the mail a print of your photo. (Most services also perform mounting and matting for an additional fee.) Though specific digital manipulation and editing of a competition photo must be performed by the member entrant, it is fine to have the online print service perform their standard color testing and adjustment process.
Based on a perusal of reviews of the most popular online print services, here is a non-exclusive list of several which receive consistently high marks:
In addition, we have heard favorable reviews of the walk-in print shops at Costco and Walgreens.
As I’ve said before, entering our SSCC photo competitions is fun, a great learning experience and, in particular, can help our Novice photographers improve their photography skills with the critiques offered by competition judges. And, truth be told, while projected images are here to stay as a medium, printed photos still elicit timeless, aesthetic, emotional responses that projected images cannot equal. So, have at it. Enter our Novice Print competitions.
Larry Gold
Competition Chair