For the Colour Rosebowl competition we hosted Andy Hayes as judge. He started out by describing role being more as a ‘reviewer’ than a ‘judge’, and proceeded to review our 36 prints with perception and generosity. Over the course of of the evening, he fleshed out his comments about our own entries in particular with broader advice about the art and science of printing in general.
Take care with monitor brightness, and calibrate your monitor if you can (PPS has a calibrator for members’ use). Choose your paper to show your subject to best advantage. If possible, select a printing profile to suit the specific combination of printer and paper. Bigger prints aren’t always best, and a small print in a mount can look wonderful. Tidy mounts matter, as does the placement of the aperture in the board, to support the print both artistically and structurally.
To illustrate his point about paper choice, Andy had brought along five prints, being the exact same image (lions in a tree) printed on five different types of paper – gloss, semi gloss, metallic pearl, fine art, and matt – and these attracted great interest in the tea break.
The comments from members afterwards were enthusiastic – we’d not only had an evening enjoying each others prints, with expert commentary, but we’d learned some very practical tips on how to make our prints even more impactful.
