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Pro Photographers' Competition Print Fall 2010 Email
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by Dale Laboratories
Create Prize-Winning Competition Prints in Minutes!
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Dear Subscriber,
Have you considered entering a print competition at your local professional photographer's guild?
Guild competitions are a great way to improve your craft. You get honest, constructive feedback from certified judges. You also see what other pros in your area are doing.
These smaller competitions can help you fine-tune your skill sets and prepare for the more prestigious state and national PPA competitions.
The dilemma for many working pros is how much time
they can afford to spend on competitions. Designing a 16" x 20" competition print from scratch can be a very time-consuming process.
We'd like to help...whether you're competing locally or nationally...with a simple ROES design program that lets you
Design prize-winning competition prints in minutes instead of hours!
 How This Works
Our ROES system is fast...and easy to learn.
If you've used a ROES system from any other lab it will be a snap to use ours!
To follow along ... please click here to download our free-to-you ROES program (if you don't already have it.)
Our ROES is organized
into separate catalogs by paper surface.
Here's how to get to Competition Prints:
- Choose the catalog with the paper surface that best suits your picture.
- Kodak Endura Glossy (F)
- Endura Metallic
- Endura Lustre (E)
Note: Select a Laboratory Corrected catalog if you want us to correct your color or a Studio Adjusted catalog if you'd prefer doing your own color corrections.
- Click
the Competition Prints tab.
- Select Either Use Our Design Templates or Design Your Own Layout.
- Use Our Design Templates allows you to simply drag your image into any of ten beautifully designed templates. You'll click on Options to change your borders and the strokes around your picture.
Design time is under two minutes!
- Design Your Own Layout is recommended if you want to simply drag your own Photoshop layout (with its own borders & stroke) into our Open Template (16 x 20 CP). You can also modify (Edit) the picture shape in any of our ten pre-designed templates should you have an unusually shaped picture.
The difference here is that you'll be using Pager tools rather than Options to change your border (fill) and stroke.
Sample Color allows you to bring a color from your picture into your border or stroke...for a very impressive effect!
Design
time is from one to ten minutes!
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 What About Photoshop?
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You probably will have to use Photoshop to bring out the best in your pictures.
The main benefit of our program is that it lets you concentrate on enhancing your photograph; not doing a lot of "busy work" to impress the judges with fancy borders.
You'll be able to skip the extra work...and time...of creating border and stroke designs. 
Example: The eye-dropper tool was used here to bring the
color of the groom's jacket into the background node.
A fringe benefit of our program is that our ROES background "nodes" are separate from the picture nodes (unlike flattened Photoshop files). So, color corrections we or you make on your image don't affect your border's color.
This feature allows you to bring an intricate or textured Photoshop border into your layout as a separate image node, where it gets its own color correction.
The Bottom Line: You get impressive 16" x 20" enlargements that conform to competition rules in a fraction of the time it would take you to design them from scratch in Photoshop! You also gain a beautiful new product you can use to produce prints with tasteful, artistic borders for your clients. (Just click "Natural Color" in Options.)
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Should You Choose Lab Corrected or Studio Adjusted Color? |
Laboratory corrections are recommended for competition prints because precise color correction is critical. Judges will key in on what's wrong with a print rather than what's right. So, you want your color and density "dead on."
That's easier for us to do in our lab because we can make and evaluate test prints.
We have a three-step corrective process:
- First, we color correct your image on a fully calibrated monitor (as you would).
- Second, we make a test print.
- Finally, we correct that test print after a visual evaluation under competition lighting. Then, we make the enlargement. If your print isn't perfect it is reprinted with an additional correction. So, you are assured of great color.
Studio Corrections...where you do the corrections... are suggested only if you have the skill sets necessary to do accurate color corrections and are using a monitor calibrated to match our printers.
Doing your own color corrections gives you complete control over the creative process. It is also a great way for you to save money. We save technicians' labor and pass the dollar savings on to you.
Competition prints require special color correction. 
Judges view prints under extremely bright lights. So, your prints must be made far darker and more contrasty than prints that you would sell to your clients.
Our lab corrected competition prints are corrected to this standard (unless you check our Option to select "normal" lighting.)
Please keep this increased density requirement in mind if you're correcting your own color!
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Prices and Service Times
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Some photographers prefer to do their own mounting. Others would rather have us give them a competition ready print mounted on Gatorfoam. Please use Options to let us know your preference.
Our Usual Service Times:
Studio Adjusted Prints: Same day
Laboratory Corrected Prints: One - two days
Mounting: Add 2 - 3 days
Shipping: Next day delivery via UPS Ground in Florida. Priority Mail takes 2 - 3 days anywhere in the U.S.
Rush Service: Available on request
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Subscriber, our competition print service had an interesting origin.
Our local guild, on which I am a board member, asked me to come up with an easier way for guild members to get top-quality competition prints. The board wanted greater participation by our pros. They were right! Simple is better.
Getting great prints shouldn't be difficult. With our new online ROES system it isn't. You can create and order a top-quality competition print in minutes.
If you're new to competitions we'll level the playing field for you. You'll be able to compete successfully with "veterans."
Pros with competition experience will benefit from our laser printing. We produce far better enlargements than most labs, who use LED printing systems. (You'll find our 16 x 20s to be among the best in the U.S.)
Our goal is simple; to be an extension of your creativity and make you look good.
Please telephone me directly on my cell phone at (954) 536-4290 if you have any questions. I'm always available to help you in any way I can.
Best regards,
Dale
Dale Farkas
iPrints Professional by Dale Laboratories
Toll Free: (800) 327-1776 • Broward: (954) 925-0103
P.S. Many of our pros have found our Monitor Calibration Chart to be very useful. We'll be happy to provide you with a complimentary print of the chart. Please click here to download our chart. It's free.
Might we ask a favor? Could you forward this email to your Guild officers, friends or other Guild members who you think would benefit from our easy-to-use Competition Print service. They'll thank you...and so will we!
Photo credits and our thanks to:
John Davies, Image Photo Services, Grand Cayman for the Geisha picture.
Alan Duretz, Duretz Photo, Margate, Florida for the portrait of the little girl.
George Fiad, Fiad Photography in Miami for his picture of the couple in the clearing.
Curtis Smith, Curtis Smith Photography, Dania, Florida for the bridal couple in the window.
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Votes: 0
Voting..
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