Mike & Wally, Thank you for your comprehensive replies with suggestions on print mounts above.
Tom, Thank you for your demonstration on how to cut mount board cheaply and also the possible use of pre-cut commercial mount boards to enable one to easily take part in CCC print competitions.
Although I am rather busy with other ongoing projects and hobbies, I am keen to partake in all CCC activities that include the print competitions. This obviously takes much more "work" and planning compared to the DPI competitions and new comers do obviously need help and support to get going.
For my first year coming, I have sorted out some images that lend themselves for printing in either the 3:4 or the 3:2 format after some minimal cropping. In August, the intention is to print a dozen or more images with a commercial company such as DS Colour Labs used by some CCC members that have rather low charges (12x8in - £0.60; 12x9 - £0.65; or 15x10in - £0.95; 16x12 - £1.15) to see how they turn out. For these images, I could therefore use pre-cut commercial mount boards in an emergency just to get my prints entered in the competition. However, I am hoping to cut my own mount board depending on when the first print competition is. I will not be buying a colour printer!
At the moment, when composing an image on my camera screen or view finder, I try to fill the frame with my subject matter, zooming in or out as necessary, thus needing little or no cropping of the final image. Images are just processed briefly in Photoshop.
As I progress, I guess I will start to use different size images, possibly cropped after printing (?) if I want to continue using DSCL.
Since joining, CCC I have shot some images in raw on my recent US trips but they are rather large files that requires more external drives.
Following Mike's recent tutorial at the CCC, I am even considering purchasing Lightroom 6 having been pleasantly surprised at the low price at both PCWorld and Amazon of just £109.99. I was under the impression that it would cost £500!
ADOBE Photoshop Lightroom 6 Product code: 112385 Licence - 1 user - Lifetime licence
Operating system - Windows: 7, 8, 10, OS X 10.7 onwards
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/computing ... 5-pdt.htmlFurther suggestions and advice would be gratefully received. And more tutorials at the CCC too.
Regards,
Iggy