Create award-winning photo prints for ultimate success

The very process of creating prints has the potential to vastly improve your photography, and selecting work for a print competition requires an extra level of perfection. We spoke to two experts who know exactly what it takes.

Paul Wilkinson is the Head of Qualifications and Awards at the British Institute of Professional Photography (BIPP) as well as a judge for the Master Photographers Association and the Society of Wedding and Portrait Photographers (SWPP). He's also a professional photographer and has had many successes in numerous print competitions.

Also offering advice is wedding and portrait photographer and Canon Ambassador Sanjay Jogia. He knows the importance of print quality to generate award-winners as he's won more than 100 printing contests, including those run by SWPP and Wedding & Portrait Photographers International (WPPI). He has also been a judge and chair for some of the largest photography competitions.

Together, Paul and Sanjay share their top tips for creating award-winning prints.

"Every print competition has its criteria for the judges," says Paul. "These are set out in advance. For example, the requirements might be the following:

     • Visual impact
     • Vision, style and creativity
     • Image production
     • Layout and graphic design
     • Photographic technique
     • Colour balance and tonal range
     • Lighting quality
     • Story and subject matter
     • Print and presentation

"Judges will be asked to be logical in their assessment, and they will also be required to reference these critical areas in any discussion or critique," Paul continues. "Working like this helps judges organise their thoughts, but it is not a ranked order of priority. For most competitions, the judges would give additional weight to Visual impact and Vision, style and creativity. All that said, without a great print, the judges cannot honestly evaluate the photographer's skill."

"In terms of camera settings, maximise for the best print," Sanjay continues. "Depth of field doesn't matter so much because that's a stylistic thing, but you must ensure if there are eyes in a picture, they are in focus. It's the first thing that will be looked at, and it's not something you can unsee if it's not sharp. With ISO, set it as high as you can without introducing lots of unnecessary noise in the image as that can translate into print very badly. With modern cameras, such as the Canon EOS R5, I'm happy to shoot at ISO 3200 or ISO 4000 and it's clean enough to actually look like film grain."

"It's a tip that often gets overlooked," says Paul. "At a print judging, each print is assessed in a viewing booth. They are very bright, and the light source is accurate to a selected reference, such as daylight. The background is a neutral tone – ideally grey – so no colour is reflected from the surroundings and the lighting is even across the surface of the print.

"This means the judges will see every detail in your image, including defects. You don't need your own booth, but you can invest in some high-quality lighting, some neutral grey artboard, and a light meter to set the power of the light to be the same as the judging. Most print competitions will state what this is in the guidelines."

"Glossy paper tends to make colours pop, but it shows fingerprints quickly and the surface can make image viewing tricky," says Sanjay. "Matte paper is the go-to for fine art images, but it has a lower D-max (how black the blacks can be) and without care, blacks can get rendered as dark grey. Semi-matte or pearl papers are somewhere between the two. You get a wide dynamic range, great colours and fewer reflections, but the choice can feel a little safe."

Whatever you choose, soft proofing ensures colours are accurate. "The biggest mistake people make is that they don't soft proof," warns Sanjay. "Find the profile for the paper, install it on your computer, then tell your image editing software to show the image with that profile applied. You'll see a simulation of how it will look. This way, expectations are managed, and paper is saved."

For Sanjay, printing your own work is always preferable for overall control, as is making sure everything is consistently calibrated. He uses the Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-1000 and the imagePROGRAF PRO-4100 printers.

"I control colour from camera-stage onwards by creating camera profiles," he says. "I use good monitors and I shoot in Adobe RGB. My monitors are set to the same and I edit everything in that profile too. A lack of understanding of colour is where people often go wrong. A lot of people shoot in sRGB, but the monitor is set to Adobe RGB, and their image editing software might be set to something else. When they print, they don't use a paper profile and they let the printer manage the colours. You've got five steps of translation, so it's no wonder what comes out is not what's expected."

Paying close and careful attention to your prints is the best way to ensure success in print competitions, and, in doing so, you can hugely improve your photography too.