The aim of the en-print competition is to provide an easy way for members, especially those who are inexperienced or new to the club, to bring along their work for discussion and entry into a competition. The aim is to judge photographs 'as taken'.
The intent is thus that the technical barrrier to producing the entries should be as low as possible, amounting to no more than an ordinary member of the public would have to do to get their photos developed. Conversely, more technically able members should not be able to gain advantage in this competition by 'post processing' images, either via digital manipulation or by using traditional dark room tecniques.
For film users, an en-print is an unmanipulated small colour print of the type you would get by handing over your film to a standard high-street outlet to develop and print the whole roll at 6”x4” or 7”x5” size. It is recognised that in the printing of film en-prints, correction and optimisation of exposure and colour are likely to take place, either automatically by the printing machine or by the manual intervention of the operator.
For digital users, there is no concept that corresponds exactly to the traditional en-print, with many users choosing to print their photos themselves. However, for this competition, the following defines an acceptable entry, the intent being to keep as close as possible to the spirit of the film equivalent whilst recognising that the optimisation typically performed by the printing machine is performed by the user themselves.