We primarily almost always shoot color slide film and photo you've seen in OTM came from color. If you are comfortable enough with shooting slides, a decent local film lab should be able to make dupes pretty cheaply. Many people pretty much get doubles when they get film developed. Take the second set and put it aside and let everyone see and touch the first set. When you find something you want to send in, take it from the carefully handled second set.
Clean photos are happy photos.
Keep in mind that many pictures that look great on screen from your digital camera or from you scanner, need to almost always be higher resolution then expected. Resolution is deceiving as well. Everything will soften and fuzz out. An image needs to be at a larger size then anticipated when the end use is going to be printing. This means that when scanning yourself, scan at a larger size or from a larger print then the image can be reduced and the resolution brought up.