How I mat and frame my prints

Thanks Chris, very classy and informative reference. Framing and matting are two so important parts in the presentation of photos, one has to get it right.
 
Thanks for the info Chris. I've been interested in wanting to learn this. In the spring I want to get my spare bathroom turned into a darkroom & start doing b&w prints. I already have all the tools I need to print & develop, just need to black out the window & build a table to work on. Wish I had the funds & the time to come up to Fort Wayne for some tutoring you offer. I know that would be a big help. Right now my wifes car is being repaired so that will be prob. $200 +. Oh well...life goes on! I really hope one day it will happen!
 
gb hill said:
Thanks for the info Chris. I've been interested in wanting to learn this. In the spring I want to get my spare bathroom turned into a darkroom & start doing b&w prints. I already have all the tools I need to print & develop, just need to black out the window & build a table to work on. Wish I had the funds & the time to come up to Fort Wayne for some tutoring you offer. I know that would be a big help. Right now my wifes car is being repaired so that will be prob. $200 +. Oh well...life goes on! I really hope one day it will happen!
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Thanks Greg. I wish I lived closer to everyone, seems like most of my RFF friends are all on the other side of the country from me! There are a couple other Hoosiers here though 🙂
 
Another question. You say, "On a 6x9 inch horizontal image, I use a 14x16 inch frame. The opening is cut 9.5 inches wide and 7 inches tall."

What size paper are you printing that on, though?
 
deirdre said:
Another question. You say, "On a 6x9 inch horizontal image, I use a 14x16 inch frame. The opening is cut 9.5 inches wide and 7 inches tall."

What size paper are you printing that on, though?
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Letter size paper. 8.5x11 inches. I print it slightly above center so there's a little more room under the image to sign and title. The paper can be smaller than the backing board (in fact it needs to be or you have no room to mount it) as long as it is bigger than the opening in the overmat.

About glass, glass shops sell glass made for framing pictures. It is thinner than window glass, so it will fit in the frame along with the backing and mat and still leaving room for the retaining clips that hold it all in the frame.
 
Thanks!

I wanted to be a part of an art show in May and realized I really had no experience doing some of this stuff. I used to have a really nice mat cutter but sold it when I moved cross country. So that I have experience with, but really I bought it for hanging my own stuff in my own house, not for an exhibition.

Now it's a simple matter of figuring out how much space I want to pay for, how much work that'll mean having to print, and then what I want to put there.
 
Thanks so much for your info on matting & framing. I haven't cut a mat in quite a few years and found your info rewarding. Any thoughts or comments on pre-cut mats?

Thanks
 
taylan said:
thank you chris for your reference. i want to ask some thing about mat cutter. i am planning to buy logan 301. do you have any opinion about that model?
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It doesn't have a squaring arm, so cutting the outside of the mats boards to the right dimensions is nearly impossible. You can measure and set up a cut without it, but it is so much more labor intensive. I would find it maddening to work with. Also, it isn't wide enough to cut full sheets of mat board lengthwise, which may be a problem sometimes. The price is cheap; 1/3 the cost of the model I use, but if you will be cutting many mats the bigger 750 is worth it. Mine literally paid for itself the very first time I used it because I was a student at the time and my professors required the students to turn in their pictures matted and mounted. The savings of doing them myself compared to paying a frame shop was so extreme that the $250 I paid for the cutter at the time plus the cost of the expensive museum mat board I used was less than the cost of having the pictures matted at a frame shop!

Here's something to think of too. A lot of guys here complain that they don't want to spend money on something like a film scanner or a printer or monitor calibrator, but they have high-end cameras and lenses that cost thousands. A few hundred for a mat cutter is less than even a cheap lens costs! Not as fun or sexy, but very important to have. 😀
 
fuji645 said:
Thanks so much for your info on matting & framing. I haven't cut a mat in quite a few years and found your info rewarding. Any thoughts or comments on pre-cut mats?

Thanks
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Most pre-cut mats I have seen are made with non-archival mat board that will damage the print over time. There are pre-cut mats available made from museum board or acid-free cellulose fiber (wood pulp that's been treated to remove the acids), and they're archival..but more expensive.

The big problem with them is they never really correspond to the size picture you have. They're usually made to accommodate 'standard' print sizes like 8x0 or 11x14 inch, but you may never actually print a print in those sizes. If you shoot 35mm, like most RFF members do, and you want to print the whole negative, you will be printing a 6x9, or a 7x10, or an 8x12 print. I suppose you could print the photo 9.5 inches wide and the extra width and height of the precut opening will give you space for the borders and signature area.

If you shoot a Hasselblad or Rollei or a Mamiya 6, you can't use precuts at all if you want to print the whole square picture. I like to custom cut my own so that no matter what size print I do, or how I cop the image, or what camera format I used, I can make a perfectly sized frame and mat. The metal frames and many wood frames are sold by the inch in custom sizes, so the frame is never a limitation.
 
The stuff I'm saying about using higher-end mat cutters and avoiding precut mats applies most to those who want to publicly exhibit their work and sell it. Presentation is literally something that will make or break you if you have those ambitions..so don't pinch pennies. None of this stuff is really super costly, not like a new Leica lens.

If you just want to frame pics to hang a home or give to family or friends, then precut mats (as long as they're the archival kind) might be fine, and cutting your own with a cutting system that's hobbled by the manufacturer (by lacking basic stuff like the squaring arm) will still give great results (but at the cost of more work to get those results). That's why I tell people who want to exhibit and/or sell to avoid them. If you cut a lot of mats, the limitations will begin to really bug you because it'll slow down your workflow, and framing is gruntwork anyway. I don't do it for fun, cause it isn't. I do it because frame shops are bloodthirsty with their pricing and I have always been disappointed with the quality of mats I didn't cut myself...and I am very obsessive to a probably unhealthy degree...
 
tj01 said:
Great article. What do you use to sign your work ? I've always wondered if there are alternatives to a dark pencil.
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If you print on matte surface paper, then pencil is what you should use, because it is more resistant to fading than any ink. It'll outlast the image on the paper!

Pencil won't write on glossy papers and RC type papers, so i use an ultrafine point sharpie pen for those types.
 
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