Adhesive free picture framing

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Richard Photofusion
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Adhesive free picture framing

Post by Richard Photofusion »

Interesting article over at the Aardenburg Imaging & Archives website.

https://www.aardenburg-imaging.com/adhe ... e-framing/

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Re: Adhesive free picture framing

Post by Not your average framer »

This seems to be quite an interesting concept. Normally, when faced with the same issues, I would often turn to platform mounting, but this appears to be a concept which eliminates the need for platform mounting. Are there any cost implications, where the concept has advantages over producing a platform mount? I doubt if this concept will particularly be useful to me, but I suspect that this concept could well be of greater use to many others.

I am always a little wary about how I mount photos these days, some are a bit iffy if you dry mount them, as there are some photos about which are sensitive to heat, also directly hinging on to the coated surfaces on the reverse face of photos seems a bit iffy as well. As a consequence, I try to avoid both dry mounting, or hinging of photos completely these days.
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Re: Adhesive free picture framing

Post by JFeig »

The one thing that I noticed is the lack of comment regarding a gap (allowance) for expansion and contraction of the art package.
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Re: Adhesive free picture framing

Post by Steve N »

It's not exactly ground breaking, for years now, printers have been printing on standard size paper, which in some cases is just bloody lazy, such as printing a 15cm square image on say a A3 size paper, if it's a limited edition, you have to create a big mount because the printer could not bothered trim the paper down to the square fromat of the image..... :Slap:
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Re: Adhesive free picture framing

Post by prospero »

If they don't want a wide mount I would hand them a pair of scissors and turn my back. :lol:
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Re: Adhesive free picture framing

Post by Richard Photofusion »

"just bloody lazy, such as printing a 15cm square image on say a A3 size paper, if it's a limited edition, you have to create a big mount because the printer could not bothered trim the paper down to the square fromat of the image."

So Steve, just how little of a border should I (a bloody lazy printer) leave in order for a framer to frame a 6" print? 1mm, 2mm, 3mm, 4mm, 5mm? Howabout for a 12" print? Should I argue with the client about not putting things onto a paper with borders leaving options? Or should I follow the client's direction, as well as leave handling material to make the framer's life easier.

Rather than scissors, perhaps I should just offer to process the print in the paperlab [url]
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Re: Adhesive free picture framing

Post by GeoSpectrum »

As with most things, it’s all somebody else’s fault...
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Re: Adhesive free picture framing

Post by Steve N »

Richard Photofusion wrote: Wed 28 Apr, 2021 8:15 am "just bloody lazy, such as printing a 15cm square image on say a A3 size paper, if it's a limited edition, you have to create a big mount because the printer could not bothered trim the paper down to the square fromat of the image."

So Steve, just how little of a border should I (a bloody lazy printer) leave in order for a framer to frame a 6" print? 1mm, 2mm, 3mm, 4mm, 5mm? Howabout for a 12" print? Should I argue with the client about not putting things onto a paper with borders leaving options? Or should I follow the client's direction, as well as leave handling material to make the framer's life easier.

Rather than scissors, perhaps I should just offer to process the print in the paperlab
Sorry Richard, I did not mean to cause offence and was not for one moment calling you a 'bloddy lazy printers' but they are out there, the same as bloody awful framers :sweating:

Just trim a bit of the top and bottom so they equal the sides in the case I mention above, as I don't work for NASA, it's not Rocket Science, what I'm saying, is that there are lazy printers out there just using standard size paper and printing the artwork in the center, they don't even ask the customer if they want it like that, or even surgest about trimming the paper so its has even boarders

So in your link regarding 'Adhesive free picture framing' this would mean that in the case I mention the mount would have boarders of 7.35cm on the sides and 13.5cm top and bottom.

What I also meant about not being ground breaking, is that a lot of contract framing is done like that, the print is wet glued down to the backing board, the mount is cut to fit the print, and the glass come in cut to size, put the whole lot together, slap a frame on it, fire bendy tabs in the back, tape up, fit hangers, job done :giggle:
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Re: Adhesive free picture framing

Post by Not your average framer »

It all makes good sense to me! A nice wide border behind the mount keeps the artwork nice and flat. I like platform mounting photographs, because the is so little to go wrong and I think that the same applies to this idea. I just don't like hinging photographs at all. It's very hard to get hinges to securely stick to the reverse face of so many photographic media and I don't like relying up on self adhesive tape for hinging on to the reverse of photos, which are too often coated with something unknown.

I have been a design engineer in industry and as a result, have been taught that there is no such thing as a permanent self adhesive, so I don't much trust self adhesive hinging. Today plenty of photographs are printed using ink jet and dye sublimation printer and to the customer is just a photograph and the generally cannot tell you how it was printed, so you don't know. Dye sublimation printed photographs are very iffy to dry mount as the inks do strange things when heated, also many ink jet inks can change colours after dry mounting.

A good example is the Ordinance Survey rolled maps, where the black inks can turn a very dark green after being exposed to the heat require for dry mounting. Some of the inks used by photographer printing there own photographs at home from their own ink jet printers. Epsom inks are also likely to change from black to dark green as well. I don't know if other brands of printers are any better, but I'm not very keen to find out the hard way. Fortunately customers don't necessarily notice the changes from black to dark green, but that does not mean that it's a good thing to do.

Framing Ordinance Survey maps, without dry mounting them is asking for trouble as the paper is some very thin and it's cockles far too easily. I have no choice, but to tell the customers that the black ink can change to a very dark green and that it still looks black to most people, who are not looking to see if the black print has a slightly dark green colour and that they agree to having the map heat sealed at their own risk. No one ever seems to mind, but I don't particularly like framing Ordinance Survey maps none the less. Adhesive free mounting for photographs? Sounds good to me!
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Re: Adhesive free picture framing

Post by Not your average framer »

I don't have any problems about photographic businesses working with not trimming prints to size. it's pretty much industry standard practise in the industry and they have different overheads and very often much more expensive premises, lots of expensive cameras and equipment. I have a good friend who has a photographic business not for down the road, who I often make frames for, and there's lots of expenses which most people don't know about. He's a one man band and he's stretched in all directions trying to fit everything in to the normal working hours.

Do they need to work fast to keep things going? Well from what it can see, yes he does! There are often times, when I been very glad to get a bit of work making frames for him, when it's a slack time. Also many customers get the photography done at the photographers and then bring the photography to be framed by the framer. Photographers are are useful source of work for me, I even get to re-frame a good number of photos which have only just been framed by the photographer, because they decide the frame does not suit their house.

How much business comes our way, because customers bring the framing part of the job to the local framer? I would say plenty!
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Re: Adhesive free picture framing

Post by prospero »

A word on prints that are badly formatted, i.e. awkward to mount due to excessively wide borders. It's the artist/publisher
who is responsible for how the prints are issued. They may instruct the printer to trim them or they may undertake that task themselves.
Whatever, the final size as released to the public is the 'mint' condition. The artist made not give this thought, assuming the framer will
'just cut a bit off'. But any reputable framers would not do this on a print of any gravitas as it is counted as damage or 'multilation' by
collectors and dramatically reduces the value.

It's a fine point and we've all had print with 10" of blank paper on one side. I this state it is virtually unframeable, that is it would look
absurd if you had a 12" border all round (there are exceptions :wink: ). However, I take the view that any print issued like this would
not likely gain value anyway. :lol: But you never know..... :roll:
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Re: Adhesive free picture framing

Post by Not your average framer »

Prints with 12 inch borders call for a bit of lateral thinking to make them look right. Unfortunately some customers insist on having items like this framed in the narrowest possible black poster type moulding and it just looks completely wrong. A favourite tactic, which I sometimes employ is to produce a stacked moulding frame, often looking like a cassetta style frame, but allowing a very wide rebate within the width of the frame. The glass, mount, artwork and backing board taking full advantage of the additional rebate width to hide much of the unwanted and untrimmed border. Many more modern artworks, or prints just look totally wrong with a older style wider frame and there's very little that you can do about it. Many of the companies, who have their own chain of shops and publish there own prints, seem to chose paper sizes to suit frames sizes stocked by these shops. Customers often don't necessarily want their frames and bring the print to their local framer.

I don't tend to find that this is always the easiest customer consultation to find something which is going to be all that pleasing to the customer. It is often a very large poster and my normal sized chevrons, just look silly compared to the super large poster. This where customers complain that they can't decide, because the moulding chevron sample is too small. Very often, they want to try every sample chevron in the shop and take hours trying to decide and eventually decide to leave without wanting to place an order. Poster customers can be a total pain in the neck, I lose plenty of sales, because they finally decide what they want, but they thought that poster size frames were going to be really cheap like £5 to £10, when I can't even buy the materials for that cost. Sometimes I think that there must be easier ways to earn a living. I often like it when some of our locals come in and don't mind too much about the exact frame, but say what have you got which you would like to use up and can do me a cheap deal on.
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Re: Adhesive free picture framing

Post by Steve N »

I'm talking about Giclée Printing where you have print on demand for limited editions
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Re: Adhesive free picture framing

Post by Richard Photofusion »

I regularly get people in asking for prints to have framed in a hurry. I talk with local framers about what they have in stock, what sizes of RMF's they carry, what they can turnaround quickly. I'll often advice the customer to visit the framer first, if they need very quick turnarounds. Then I'll print to match the requirements, with a well balanced and pleasing border, with the print paper sized to the frame.

For edition work, I'll work with the artist to ensure presented composition works, and we'll often try to aim for a reasonably "normal" frame size. Trying to explain that a 6x7 ratio image won't work with an A-series frame shape can sometimes be tedious, fortunately, a couple of our local framers can turnaround custom frames quickly, so the ratio challenge reduces.

I happily offer Giclée Printing at a 20% premium over the same paper and ink combinations, sold as inkjet or pigment prints. Most print on demand is produced from rolls of paper, rather than sheets, but the pricing is based on "fits within" sizes, and it's reasonably simple to explain that A3 is twice the size of A4 (though one chap insisted that his 210x594mm should be A3 - I happily agreed, as the smallest rolls we carry are 17" wide).

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