multiple photos under a single mount.

[Bagpuss]

Hi,
A lady came in yesterday with photos of her twin daughters and she had school photos of each going back over the last 7 years.

She wanted 2 frames, with 7 window mounts going left to right. The photos aren't big, about 12 x 12cm.

I was wondering what other framers do when faced with a lot of photos, I have a Hotpress and was thinking of mounting each photo on Conservation Barrier Board (the thin stuff) and then sticking them to the back of the mountboard with tape, behind their respective windows. I thought the barrier board would stiffen them a bit and time wise it might be quicker to do ?

Given the photos have been a little bent over the years and I want them to lay flat,
How would you fix them ?

Thanks in advance,
B'Puss

[prospero]

This is what I would do, assuming that the photos are replaceable......

Drymount all the photos, seperately or all on one sheet and trim the boards to the size of the photo. Then use these to plan your design. You can shuffle them about.

Cut the mount and P-90 them all round to the back of the mount behind their respective windows. ATG some strips of board around the outside of the mount to make it all level and in any gaps if necessary. It's not such a long winded method as it sounds and particually good if you need to do some critical fine-tuning on positioning individual photos.

If you don't want to drymount some of the photos, you can just cut a board slightly larger than the photo and tape it the same way. Burnish the P-90 well when you are satisfied with the positioning to get a good bond.

[Bagpuss]

Thanks Prospero that's just what I needed to hear

B'Puss

[framemaker]

I admit I have very little experience in mounting photos, either in a hotpress, self adhesive board, cold mounting or other methods. But it does occur to me that if the photos are glossy, can the heat of the press not have an effect on the surface finish? and secondly would a soft substrate like barrier board or even mountboard lead to that 'orange peel' effect? I am sure someone with more experience with mounting photos will post, so I would hold on for a moment Adam!

[Jonny2morsos]

Arqadia do a thin (1250 micron) smooth mounting board which will not leave too much of an "orange peel effect". Much cheaper than the 2000 micron stuff. Their Cat. No 999 114 000. If you use the Hotpress Silicone release film it will not have any noticable effect on the glossy finish provided it is clean and not damaged in any way.

I would do as Prospero say and dry mount the lot in one go and cut out.

Before you start look at the back of the photos as photographers have a habit of sticking a label reminding customers of copyright law on the back. If these are present and you put them in a press you will get a nice impression of the label on the front of the photo!

john.

[Merlin]

If you are not happy or are unsure of the results with a HotPress, then why not just PVA the photos to the mounting board.

Use a 4" sponge roller to lay the PVA. Place photo on top then a piece of mountboard the same size as the photos on top again. Then just hard roller it all down.

That is the way we have always done our photo mounting.

[prospero]

I agree about mounting glossy photos. I don't like them at all. If you don't fix them down, any oblique light will accent the slightest wave. Unless you use a perfectly smooth substrate to stick them to you get orange peel. But at least its even all over. Some boards are more prone to this than others. On the whole I much prefer to cop out and let the photographer do it.

In the past I have used a fine textured heatseal film to take the gloss off. The glass will make it look glossy again.
This is good if you have a collection of photos with differing glossiness. It's also good for creased and cracked photos. I remember doing a 20x16 glossy bw print that was absolutely knackered. Cracked to buggery. I drymounted it first, then touched in the cracks with watercolour paint. Then heatsealed it with fine linen h/s film. The result was amazing. It looked perfect. Not a crack or crease in sight.

[Bill Henry]

For those size images, I would have a tendency to bypass the dry mounting altogether and simply tape them in place behind the mount.

Old photos seem to have a built in curl to them, but if you place them in the heat press for a time, that should eliminate enough of the curling so that they should stay reasonably flat under the mount.

To me it is much more difficult to build a mat around mounted photos (which may be slightly askew or slightly misaligned) than to cut a mat first then place the photos into the mount.

[Roboframer]

Why does this need a different method to a single aperture?

Hinge the mount to the undermount, position the first photo as you would if it were a single, hinge it in place on the undermount then do the next one etc etc. If you are dry mounting them, (and I wouldn't for two reasons here, sounds like most are not replaceable and they're only small) then what's wrong with marking their exact positions and having a stab at mounting the lot in one hit?

If you screw up - i.e. one or two move, fine, then cut them all out and proceed as detailed above.

[Bagpuss]

Thanks for everyone's thoughts on this, I ended up cutting a piece of 5mm Foamcore acting as the undermount as it was over a metre long and only 25cm wide. On reflection, given I had the rigidity of the Foamcore and an extra sheet of BACK/10, I probably didn't need to stiffen up the photos with the barrier board backing (in the Hotpress).

I was pleased with the finished result but probably could have just hinged each photo onto the Foamcore. As I was a bit concerned about the mount gaping away from the undermount, I taped the photos to the back of the multi aperture mount and that seemed to do the trick.

Thanks again,
B'Puss