How to frame a photograph !!!

When you press on the shutter of your camera, you start a creative process which ends with the framing of the photograph you've taken.

With the modern Numerical Cameras and their extensible memory almost ad infinitum, the photographs are piling up on the hard drives of our computers… and remain wisely arranged there, even those which would deserve to be more often seen !

Laboratories of development on Internet (PhotoWays, SnapFish…) who well understood that, make attack of creativity to propose us to print these photographs: low-cost prints, album-books, calendars, mugs…

Then, why not order them - often for a very low coast price - an enlarging of our preferred photos and, after, frame them in order to reserve them a choice place in our interior?

As regards framing, photos or pictures, complexity connects choices of matters or of provision, makes perplexed the picture framer beginner … How to make? How to start?

Look... you've to know that finally, with some simple basic principles, anyone can only learn framing without difficulties !

Always keep in memory the idea that framing is there to emphasize your photograph, to draw the attention towards it and to protect it from the aggressions of time…

You do not make a frame for itself : You choose it for the photograph which it will have to highlight. In all the cases, there must remain discrete, leaving the starring to the artwork which he emphasizes and leading the eye to it.

WHY FRAME A PHOTOGRAPH?

First of all, a photograph is framed to be seen! That appears so obvious that you can smile about that… And yet, what about lot of good pictures, we forgot in the hard drives of our PCs because they aren't framed!!!

The framework becomes then a simple and effective way to expose, to hang a photograph on the wall. And also to maintain it flat ! Observe all these posters which hang, sadly fixed on four drawing-pins on a not very accessible wall…

Then, the frame of course fulfills a mission of protection and conservation… The photographs are very delicate : if you handle them directly without precautions, their beautiful glazing… are transformed into collection of digital fingerprints of all kinds !!! Good for FBI... but not for your deco ! Photographs of quality must be protected from dirtiness, dust, moisture and also of the light which fades them so quickly.

A last justification with the framing remains artistic dimension that the framework brings to your works: the museums and picture galleries understood it for a long time which do not expose any work without framework !

A mat with the broad margins brings to the photographs which it recovers an undeniable esthetic value by creating a kind of transition between the wall and the image. And if its colors are quite selected, matching to photography and in harmony with its direct environment, the artistic effect becomes immediate!

WHAT ABOUT FRAMING COMPONENTS ?

- Backing Board. It is a rigid, thick paperboard (2 with 3mm or calendar paperboard …) and which is used as back support for all the framing.

- the centering-board or mounting board of the photograph. In cardboard (fine paperboard, kind of cereal box). The photograph is fixed on it and it rests on the backing paperboard.

- the mat. Also cardboard made, and covered with a decorative paper or printed paper. An opening, the "window", is cut out there and its role is to create the margins around the photograph and also to prevent the contact between the photograph and glass of covering.

- the glass pane of protection. It is not essential but remains strongly recommended.

(Click to enlarge)

Most of the time, these four elements are piled up one on the other and are made interdependent by an brown gummed tape (dust seal) having inter alia for function to completely isolate the photograph from dust or the insects (some, one evening visitors of the nights of summer, adore to thread between the glass and the photograph when this dust seal misses!). That what is called “the package” in framing art.

- the rod or moulding, usually out of wood (but also out of metal, plastic…) who forms the frame itself by assembly of 4 members. This frame presents a rabbet in which comes to place the package.

WHICH SOLUTIONS FOR FRAMING ?

Bring the work to a professional custom framer… Provided with your photography, you go to the nearest framing store… It will be the more expansive solution according to work and the materials which you will have asked. In exchange of this additional expenditure, you will derive consequent advantages from them!

The professional has experience and knows perfectly what errors are to be avoided ! He will thus advise you usefully on the level of colors, the forms and the matters. If you are a neophyte, it is an indisputable advantage! It will be able to also carry out for you a framing of quality… because it can use his tools perfectly!

In brief, with the picture framer-pro, not of bad surprise : You can ask him for an estimate, you thus knows with what you engage… with the certainty of a work well done.

You do-it-yourself the framing work … There is no doubt that you will save between 30 and 70% compared to the professional picture framer according to the solution which you will choose:

- specialized stores (most of the time in the big cities: “Couleurs du Temps”, “Le passe-partout”…) These stores will provide you a large choice of mouldings for your framework and will be able to cut for you the glass of protection.

Usually, the saleswomen give you good advises and will direct you towards the best solution: you will return to your house with all the elements and complete the work yourselves.

- Ready made frames bought most of the time in many department stores or art stores. The moldings are generally very simple and their color studied to suit in all the modern interiors.

They contain all the elements so that you can complete your framing by yourself at home : backing paperboard, mat has to cut out and glazes protection, all is ready to use. Their price, from 10 to 50$ are particularly attractivel… (see the page French bevel of this site).

- If you are a handyman and particularly fan of “it is my work, I've did it !…”. If You have a basic material (picture framer saw, clamps, somme pieces of strip wood…)… and if You have many frames to realize… then build them by yourself from "A" to "Z".

Make your mouldings, assemble them, paint them, cut the paperboards and mats, cover the elements with imagination paper, make your “packages”… it is an activity enthralling and enriching…

And before launching you, buy somme books about framing and why not to take some courses ? See this page “Beginning the framing” !

And be creative ! Go out the frame !

Some books to learn

The best framing handbook is, in my opinion :

Mat, mount and frame it yourself
David Logan

An attractive, well-designed frame not only enhances a picture but preserves and protects it. Logan, a contributing editor at Artists' Magazine who has taught framing and matting across the United States, shows readers how to present their artwork skillfully and economically.

Logan does a great job of explaining everything and supplements the text with attractive photos, which will be a helpful resource for beginners to copy. There is something here for framers of all skill levels. Recommended for most public library collections.