OK, I am kind of confused about mounting vs Matting/framing prints.
Say I wanted to put 3 16x20in prints on teh wall. In the past I would of went to the frame store (Michael's) and bought what I needed, threw the pic in the frame and puit it up on the wall.
If I was to mount my prints on single weight matte board, what does that get me? can I frame that with a matte? im just confused on the whole concept. I understand mounting to like a peice of foam core for presentations and such, but why for like fine art prints, or large portraits for the wall?
Googled liek crazy over the last few months off and on, still dont get it.
Bottom line is I have 2 16x 20 portraits I want to put on my wall and not sure how to go about it.
By "mounting," I presume you are referring to a dry mount where you adhere the print to a board by means of dry mount tissue, after which the board may have a mat placed around it and the assembly is framed.
The advantages to this, as opposed to no mounting, are that the print is guaranteed to stay flat, and stay in place. The advantage to matting is that the print is recessed and therefore does not touch the glass.
There needs to be some method to secure the print to some kind of backing material if you want to use a mat board. Dry mount is a popular method for doing so as it is archival (if you use the correct materials).
yes, a dry mount to a board. SO is it safe to say..... if my print I want to mount, matte, and Frame, is 16x20, because Im mounting, I need to create a boarder around image (enlarge canvas) to compensate for my matte? 10in of matte would mean I need a mounted printe 26x30?
I'm a little confused. If you have a 16x20 print, you can mount it to a 26x30 board. Then cut a second 26x30 mat board in whatever way you wish, and overlay it on top of the board that you mounted the print to. You don't have to make a print on a larger sheet because the dry mount method uses an adhesive film which is placed between the print and the board. The adhesive is activated by applying heat, which is best done with a dry mount press (although it can be done with a household iron, the results if not done carefully can be uneven or may run the risk of damaging the print).
You can mount any size print to any size board that is at least as large as the print. Some artists I've seen have mounted tiny 2"x2" prints to gigantic 30"x40" boards, then cut a tiny little hole in a 30"x40" white mat board, and framed the whole thing. It certainly creates an interesting visual effect.
I gues I should of clarified, I was planning to use Mpix for the mounting as well as the printing. I never thought of doing the mounting larger. I wonder if Im missing that on Mpix.
jmz313 wrote:
I gues I should of clarified, I was planning to use Mpix for the mounting as well as the printing. I never thought of doing the mounting larger. I wonder if Im missing that on Mpix.
Mounting a print to the center of a larger board is not going to be an Mpix option.
When I did BW pictorial work back in the 70s (my "f64" heyday) I drymounted everything using a resin paper--as mentioned, it's very archival if done right (i.e., "done right" starts with a honking big drymount press). But good resin mounting involves high heat, and that can create archival issues with inkjet dyes. Not to mention that it's actually a hassle and takes more room than I can afford anymore.
OTOH, I've never been satisfied with even the short-term permanence of any form of adhesive. No form of adhesive is actually accepted by the Library of Congress or most museums as archival unless it's easily removable. Plus, avoiding bubbles was pretty easy with high-heat resin mounting, but it's a constant danger with adhesive mounting.
The bottom line of all this is that I'm not satisfied with any mounting adhesion method short of high-heat resin mounting in a drymount press, and I don't have space for a drymount press of sufficient size.
What I do, therefore, is to print on a larger paper by enlarging the canvas in Photoshop, then have a window mat cut to the size of the actual image. So I will print a 16x20 in the center of a 20x24 and sandwich it between a 20x24 backing board and a 20x24 mat with a 16x20 window, then frame it. I don't use any adhesive at all.
Depending upon your use, you have another option if you dry mount - you can go glassless. I used to put everything behind glass, but then started dry mounting my prints, dropping the matte (for large prints), and using UV laminates in place of the glass. The UV laminate is applied over the top in a heat press and can even be textured (linen, clear, canvas). It creates a very "painterly" effect and reduces the hanging weight of the print a ton (since there is no glass).
These are all very different ways of achieving the "look" that you envision for your prints. You should go to a local framing shop and talk to them and even ask for examples of all of these methods so that you can see the differences. Your print can look very different depending upon how you hang it...
