How Not To Ruin Your Picture By Improper Framing

First, don't touch the front side of prints by your fingers. Even if fingerprints are not visible immediately, they can 'develop' into a distraction with time. You don't need to touch the front to handle the prints. Hold them by backside and edges.

Indeed, for a long-term display photographs should be framed. You go to a camera shop or just a store that stocks frames among other commodities, pick one, insert the picture and voila. It must be OK because everybody does this?

Unfortunately not. Two things exactly are wrong with this way of framing.

• The print emulsion comes in contact with the glass. The picture has a good chance to stick to it permanently, spoiling the appearance. This type of damage is among the worst ones. An attempt to separate the photograph from the glass in dry state usually fails (but you may try to soak the whole thing in water for a while and dry the photo after it comes off the glass). Camera stores routinely have customers coming with this problem. Getting matte finished prints instead of glossy ones doesn't help radically, it is only a matter of time to see them adhered to the glass in places.

Framing Scheme

I took this figure from this paper on framing (worth reading also). Note the mat (window mat), also called passepartout, that separates the picture from the glass. At the same time, it serves aesthetic purpose, providing space around the picture.

• Most likely, the backing board is made of non-archival material. It will release chemicals that ruin the print, e. g. fade it and shift colors. Sometimes you can find a certificate saying something like "acid free", but usually the manufacturer doesn't consider an extra effort profitable and the frames simply smell. The store people won't understand it, too, and will try to sell you what they have.

If you are inclined to do it yourself, you can buy all the materials from mail-order suppliers. Be aware that whether you do it yourself or have it done in a shop, archival framing can cost several times more than the print itself.
 

Further Reading

• Guide to Framing and Q&A Forum Framing Threads from photo.net.
• Conservation OnLine - a source of more info than you want to read. In particular, displaying conditions can be no less adverse to photographs than improper framing. Although it is intuitively clear that direct sunlight, high temperature and high himidity are bad for them, you can find more detailed recommendations there. Search function at the very bottom of that page may be useful.
• Kodak's recommendations on storage of photographic materials, including mounted prints.
• How to do your own mating and hinging - a more thorough guide, with references to suppliers of archival materials.

I got to your page through photo.net, it's very good and I would like to offer you a suggestion. Where you show the linen hinges coming over the front og the image, try attaching the tape to the back of the image with about an inch of tape sticking over the top. Then apply your linen tape over that to hold it to the backboard. It only takes a minute extra and doesn't require you to put anything on the front of the image.

-- Jeff C Measamer (jeff.c.measamer@us.akermar.com), February 25, 2000

This is the technique I saw used at the Art Institute of Chicago photo collection. Archival Photo Corners.

We were taught to use no tape at all on the actual photo, but to use mylar archival "photo corners", which are 1 centimeter corners which stick to the matte, and the photo slides into a slot in them to keep it aligned, so that the image can be removed easily.

Light Impressions also has these corners.

-- Jeff Callen (jeff_callen@yahoo.com), May 29, 2001

Ok, your article was good for the most part. The one thing that I think you said incorrectly was "museum standards". About ninety-five percent of framers do not do "museum standards". They do what is called conservation standards. The difference might seem small in literary terms. I work in the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and a conservation frame shop. They are two completely different animals. At the Corcoran they use hinges that take several hours to dry, a frame shop would not be profitable framing only seven or eight pieces a day. Conservation is most likely the best framing an ordinary person would need. Yes there are occasions that need museum framing, but most times not. It is also much more costly than conservation standards.

-- Dns Ynko (dnsynko@yahoo.com), January 30, 2003

• Light Impressions - mail-order supplier of archival materials