First measure the art, in this case rubber sent me two prints at 8X12" With these measurements you want to find a frame that will give you even amount of matte all the way around the image. So some picture frames that would do this would be 12 x16, 14x18, 18x24 and so on. When selecting the frame, bring the picture with you and place it in the frame to see if you looks awkward in terms of spacing. For this I chose a 12x16 giving me a 2" matte instead of one of the larger frames. The larger frames would work but the picture would get lost in a sea of matte. If I had chosen a thicker frame than the one pictured I might have gone up to 14x18 to better balance the matte and frame. A mistake a lot of people make is to choose a frame size that will give some tiny little bit of matte. The matte becomes distracting when too thin in the frame. Like when people put a 10x13 into an 11x14 frame. It's just bad. A general rule is that the matte should be wider than the frame. A lot stores will sell ready to go frames with backing and glass and frames without glass or backing. Most of these prefabricated frames will come with backing you will need to replace and glass you should consider replacing. The problems these cause will be covered later. If you decide that you are going to be replacing both the glass and the backing then get the frames without glass and backing.
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Next you need a matte. If you're lucky the place you're shopping at will have the frame and picture size combo you need. If not you will need to get the matte cut. Places like Hobby Lobby and Michaels will have a selection of precut mattes and will be able to cut mattes for you in addition to having frames. When you get a matte cut to size, most frame shops will take 1/8" off of each side instead of 1/4" that the majority of precut mattes take off. These places can be a good place to start looking but do look around wherever you live to see if there are better options. At both stores if you pay full price for anything you're doing it wrong. Both rotate sales and offer coupons. Watch their adds and time your purchases accordingly.
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When buying the matte, make sure that is has some sort of label like "photo-safe" "archival" or "acid-free." Do not get the "buffered" "paper" or "acid" mattes. Acidic mattes are awful. You can tell them apart from acid free mattes by looking at the beveled cut or edge of the matte. Generally if the edge is yellowed then it's an acid matte while if it is white it is an acid free matte. Acid mattes will fade in color and damage the art work over time. Depending on where and under what conditions you hang the piece, the matte can start fading within a year. This is especially true under any light with a lot of UV in it. Acid burn generally takes longer. It looks like a horrible yellow creeping color shit on your picture near where the matte and picture meet. Acid free mattes will still fade under UV light but it does not seem as rapid to me as the acid mattes. You can dodge the problem by buying UV protecting glass which will also protect the art from UV damage. You will also want to pick a piece of acid free foam board or second piece of acid free matte without a window in it to use as backing.
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Consider picking up some hangers, rubber feet, and acid free tape. A lot of the frames out there come with no hanger or terrible hangers. If the frame you are using is heavy then you will want to put a wire hanger onto it while if it's a lighter frame you can get away with using sawtooth hangers. The rubber feet will make it easier to level the frame on the wall and prevents the frame from scratching the wall. The acid free tape is to hold the picture to the matte. While there is a strict school of thought on how you should mount artwork for it to be conservation framing, this will be ignored in the tutorial. In conservation framing the goal is to protect to artwork with the process being entirely reversible. This tutorial is to show you how to hang something in your house without looking like garbage in a year or two, not how to preserve some signed print from an artist. If you have something of real monetary or sentimental value you should take it to get framed rather than do it yourself.

So now we have a frame, a matte, backing, tape, rubber feet, and hangers. To finish you need a clean surface to work on, a towel, glass cleaner, a micro-fiber cloth or paper towels, a hammer for the sawtooth or screwdriver for the wire hanger, a pencil, and a measuring tape. Optional will be a marker or shoe polish of the same color as your frame and an air compressor or can of compressed air. First lay the towel upon the surface you will work. This will help keep the frame getting chipped and scratched while you work with it. As you unpack the frame watch for scratches and chips. This can be hidden with the marker or shoe polish. I've found shoe polish works best on real wood frames while markers work better everything else. If you have art markers like copic or prisma use these instead of sharpies. You can use the art markers almost like a stain, you marker the spot and then rub off the access around the area you are fixing. While with sharpies once it is down you are done, it isn't going to be going anywhere. For black frames I prefer art markers for over sharpies. Black sharpies have a purplish tint that is terrible looking when fixing frames while the art markers are more neutral.

With the marks fixed remove the backing of the frame. Often it is held in with little metal folding black tabs so all that you need is fold them back and remove the glass and backing. Toss the backing and clean the glass. If you see weird waves in the glass as you are cleaning it you got a bad frame that they left the acid on the glass too long. While you may think that the glass would be factory clean it isn't. The crappy packaging they put in it will often ghost onto the inside of the glass reducing clarity. If you don't see any ghosting, try fogging the glass with your breath and then you will really be able to see it.

Next grab the matte and picture. Flip the matte over and place the picture on the back side of the matte. The matte opening should be slightly smaller than the picture (1/4" off the shelf usually 1/8" if custom cut from each side of the picture). This gives the picture a place on which it can rest and be held into place by the matte. Do not get the matte cut to the same size as the picture and do not try to go under 1/8" off all the way around. Along the top and only the top place a single piece of tape. If you place tape all the way around the picture will wave and bow terribly down the road as humidity and temperature change the size of everything slightly. Then place the matted picture face up on the backing and the cleaned glass over the picture. Check for dust trapped under the glass and clean as necessary. If you have an oil-less air compressor it makes this part pretty fast. Once clean place the glass, matte, and backing, into the frame. You should notice that the frame is actually slightly larger than the matte. When a frame says 12x16 it really means 12 1/8x16 1/8". This is to give everything room to expand and contract with temperature and humidity. With everything in the frame, bend the tabs back into place. You can add a paper backing to keep new dust from entering the frame and keep insects from reaching everything as easily, but this can be skipped unless you feel ultra-motivated.

Next add the hanger. If you have sawtooth, measure for the center top of the frame and then mark the location. Then position the sawtooth and hammer into place. Make sure you do this with the frame still on the towel. For a wire hanger you will want to measure 1/3 of the way down on either side of the frame and then screw in the eyelets or loops. Then run the wire between the two. The wire should have a little play in it, not too tight not too loose. Then place the feet on either of the bottom corners of the frame. Finally pick a good spot on your wall and enjoy!


Let me know if any other pictures would be useful.

>>1504005

In before the trolls and alphon.

Cheers for the tutorial :)

Nice tutorial, NatureMang

nice.
i actually needed to know this.
thanx natureguy.

>>1504073
yeah I would. Condsenation can form on glass between and cause the photograph to become glued to the glass. Even if it doesn't do that the photo becomes wavy from absorbing the moisture. The matte prevents the picture from touch and thusly sticking to the glass and helps prevent the wave from happening. The matte's main purpose is protection not decoration.

>>1504088
o no, let them worry about that, just send them a print

>>1504088
for the love of god don't use glass, that will break and shred your prints, sandwich and tape it in some cardboard so it'll flex but not bend and put it in a manila envelope

More info on the Shotgun.

Dutch blood that I have, cheaper for some things (like matting and framing) is better for me, especially as I've never done it before. I didn't realise one could even buy pre-cut matting boards.

Thanks for the tutorial.

An idea regarding 'taping' the photo to the back of the matte, why not create an acid-free paper 'trench' for the photo to rest within, taping that to the back of the matte?

you'd start with the bottom one, then the top to ensure you have a snug fit for the vertical alignment, then either the left or right to center it then finish with the opposite side to secure it. Then you can put on some triangles at the corners to help secure the whole thing further, no? Might need a guillotine to cut the edges off the trenches to make sure they have a specific 'depth' and remain straight, though.

As I said I've never done this and didn't realise the matting was for protection to begin with, so I don't know what the best ways would be to do this, just thinking out loud.

>>1504163
photo/print

>Guns in every photo NatureGuy takes at home
We get it. You like guns

It's still not as bad as the every day carry threads where every single post is like, 8 cell phones, 2 MP3 players, 3 knives, 1 pistol, 11 magazines, 5 portable hard-drives, 200 bucks in cash and the obligatory Bad-Ass Mother Fucker wallet.

But half-hearted trolling aside (I hope you don't take it too seriously), cool tutorial man, this was really helpful.

Do you recommend making the actual photo 7 3/4 x 11 3/4, but printed on 8 x 12 paper? I usually avoid canvas prints for just this reason, you lose some of the image because of the inherent nature of those particular physical mediums

I'm not doing anymore print trades. The last I did the person never sent me the print I asked and never replied. I went out of my way to get him my print abroad too. Not naming names but he is a regular tripfag on this board. He knows who he is.

>>1504373
NAME AND SHAME

>>1504373
Who is it?

>>1504373

yo dvdyke I sent your prints (finally) a couple weeks ago. Life's been hectic yo.

>>1504395
>not using your trip
faggot

>not just taping pictures to the wall
u guys
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>>1504409
>underexposed
>distracting tape on the bottom
>specular highlight
2/10

>>1504163
for thicker things yes that would work. Like when framing magazines you box them on the backing and then attach the matting to the box you just made. For prints, no, it doesn't work very well. They just end up falling down.

>>1504215
it's better than putting ponies in every single image

>>1504218
no. The actually image should be larger than the opening. It's easier to place. Plus even when using a wizard to cut the mattes the cut doesn't always come out perfect. It doesn't show until you try to line it up perfectly with something, like what you're suggesting. Now if the actually paper size is larger than image, so you have a white around the image you can use other methods of mounting the art more easily. Some conversation shops will use photo-corners when they have white space to work with and then hide it with the matte. Just make sure the frame size is larger than the paper. Otherwise you have trim it down.

Nice tutorial. Thank you. Pic for future reference.

>>1504005
>>1504501
Awesome!

Thanks NatureBro!

Do you have a photo of the other print you got from rubber, framed?

>this thread has received 1 of 4 requests needed to trigger archival.

>>1504501
black and white is so easy on the eye

ok so you guys need a tutorial on how to put a picture in a frame?
the fuck is this shit

<3<3 thanks for this

ITT: asspie structuralists too invested in the presentation of form

for those who don't like black on white.