Instructor – Eric Luden
A matted and framed print isn’t always the best option. In this show-and-tell presentation event, Eric Luden discusses the finer points of finishing a print for exhibition and display. Questions pertaining to archival stability, durability, and cost will be addressed along with aesthetic consideration. Finishing is often the most expensive part of making a print, this webinar will help you make the right finishing decision.
Topics include:
- Mounting substrates – Gator, Dibond, Aluminum
- Protective coatings
- Face mounting
- Types of frames
- Window mat versus flush mount
- Glazing options
- Question and answer
TRANSCRIPT
00:00:40
Andrea Zocchi: Thank you to VII Insider and PhotoWings— two wonderful organizations. So, today, the webinar is “Best Practices for Display: Framing Options”. And what we’re going to start with is Eric is going to walk out into our lab and show you some frame pieces that we have specifically up because they show kind of the variety of options for framing. And then he’s also going to take you into our inner sanctum, and we’re going to talk about substrates for framing and different materials and different approaches to framing. So Eric, if you’re ready.
00:01:24
Eric Luden: I am all set. Can you hear me okay, Andrea?
00:01:27
Andrea Zocchi: We can hear you just fine.
00:01:29
Eric Luden: Perfect.
00:01:30
Andrea Zocchi: Yes, can you hear me?
00:01:31
Eric Luden: I’m just— Yep. I’m just gonna walk through our front. This is our front space with Jen, who is our client support specialist working away. And I’m just going to walk you by a couple of our kind of interesting projects that we’ve done for different photographers, not the fire panel. But this interesting piece that we produced for Teju Cole where we had to create a sort of two separate frames. One panel had text and the other panel is an image by Teju. But we wanted in one contiguous frame. So that was kind of a cool project.
00:02:04
Another great image over here by our friend Gary Knight from VII. This is really a beautiful print with a reveal around it. And reveal means that you actually show the paper base where Gary has titled it and put his little red chalk on there to identify. That’s his special logo that he uses.
00:02:27
These are some of the major profiles that we use, we have beautiful maple wood frames, solid wood frames. And then we have a whole series of frames that we use from a company called Small Corp. And these are really beautiful, solid welded aluminum frames so that they have no seam on the corner. And they come in as you can tell a variety of thicknesses and finishes. So we’ll be able to talk about that. Sorry, this gets a little out of focus and a little dizzy.
00:02:54
Here is a great shot by our friend Barry Schneier, who photographed Bruce Springsteen in 1974 at the Harvard Square Theater. He was just opening up for Bonnie Raitt and is really launching his career. So we did this as a triptych. And that is a solid piece of paper. They’re no, there’s no mat on this as well. But kind of like the way we did Teju Cole’s and so when you get up close to the image, you’ll see that that’s just the paper edge. And there’s a little spacer in there that we’ll talk about later. That helps keep the print protected from the glass that we use. And then back up one more.
00:03:31
Andrea Zocchi: So Eric. I’m just gonna. Eric, can I just jump in for a second?
00:03:34
Eric Luden: Yep. Yeah.
00:03:36
Andrea Zocchi: So can you go back to that Barry Schneier image there? I don’t know if a lot of people I think you could just barely see it. But I think if you pointed out? Because I know you’re going to show this later, but that spacer is actually a tub a clear tub have that fits in next to the wood. So because you do not want your print contacting your glazing, your Plexiglas or your glass.
00:04:05
Eric Luden: And this is one of the Small Corp, welded aluminum frames. So what’s beautiful about that is that as I get in close there is no seam on that corner. It’s a really beautiful finish. And then I’m going to back up slowly, so hopefully, nobody gets dizzy here.
00:04:20
And this was a piece we did for Pete Souza. I know it’s trying to focus— it sometimes does this. But again, this is a piece that, let me just see if I can get this to focus again, this is a piece that is one single sheet of paper with no borders, other than the paper itself. And we did the same treatment that Andrea just described where we have spacers and that are keeping the paper itself from touching the UV acrylic.
00:04:51
So now I’m going to walk you back through our into our lab. I’ll give you a little tour. I’m going to try to go slowly so nobody gets too dizzy. I’m walking back into the inner sanctum here. This is our color corrected room this is actually painted with a very specific color. Sorry for the focus on our viewing booth, a small viewing booth in here and the paint is a very specific paint for color accuracy. Didn’t need to show you the bathroom. Sorry about that. We have two large-format Canon printers here a 44 and a 60-inch printer. And focus again, alright come on camera there you go.
00:05:31
So I’m going to walk back again through the lab so you can kind of see a little bit of what we have for equipment. This beautiful piece of Korean photochemical process is actually our 50-inch wide, custom-built black and white paper processor, so we actually liquid process our silver gelatin prints in that process. We have a sink on this side where we can actually then post if we’re toning we actually do real chemical toning on our silver gelatin prints either selenium or sepia toning.
00:06:04
Come back over here and there’s Joe. Good Morning Joe. He is one of our printers specialists here he’s working on some projects and we’ve got one of our tables. This is actually our, Joe mind pulling just out one of the trays for me? We can show people our fiber. This is our custom fiber print drying screen, so we can do very large true silver gelatin prints. They do have to air dry you can recognize a little curl on the edge as being a real silver gelatin print. Thanks, Joe. And Alison is working diligently outback. She’s, we’re trimming and prepping prints for finishing. And Alison manages all of our quality control and packaging and sleeving. Good morning Allison, great. So I’m working my way back through. Oh, sorry backup.
00:06:53
This is our new 60-inch wide mounting press that we use for mounting prints to things like Gatorfoam and Dibond and aluminum all of which we will discuss outback. You can see a project in process. This is a piece that we’re doing for Sheila Pree Bright at the High Museum in Atlanta. These are 30-inch by 45-inch silver gelatin prints. This is kind of nice because I’m going to try to do this single-handedly. But this is the print that has been mounted to Dibond and then the piece under here, if you can see this, is the piece that is going to hold it’s called the strainer bar. That’s going to hold everything into this custom wood maple frame over here. So that gets screwed into the maple frame and that is what holds everything together. And again, this is actually pretty handy. I didn’t even think this was here. What is happening here is Lexie, who’s not in yet, is gluing in the black wooden spacers into the frame. And that spacer is what’s going to show us or keep us from having the image hit the glass on the front. And this is a slightly different type of acrylic This is actually museum acrylic so it is the same UV protection as our regular acrylic but it is anti-glare. Our mat cutter on that side. We have a flattening press over here for our silver gelatin prints and work in the process that Alison has been working on and trimming.
00:08:26
Alright, so now we’ll head into the inner sanctum through the back door. So this part gets a little dizzying. So apologize, you get to walk through are completely airtight loading docks. So when we bring in materials, everything is nice and protected. So you have to bear with me one second here. This is our shipping area. I’m going to switch cameras. So give me a second while I do that.
00:08:49
Andrea Zocchi: Right. So um, as Eric switches cameras, I also want to mention again, if you have any questions, please put them in the q&a. And David has just posted a link in the chat to previous VII Insider webinars, so you can go there to see previous webinars that are recorded. So you can see that there’s a lot to framing and finishing. And it’s a very detailed-oriented process. But what I, a lot of what we’re going to be showing you are are very specific items, but I don’t want you to be intimidated by the complexity of some of our projects because you know, framing and finishing can be as simple as mounting a print to a board or as complicated as creating a custom frame like that Teju Cole frame or the Pete Souza frame that we made.
00:09:48
So we already have a question in the chat, which is about costs. And we can kind of talk about cost but it’s a very specific question. It really depends on the job. I think that in this next framing example that Eric is going to show you. I think, Eric, you could probably give a general cost of what this little device is.
00:10:11
Eric Luden: Yeah. So thanks, everybody. Andre, you can hear me okay?
0010:16
Andrea Zocchi: Yep. Looking good.
00:10:17
Eric Luden: Great. And see me good? Alright, that’s great. So again, thanks for this part. And, you know, we’ve got two cameras here. So we had to do a little setup. So obviously, you know, this is a big thing. I know, people are often intimidated even making prints. But then the big thing is, “What do I do? How do I display it? You know, what’s the right, what’s the right display option for my print?” And a lot of that can depend on where is it going? Who’s it for? What’s the entire outcome? Right. So I want to start with something that is completely unframed, but a very economical way of hanging a print in your home. And we, these things are called printer hangers to try to hold this up. And the print hanger comes in, they come in a pair, they’re an aluminum tube, and it has Andrea, can we see? There’s a slot in the tube. Okay, what that does is that slot allows the paper to slide through it. And what you do is, if you can see there are these little white plastic clips. And I’ve already pre-assembled most of them. But I can you see what I’m doing Andrea?
0011:26
Andrea Zocchi: Yep.
00:11:26
Eric Luden: Sliding this clip onto the bottom of the print. And what that allows me to do now is to thread this entire print through so that the paper is coming through the slot, and the tube is covering up all of those white clips. Now if you order a QR online printing portal and you order this service, through us, we automatically add a quarter of an inch to the top and the bottom of your print so that no image area gets cut off. So if you’re trying to print a 24 by 36, and you have things right at the outer edge that are critical, you need to think about that and add a quarter of an inch yourself if you’re doing this on your own. Or if you’re using us we do our direct upload service, our value print service, you will get that we will automatically accommodate for that. So these print hangers that we use are really great solutions. The only difference between the top and the bottom rail is that the top rail— I’ll try to get this in view if I can. So where are the camera is.
0012:39
Andrea Zocchi: Now I can see it. That’s it.
00:12:40
Eric Luden: So there’s a hole. So you have to make sure that that hole’s on the top. They come with a nail, and literally, a single nail will keep your print hanging on the wall.
0012:51
Andrea Zocchi: These hangers are a great solution for pop-up shows or where you want to interchange prints. And maybe for not so permanent of an installation. But I have to say too that the print hangers also work on canvas. I’m a painter and I had a client that liked the edges of the canvas and didn’t want it framed. And so we actually use these print hangers to hang the painting.
00:13:15
Eric Luden: And the print hangers come in, in aluminum. I’m just going to start spinning around here for a second, make sure I’ve got my next presentation angle all set up. So the next, so as Andrea said they’re really great for short term. You know, maybe you’ve made a nice, you know, maybe you want to give your kid a cool print for the dorm room, their apartment, but you know, framing does get expensive and you want to keep it economical, that’s a great way to do it. We’ve done shows at the Griffin Museum of Photography here in Massachusetts, where the client used 20 of these to hang their prints up in the show. They come in widths from 12 inches out to 72 inches wide. And what’s important to know is what is the width of the image. So if you have a vertical print that’s 24 by 36, you’re gonna buy 24-inch hangers, if you’re it’s a landscape view, you’re going to buy 36-inch wide pair of hangers, so they always come in a pair. And that’s an easy way to do it. They don’t, they sort of start out coming out like 12, 14, 18,20, 22 and so forth. As we get wider. They, they come in only standard width. It’s very easy if you if you’re careful if you want us to do it. We, if you have an odd print length, we can just cut off the ends to bring it down to the proper width, so they are customizable. You have to keep in mind though, you can’t just cut them at the same time because on the top one, you have to take off an equal amount from both sides where you lose the center hole which I did in the beginning so you got to watch out for that. So what I want to talk about…
0014:59
Andrea Zocchi: We had a question about… Eric, I just want to jump in, we had a question about cost. And you can find the cost for a lot of our products on our website digitalsilverimaging.com. And also, just to let you know these print hangers, so for a 20-inch print hanger, let’s say you have a 16 by 20 print, the print hangers are $20 for the pair, so they’re really affordable and they really are…
00:15:24
Eric Luden: And reusable. So once you have them if you’re doing pop-up things or you know you’re part of a camera club or something like that, or you know. It’s a really great way to, you know, keep or you want to keep hanging prints up in your own house that you’re deciding on, it’s a great way to do it. So you don’t have to put tacks or magnets or something. So the next step if you’re you know, that’s a solution if you’re not framing your piece.
00:15:48
So the next question comes up into mounting and I know mounting has a lot of questions about it. What’s archival? What isn’t archival? So what I’m going to talk about are advantages, disadvantages and again, applications. We are very application-driven when we talk about mounting. So I have. I’m going to go through a series of pieces here, I’m going to start with the least expensive product, which everybody knows, and hears about its foam core, right? It’s generally three-sixteenths of an inch thick. And we use what is considered acid-free foam core. Now when you hear that term, you have to keep in mind foam is not archival, to a sense. But what’s better about this product is that the paper face itself is what is archival. So I’m sorry, you’re getting a little white here. So that’s why this is color on this foam core is a little off, it’s it looks a little different. Very short-term display if you’re trying to just mount to something all by itself, because this is a paper-faced front and back, right? The problem is once you adhere something to it, it’s going to want to curl or bow. But we do use this as a great backer when we’re when we’re putting prints into frames because the frames are keeping everything stable. And the print is touching something that is acid-free. So that is okay for that application. But if you’re trying to get advice on something quickly, you’re doing something for a wedding, a memorial service, you know, this would hold up for a day or two. But beyond that, all by itself, it’s not going to work. Okay?
0017:24
Andrea Zocchi: I just want to add to that, you can use it for backing in the frame, inside a frame as a matte and glazing that’s an acceptable application.
00:17:33
Eric Luden: Yep, that’s what yeah. So, I don’t know if you’ve heard of something called Gatorfoam. So the center is still foam. The difference is that Gatorfoam which is a trademark product actually has it’s a wood veneer instead of a paper veneer on the front and on the back, right? We’ve coated this with our with our neutral pH adhesive. So when we go to mount and send it through the press the print will stick to the acid-free adhesive. So Gatorfoam is good if again by itself. For longer-term display and it comes in we have it in white or black, and in three-sixteenths and in half-inch. So again, if you’re doing something at a trade show, you’re doing something for a pop-up show you can do it like that. And then in terms of hanging that product we have these little metal hangers that can go on the back again very economical. These things are like, I’m sorry for the focus here. These things are like $15 or $12 for the pair. And they include these little bumps on the bottom to keep it sort of so it stands in relief off the wall. Okay?
00:18:52
So the next product is actually this one which is called Dibond. And Dibond is a brand name kind of like Rollerblade is to inline skates. Dibond is really what’s called it’s an ACM it’s a it’s an acrylic, I’m sorry, and aluminum composite panel. So you have a rigid plastic core, but the front and the back is actually coated with a thin veneer of aluminum. And that gives it really some of the best structural integrity you could get out of a product. It’s not going to want to warp or bow on me, right? And so again, that’s, that’s a great product. For smaller ones. We can again for smaller pieces up to like maybe 20 by 30. We can this is the most economical hanging system you can do for a product like that.
00:19:46
This would be if you’re, you can use this in two ways. This can be used if you want to hang the print all by itself, unframed on a wall. And we’ll talk about that in a minute. Or in some of our larger frames like I showed in the other room for the Shelia Pree Bright image that is being mounted to Dibond and then put into that frame. Because it’s structurally sound, it’s archival, and it’s going to hold up well in the frame.
00:20:16
Then the last piece that we mount to here, digital silver imaging is literally solid aluminum. Right? So as you can imagine, aluminum is very structurally sound, it has a very clean edge, unlike, you know. So the Dibond has that sort of layered look right the black core and then the two other layers plus the adhesive. The clean edge of aluminum for some people is desirable. Two things to keep in mind, aluminum is, is as a solid piece of aluminum as opposed to the resin core of the Dibond type product— it’s heavier. So it comes down to if you’re choosing this, it could be an aesthetic. It could be mainly an aesthetic purpose, you want that really beautiful clean edge. Or if you really want something that’s even super structurally integrity with you know, a little bit more than Dibond, this would be the way to go.
00:21:13
So again, we’re talking about mounting prints and options for mounting prints. Now one of the things that people ask is, “Do I, you know, then do I frame it? If I’ve mounted the print?” And the option that the answer is you don’t have to. So what I want to show you here, this is a this is a matte print, right? It has been mounted to aluminum, you can see really. Oh sorry, I tried to get that a little better here with the light. It’s going to have a very clean edge to it. And then on the back of our larger prints, we build these, these we build these hanging frames out of aluminum. So these are, again, even add more structural integrity to your product, to your finished piece. And all of these come with what’s called a French cleat. Right? It’s beveled so that the top rail of the aluminum has this little flange on it, and you can kind of see how this has a bevel. Right? Is that working? Andrea? Can you see it?
00:22:17
Andrea Zocchi: Yeah, actually that’s good. Now that you backed up a little bit. I think that distance is a better distance for showing things.
00:22:24
Eric Luden: Yep. So and then what happens is this gets hung on the wall like that, that angle. And I realize I’m not always looking at the camera because I’m trying to look at my monitor at the same time. So that that is hanging like that. And then that simply hangs on the wall. And the really nice thing about French cleats is once you level this piece of wood in your wall using screws or wall anchors depending on the weight and the size of the piece. You know it’s going to be level and there’s no fussing around trying to D-rings and other types of products.
00:22:57
So oh and the other thing I want to talk about when we talk about prints is, so now this has no glass on it, right? This is completely open to the elements and what I want to show you is this side is a little bit, a little bit lighter than this side. And the differences for that on matte surface prints. We use this product from Hahnemühle and it’s the…
00:23:18
Andrea Zocchi: Back up a little bit.
00:23:19
Eric Luden: It’s a UV protective spray, okay? And we sprayed this on and all I did on this print as an example was to show you it does change the look a little bit but not not too bad. But what this is doing now is it’s giving me some surface protection. But more importantly, it’s giving me UV protection because I have no acrylic over this to protect the image from UV. And I can’t give you a stated how much better that makes it, you know, I’ve seen estimates from both the manufacturer and other people that it can add 30 to 50 years of life onto a print. So again since this is completely exposed, you can spray these kinds of prints or you can spray any fine art paper print. So this is matte paper. The semi-gloss papers that we spray of fine art papers that we’ve talked about in other series have even less noticeable change. The reason you see this defined line is because this is a matte-surface paper. The semi-gloss fine art papers show less. You cannot use a spray-on any photo-based meaning a resin-based paper like the print I hung up the large print I did have the boardwalk that I showed you on the other side there is on the Hahnemühle photo pearl it’s a beautiful paper but I can’t spray that because the resin-coated surface does not allow for the UV spray to penetrate. So keep that in mind if you’re doing this yourself or if you’re having us do it. You have to use a fine art paper if you’re going to do an outdoor display like this or something that’s going to hang like this.
00:24:54
So this is really kind of a cool contemporary look, I think to how you can do something in your home. One thing that’s nice about this is that if we’re kind of going back to thinking of traditional framing methods, there’d be a mat on this, you know, maybe a three-inch mat. So all of a sudden, you’ve got another six inches all around that you have to accommodate for your print. So what’s cool about maybe displaying something that’s mounted only is that you can make a larger print, and not take up as much wall real estate as you would if you’re doing matting and framing. It’s just an option, okay?
00:25:30
Andrea Zocchi: Yeah. Eric, I’m just want to throw in here that, especially if you’re doing a display where your print is not behind glazing, which is Plexiglas or glass. And especially in a place that gets a lot of traffic, or let’s say you’re having an exhibition in a restaurant, I think it’s really important that you spray the prints. Because remember, the inkjet prints are the ink is a water-based ink, so if it gets water on it, or somebody splashes their drink on it, you know, it is going to damage the print. And that UV spray will help protect the print.
00:26:06
Eric Luden: So again, sticking with things that still don’t have glazing, as we call it, glazing as a term for whether it’s glass or acrylic, or museum acrylic, the generic term is called glazing. What kind of glazing am I going to use? This has no glazing on it. And this is called a float frame. And this is again, another this is a fine art paper that is not matte. It is a semi-gloss fine art paper. It’s actually the Chanson flippeen. And what’s nice about this is I have sprayed this with the UV spray. And it really didn’t change the look of the image. This print was then mounted to Dibond, which you can see from the back, there’s the Dibond, right? And it is floated in the frame. There’s a very narrow border around it, but we still frame it so that the image looks like it is sort of contained and encapsulated in the frame itself. And that’s again, a more contemporary way of doing it. And it is a kind of a clean look. If you don’t want to have this sort of look, some people might say mounted only can look a little unfinished. This is a way of finishing it off to get a cleaner look, right? And again, this has the strainer bar in the back. Strainer bars function for two purposes. One is they add structural integrity to the frame. But it also has a 45-degree bevel cut into the strainer bar. So that the the French cleat that I showed you before can be used to hang these kinds of frames on the wall.
00:27:33
Andrea Zocchi: Eric?
00:27:35
Eric Luden: Yep.
00:27:35
Andrea Zocchi: Before you put that down. I think that there, I just wanted to mention something. We’re getting a lot of really great questions. And we are definitely going to try to answer them all. But I think this would be a good point in time to answer a couple of questions while you have that print up. Can you tell us who that print is by? I can’t remember the artist’s name. I’m blanking out.
00:27:55
Eric Luden: Yeah, this was Dave Anderson, who did a very large project that we did for the Museum of Charlevoix, about five or six years ago. And he went over and documented the city as part of a project. David had also done a project in Texas, and I forgive me for not knowing the name of that project. But it was about, again, kind of dealing with immigration and people, you know, the residents and dealing with an influx of new people. And so this was part of a project that he did, and uh the, yep.
00:28:32
Andrea Zocchi: So I think that we that one of the questions that this addresses we had anonymous asked, “For museums and galleries, how do they feel about framing the Plexi and laminate? And can that laminate really be UV protected?” And how do you avoid it, well we’ll get to the jow do you avoid the dust bubbles when mounting? And the other question is I think this is good we had another question about the strainer bars and how they work? And if you show how in our custom frames how well those are put together, the screws, so that you can actually remove the print if you have to. You can see, yeah, go ahead Eric.
00:29:11
Eric Luden: So the strainer bar is a three-quarter-inch piece of poplar, right? Very, very good, a good solid renewable wood first of all. And they are glued and nailed on on the corners on the 45 here. And then they are we use pocket screws. So we’re drilling holes at a very precise angle, and the pocket screws than are going into a very shallow part of the actual frame itself. So this is where the frame is. And then this is what’s called the strainer bar. And again, the strainer bar you have to keep in mind does two things is that it keeps it adds structural integrity, especially to larger frames like if this were a 40 by 60 frame. that strainer bar is helping secure everything so there’s no bowing or other issues. And it also serves as a way to hang. Now you can hang with the french cleat, or some museums want us to use. Excuse me one second, my battery’s running low. Sorry.
00:30:09
Andrea Zocchi: So I hope that that answers your question about the strainer bar. It adds integrity to the frame. And it helps support the print. And also, it’s a better way of putting in print in a frame when you have to get at it, as opposed to driving like a nail in around a backing.
00:30:34
Eric Luden: Yep. So that’s how that works. Okay. So and I know somebody asked about face mounting and laminate. And what I’d like to do is if I could, if I could get to that in a minute as we walk through some of the other framing options, and I can talk about face mounting next.
00:30:54
So what I want to start with is like we offer a really good basic, what we call “our value frame.” It’s a really nice simple black wood frame. And you can either get this with a matte which has a nice four-ply matte on it, or we can do it with the spacer method that I showed you earlier. So these are all listed on our website, they are, you know, an 11-by-14 value frame, which includes the wood, UV acrylic. So what’s different about Digital Silver Imaging is some places will frame in standard clear acrylic, they call it and that clear acrylic offers 60% UV protection. Our UV acrylic and the museum acrylic offers up to 98% of UV protection. So if you’re kind of concerned about your printing, about your print and the longevity, whoever you’re framing with, and of course number one choice would be Digital Silver Imaging, you, you definitely want to make sure your framer is offering UV acrylic.
00:31:55
We finish our frames on the back. So that comes with the hardware to hang and a paper backing to keep out dust. Okay. Now, you may ask why there’s no paper backing on our custom wood frames. And that is because you need a French cleat. But these are really sealed up well with the mounting substrate and the strainer bar, so that’s why we only put paper backing on our frames that do not have where we’re not going to use strainer bars. And we’re going to use stringer bars, but we’re not going to use the French cleat too. So that and these come in black or white in terms of our “basic value frames.” And these, this size frame can go up to about 24-by-36. And then beyond that, we have to go to a different size molding.
00:32:50
Here’s another kind of cool option for framing. This print is in a Nielsen frame. This has a built-in lip on the edge. What’s cool about this is we’ve mounted this print to Gatorfoam. So again, it’s pretty light, but it’s structurally sound. But the beauty of this is it doesn’t require any glazing, remember acrylic or and we obviously wouldn’t put glass on this. But the advantage of this is and we did an entire project for VII photo a couple of years ago over in Switzerland. And the beauty about that was we could ship 70 frames without UV acrylic, so they didn’t weigh a lot. And it kept the cost down, so we could contain everything within a budget. And then like all Nielsen frames, I don’t have the hardware on here, but these would just come with standard wire on the back for hanging on the wall. So again, a great solution, very economical, you know, a 16-by-20 frame like that, I think is, you know, in the $60 to $70 range. And that includes the mounting and everything else. So I just want to address.
00:33:59
Andrea Zocchi: That is a good point, Eric, we’re getting a lot of questions about, “Will we frame if somebody basically provides us with a print?” And the answer to that is…
00:34:09
Eric Luden: Absolutely.
00:34:10
Andrea Zocchi: Yeah, is yes. And I think also showing that Nielsen frame, I know a lot of people buy Nielsen frames themselves. And we could also just do the mounting. And I want to add again, a lot of people are asking about price and we put all our pricing on our website. So you can just go and poke around on our website or if you’d like just give us a call or send us an email, we’d be happy to give you a quote.
00:34:33
Eric Luden: So since we’ve been talking about glazing I want to try to illustrate what the differences are. This is actually assembled for us by the company TrueView that we get all of our acrylics from. So on this side, this is standard UV acrylic, okay, it’s what we use all the time. It is providing UV protection, which is important, but as you can see there is some glare. On this side is museum acrylic. It offers the same level of UV protection, but way, way less glare and that is because of the special coating that TrueView uses on their TrueView museum acrylic. Now I will tell you, it isn’t cheap. A sheet of UV museum acrylic costs about four to five times the cost of regular UV acrylic. So you have to keep that in mind. But if you’re hanging something of your own in your own home, right, and you’re concerned about reflections, or like the High Museum in Atlanta that we’re working with for Sheila Pree Bright’s exhibition, they specified museum acrylic. So some places might request it. And again, where you’re hanging it will determine whether you can get away with UV acrylic, which is probably about 80% of what we do, or the museum acrylic. But we don’t use standard clear acrylic on any of our frames because it does not offer any UV protection. So if you’re comparing pricing, please be sure to ask your supplier what kind of acrylic they’re using, because that will really affect the longevity of your print. Okay? How are we doing on time, Andrea? It’s 10:40. Okay.
00:36:19
Andrea Zocchi: Yeah, we’re doing okay.
00:36:22
Eric Luden: Yep, I want to get I want to address face mounting. Okay? Because somebody asked about face mounting. So this is from one of our regular clients. I have Boston client Tess Atkinson. Some of you may recognize this as the Lovelock’s Bridge in Paris, all the locks have been removed because over time, I think it made the railing sag, so you can no longer go over there with your honey and put a lock on the bridge.
00:36:47
But this treatment is called face mounting. Okay, it’s not a print on aluminum, which some people get confused by this is a face-mounted print. Okay, the advantage of face-mounting prints is a couple of things. Number one, they’re more durable. Number two, they are more archival. And that’s not me just saying that that’s Henry Wilhelm and other people who are well known in the industry who do longevity testing. So you have to think of the process of face mounting is multiple steps. Okay, so I’m going to try to turn this sideways to have you understand what’s going on here. The surface is a clear acrylic is not UV and I’ll explain why in a second. The next layer is an optically clear UV adhesive, that sandwiches the print to the acrylic. Okay? Then the print has a pH-neutral adhesive that’s then mounted to Dibond. Okay, so it’s a sandwich it’s multi-layered: acrylic, adhesive, print, adhesive, backing board.
00:37:56
So this is you know, I think this is a really cool application it’s very sort of a contemporary. The difference between this and the print I showed you that we sprayed is that this is the best possible protection you can get. It is more expensive. It’s heavier, you know, we have our one-inch aluminum hanging structure on the back so again, the print will focus the print will then hang and relieve off the wall. Is it focusing yet? I got to a standstill for a minute.
00:38:26
Andrea Zocchi: Not, not really. There you go. That’s better that angle is better.
00:38:30
Eric Luden: Yeah, so really beautiful solution. I’m just going to show you a couple of other things here. So that was with a standard clear acrylic, right? So I’m going to show you. This might be hard to illustrate here Andrea you might have to help me.
00:38:45
Andrea Zocchi: Yeah, that’s good.
00:38:47
Eric Luden: Okay, so that’s in the right light. So the front piece is with standard clear acrylic. No, I’m sorry. That’s the standard clear acrylic, right? Yeah. And this is acrylic that has an anti-glare or reflection control. Now people used to say, “Oh doesn’t that really soften the image?” Minimally. I will say that in the old days the options were you really did like almost you felt like there was a haze over your print. I don’t know how close I can get this but this is with the somewhat reflection control acrylic. And again this is the one without it, so you can see there’s more glare on this one.
00:39:28
What’s going to determine this? Where you’re hanging it. If you’re hanging in a hallway that has you know windows near it, you know you’re going to probably want to spring for the, you know, the reflection control acrylic on your face mount or framing. You can also select the same glazing as we call it again the acrylic for your frames, and that will provide some control. The reflection control view, and it’s still UV it’s still a UV protection acrylic 98% control, but it does cost about 20% more from our suppliers. So that was with quarter-inch or close, I mean sorry, eighth-inch acrylic, and this is quarter-inch. So again, some people like the thicker look. But we also as we get into pieces larger than, say 40 inches by 60 inches.
00:40:19
Andrea Zocchi: Upside down there.
00:40:20
Eric Luden: Oh, sorry. It’s so for pieces kind of really large. Again, for structural integrity purses purposes, we recommend the quarter-inch acrylic. So we have some pieces in house right now that are 48 by 72, and one that is 50 by 70 by 90 that we have to put with quarter-inch acrylic. Again, just for structural integrity. Keep in mind that’s a lot of weight. So if we’re shipping, we’re going to want to build a wood crate, which we do and to get that to your destination.
00:40:51
So with lamination, we don’t do any lamination at Digital Silver Imaging. And the reason is, so lamination does protect your image. And it is a term that people have used a lot in our industry. But particularly this was done for tradeshow applications or for something that was outside because you could make a print and then with the same mounting press that we have put up, you know, a three-mil., five-mil., an eight-mil. laminate onto the surface of the print. It does provide UV protection, but I am not a fan of how it makes your print look. Number one, I don’t think it contains the sort of archive ability applications. And I also, if I’ve gone to the effort of selecting a beautiful paper, why would I then stick a laminate on the surface of it? You can’t, you’re going to lose all of that.
00:41:43
I just want to back up. When we face mount, the important thing is the paper has to be complete, has to be completely smooth. So we only use for this application at the moment we’re using Hahnemühle photo glossy paper. It’s a resin-coated paper, but the surface is really smooth, which allows us to then mount the print without air bubbles. If you use any sort of textured paper that has, you know, little microscopic peaks and valleys. That’s one way that air bubbles get into your paper. I know somebody asked about that. And then the other is, you know, if you have a dirty environment where your print is being mounted at your lab, it will also incorporate dust and bubbles and little things into your print.
00:42:28
Andrea Zocchi: We’re very careful about keeping our lab very clean and keeping our humidity levels at the right level. It’s kind of an ongoing battle, actually, especially in the northeast.
00:42:40
Eric Luden: Yeah.
00:42:41
Andrea Zocchi: I know that question came about. And Eric, I think that maybe what some people are a little confused about is…
00:42:49
Eric Luden: Yeah.
00:42:49
Andrea Zocchi: Actually can you explain a little bit about how the process happens where a print is mounted to a substrate like Dibond, aluminum or Gatorfoam?
00:43:02
Eric Luden: Yep. Great question. So back in the other room, when I showed you that big mounting press— it had the big long orange roller on it. What we do is we take a, I’m going to show you a piece of Gatorfoam, for instance, right? We prep the surface, make sure there’s no dimples or bumps on it, sand the edge a little. Then we take a piece of we use an adhesive that a lot of people up in the northeast use from a company called Quality Mounting. And it’s called InstaBond and InstaBond has a neutral pH adhesive. So we don’t we’re not dry mounting the technical term is cold mounting or pressure mounting. So we’re not putting that into a vacuum press with the old seal tissue and mounting our prints. It’s much slower and takes a lot more time. So most labs today are using pressure-sensitive or heat-activated, you know thermal adhesives. So then what happens is this, this adhesive, right, has a release liner on it. You can see that right there. So what we’re doing first is we’re coating the board with a big roll of adhesive. This goes through the press and the adhesive is mounted onto the board sticks to the board. But it has a release liner on it, right. And the release liner keeps the adhesive protected from dust and everything else.
00:44:27
Andrea Zocchi: Now I just want you back here, can I just interject because somebody asked a question. So then our great crew, they’ll inspect the board. If there’s a bump or if there’s a piece of lint or anything got underneath that that board we have to discard that. We won’t mount the print to that.
00:44:47
Eric Luden: Right. So then what we’re doing is not let’s just pretend this is a 16-by-16 or this is a 10-by-10 square board, right? Okay. When we make the prints that are going to be mounted with no borders, we have to overprint the image just slightly. So instead of when we make the print, and instead of it being a 10-by-10, it might be 10 and an eight or larger prints are made up to go as much as a quarter of an inch bigger. We lay this down. We line up the print on the side where the adhesive is. And we want to make sure that there is even, we have to overprint because we have to be able to see that the image is completely square on the board. So when we lay that down on one of our like big light tables that we work on, we see the edge of the print, we make sure everything’s lined up and then we’re peeling back the adhesive just a little. Tack the print on again, making sure it’s all even. And then the print and the board go back to the press. As it’s going through the board. We are pulling back. Sorry I know this is hard, we’re pulling back the adhesive as I’m going and the printer is rolling through the press. And getting and then the print is getting pushed into the adhesive. When it’s done, we flip it back overlay it down in the light table and we trim off that little bit of excess off the image. So when you do lose again it’s going to depend on the print size. If it’s a real small print like this, you’re probably only losing an eighth of an inch around. When we get up to 40-by-60 just because you know that that tolerance we need a lot more tolerance you might lose as you know a little more than an eighth of an inch but never a half an inch it might be at most a quarter of an inch around.
00:46:39
Andrea Zocchi: And Eric, this process is the same for any substrate so aluminum, Dibond and Gatorfoam it’s pretty much the same process.
00:44:47
Eric Luden: Yeah and only if we are doing a borderless or even or a print that’s going into you know a frame like this. I mean this frame, this print was mounted. This print was is it upsidedown? Yeah, I’m upsidedown again sorry. This is mounted to Gator, so we didn’t have to overprint we just had to say okay this is 12-inches by 16-inches, but the team had to be able to see white around it before they mounted it to make sure it was all even. So it doesn’t matter whether it’s a borderless printer, you have some border around it, we’re always going to trim a little off the edge. But in this case, rather than making the image borderless, we kept the white border around it to make it feel like it has a mat but it’s not that is just the edge of the paper itself. This is one of our silver gelatin black and white prints.
00:47:40
Andrea Zocchi: Now Eric, I have a question about that framing. So that’s in a that’s in a wooden frame. Yep, maple with a strainer bar but it’s also mounted to Dibond. Why is that?
00:47:52
Eric Luden: No Gator.
00:47:53
Andrea Zocchi: Oh it’s mounted to Gator?
00:47:55
Eric Luden: It’s mounted to Gator because it’s a small enough print. We didn’t really need to do this with Dibond. This is just black Gator.
00:48:02
Andrea Zocchi: Now if that was a very large frame like a 30-by-40, what would we advise that we mount it to?
00:48:07
Eric Luden: At that point, I would probably start with I would probably steer people towards Dibond, which is you know you know as I went through the substrates before from foam-core up to aluminum, I was going from the least expensive up to the most expensive. So Dibond, you know, is more expensive than Gator obviously to manufacturer and to cut and do all that which we all do here. So it does cost a little more, but again we are doing things like that for structural integrity. That’s the most important thing when you start getting beyond 30-by-40 just to Gator. You know the back of this could start warping even though there’s a strainer bar and everything else included. We would guide people towards Dibond at that point.
00:48:50
So a couple of more framing things I want to show. Yeah, so you know this, this is one of our blackwoods just to go back to this image. This is a custom maple, black wood frame, so it has been stained. Try to get in here and show you how the corners are all really well constructed. The strainer bar again is helping us to not allow any separation of the joint here where the wood is joined together. You can’t see the holes you can’t see anything here where it’s all been nailed and glued together. And that’s and again that’s black wood and if you are on our website you can see all the different types of finishes the stains that we can use whether it’s maple, ash, walnut.
00:49:34
And I’m going to show you a really beautiful frame that we did for our buddy Herb, Herb Greene and his photograph of Grace Slick. Now what’s cool about this, this is a whole other treatment. This print, you can see the whole paper. It is not physically mounted to any board. We have what’s what it’s quote un-quote hinge-mounted to is an acid-free, archival, museum, rag mat board. So the way that works is we put tape, linen tape on the back of the print in two spots. We cut slits in the mat board. And we pull the tape through and then we tape it onto the back. And that’s called a hinge mount. And that allows us to literally have the paper floating completely in the frame. So that is literally hanging in there by those by those by those hinges. Now that can be a really beautiful treatment. In this case, we printed this on a Hahnemühle, photo-rag, deckled-edge paper. I’m not sure if I didn’t even get you to see that but the edge is not clean. And that deckled-edge…
00:50:40
Andrea Zocchi: Eric, try backing up a little bit. I don’t know if that’s any better. But actually, Robert asked, “How can I obtain deckle-edges on photo paper?” And Hahnemühle does make a deckle-edge photo paper.
00:50:55
Eric Luden: You can’t. You can’t. We can’t do it on, I mean you say a photo paper, this will not work on a resin-coated photo-based paper or even our silver gelatin fiber-based paper. You have, it has to be something like cotton rag where it will give you that torn edge look.
00:51:12
Andrea Zocchi: You can try it if you’re doing it yourself. You know there, there are lots of videos that show how to deckle paper edges. But the problem with a lot of photo papers is they have a coating on them. So sometimes depending on the paper type, when you’re doing the tear, it’s a difficult thing to do.
00:51:30
Eric Luden: The best paper is matte paper, a matte fine art inkjet paper from Hahnemühle or Canson or any other company that you’re working with.
00:51:39
Andrea Zocchi: Yeah, I hope that answered…
00:51:40
Eric Luden: So just to continue, yeah, so just to continue with this. So then, because there’s no mat, we have to protect the print from the glazing. Okay, so once again, this has spacers in it that are just made out of white. So these are white spacers, they again, they’re in here in the corner. You can just see them. They’re underneath the lip of the frame, right. And that again, allows the print to be suspended and protected in this chamber of air, right? So that it doesn’t, if any condensation got in here in any way, then the print wouldn’t stick to the inside of the glass with the glazing. Okay.
00:52:21
The other beauty about this frame, this is a walnut frame with a wax and oil finish. And again prices are on the website because I can’t quote them off the top of my head. And this to this, this is a beautiful finish, right. It’s been oiled and then waxed to get that beautiful look. And they have contrast splines. So this is made, this is walnut, but the splines are made of maple. And yes, it boasts an aesthetic thing. But when you get into much bigger frames, larger size frames, these splines do add structural integrity to your corners, right along with the strainer bar. Again, you can see the pocket holes with inside the strainer bar holding everything together. So that’s a really important consideration.
00:53:15
The other thing to consider when you’re framing, if you’re putting something into a frame. People often ask about the face. This is this part of the frame is called the face. So some people say I want to three-quarter-inch frame, they’re often referring to the face. How wide is the face? Right. And some are thinner, some are thicker. And the depth is referred to from the front to the back, okay? So this is I think this is one-and-a-quarter by three-eights, or maybe a half, I’m sorry, by half-inch. So if you came to me and said, “I want this frame, but I want it in a 40-by-60.” I might say, “Oh, we got to go to something a little bit deeper, a little bit wider on the face a little bit deeper, only because of structural integrity.” So we can’t take a small, small frame with a small face and shallow thing and put a really large print in it even with a strainer bar because it loses the structural integrity. So that’s just a really important thing to consider.
00:54:17
I didn’t I don’t have one of the solid welded aluminum frames that I showed you of the Bruce Springsteen piece out front. But that is a little bit different because they’re solid welded aluminum frames. So that allows us to go with a thinner face because structurally those things are really really strong. So.
00:54:38
Andrea Zocchi: Eric? Yeah, we’re, we’re about at the hour mark, so we have lots of questions. So.
00:54:44
Eric Luden: Great because I am done. Yep. And so now I’m open for questions.
00:54:48
Andrea Zocchi: If we can keep the answer short? And if I can answer these questions, I’m just going to answer them quickly and then move on to the next one. So William asked, “Large images with no over-mat, how is the print mounted to keep it flat?” And that’s either to Gator or to Dibond or to aluminum. So, William, I hope that answers your question.
00:55:07
Eric Luden: Yep.
00:55:10
Andrea Zocchi: Samia asked that “Will you be discussing the benefits of acrylic versus glass?”
00:55:18
Eric Luden: So, because 90% of what we use that we produce here goes out in a box, we rarely use glass. I will only use glass if you’re local and want to pick it up yourself. All the carriers today, unfortunately, unless you want to pay for a fine art handler, we can’t use glass. It just breaks and then it ruins the print. And we all have to start over. So we don’t use glass here unless you’re local or want to drive and pick it up.
00:55:48
Andrea Zocchi: And is there any benefit to using glass over acrylic? It’s cheaper.
00:55:54
Eric Luden: It can be a little bit less expensive. And some people feel like it doesn’t scratch as easily. But I feel you know, everything has its pros and cons and fragileness. So it’s there really isn’t, you know, its cost and durability is what it comes down to.
00:56:13
Andrea Zocchi: Yeah, and I know I’ve answered this, but I’m going to say it again, Elliot asked earlier, “Is the framing department open to those who want to frame images?” And the answer to that is yes if you’re printing images yourself, too. We will also if you just want them mounted and to do the framing yourself, we can do that for you.
00:56:32
Another I forget who asked it, but somebody asked, “If we’re mounting an image should they provide two?” And the answer to that is yes. Because like we showed you encoding boards and mounting pictures, it’s not always a foolproof process. So we do ask that you either provide us with two, or that if something happens, and it rarely does that we might ask you for a second print if you didn’t have to print it.
00:57:01
Eric Luden: So if you’re under a deadline, we would say you might as well send two and we will just ship the other one back to you would you know with your product, but that does bring up a good point. If we do the printing and we mess it up. We’ll obviously we reprinted our own cost and all that. But if it’s your print and it is damaged in the mounting process, it’s incumbent upon you and your cost to replace it to us. And that is standard. It’s not just our rule. It’s standard in any lab you work with.
00:57:28
Andrea Zocchi: Yeah. So James asks, “Is there any specific/different way of framing with processes like platinum, palladium or photo revere?”
00:57:41
Eric Luden: So in my opinion, I would treat you know, photo revere in platinum, like this. I would definitely hinge mount it because really, the beauty of those processes is the paper itself. And you know, the irregularities of the platinum coating. So this is that would be the way I would treat if somebody gave me a platinum print that’s how I would do it.
00:58:08
Andrea Zocchi: I think the only thing I would add to that is some people make their platinum prints with clean hard edges. And in that case, I think you frame it just like any photograph.
00:58:14
Eric Luden: Oh sure.
00:58:15
Andrea Zocchi: With a mat, you know.
00:58:17
Eric Luden: Yeah, but all acid, because you’re on such an archival print, definitely all acid-free materials. Don’t cut corners with non-UV, acrylic or glass. I think that’s extremely important.
00:58:31
Andrea Zocchi: So this is we’ve gotten two questions about framing prints on washi paper. And Elliot even asked, “Is there a solution for displaying prints on washi, in which some light might come through the back of the completed print?” So you know, you can kind of those of you don’t know washi is kind of like a, it’s a Japanese paper. And it’s kind of semi-translucent. It’s got a lot of fiber, usually in the paper itself.
00:59:02
Eric Luden: So I guess there’d be a couple of ways you could do that, depending on again, if you’re trying to frame it or not. I have, we do have a client that has used our print hangers for that very reason. They literally have used the print hangers and the clips and put that up in front of a window so that light will shine through. Again, a very economical solution. If you wanted to do hang a frame with the washi paper on it, then you would I’m trying to think if you’d want to do that with acrylic or not. But if you did that you’d almost want to make like a box frame. And have it so that the paper was suspended in the middle with the ability for light to come through the front and the back. A bit more complicated but it’s doable.
00:59:46
Andrea Zocchi: Yeah. I saw actually Eric, I don’t know if you remember from that. I saw a show at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts the Howard Greenberg show where he had the famous Eddie Adams print and they wanted to show the front and the back of the prints. I think what they did there was a sandwiched that between a mat and then the frame had glazing, both sides.
01:00:07
Eric Luden: So that’s what I was saying you could do it that way.
01:00:09
Andrea Zocchi: Yeah. So that would be another approach. So the question is, “Is that Gator method that we showed is that archival?” That’s what William asked.
01:00:21
Eric Luden: So anything with the word foam in it is really not going to be totally archival. But again, because we’re keeping the print separated on Gatorfoam, it’s a wood veneer face, which is more archival than Gator, than foam core, because that’s just paper. But again, because we’re using a neutral pH adhesive, the print is not coming in contact with the board. So in that case, I would not I mean, the most archival substrate you could use would be aluminum. And but I’ve had prints in the lab for we’ve been here for 13 years, I still have prints in the lab that have not discolored or bulled or warped that have been hanging on a couple of pieces of Gator. So again, it’s a great, it’s a great solution. Some museums don’t care if we mount to that or not. It’s you know, it’s kind of again driven by a budget, to be more honest. You know, that the materials that we use either, obviously are silver gelatin prints or fine art pigment prints, those are all archival products. So we’re keeping them protected by a neutral pH adhesive.
01:01:31
Andrea Zocchi: So yeah, and so I’m gonna answer this question, “Is Dibond standard for museums as a backing? And are there options that are acceptable, including aluminum?” So Dibond and aluminum are kind of interchangeable. It seems that for a lot of museums, it’s just a question of preference. Dibond is a little bit lighter than aluminum, so for an exhibit that’s going to travel or ship, I would think that the Dibond is probably preferable.
01:02:02
Eric Luden: And also more economical. It’s also more economical, solid aluminum is heavier and costs about say 25% more than the Dibond or, you know, aluminum composite material.
01:02:17
Andrea Zocchi: So again, we get someone asked about with Canson Platine, “It can absorb fingerprints easily and light scratches. Can the spray really prevent those things? Well, if not using glazing?”
01:02:34
Eric Luden: Sure, I mean, if you, I mean, an unprotected print is the most susceptible. You know, as I as I’ve shown on a couple of these prints, you know, I can even on this matte paper print, I think matte is matte paper is probably the most susceptible. And I know I can rub my hands on the side that has been UV protected versus this side. And if I were to look get in there, you can see more is happening on this side. I’m sorry, more is happening on the unprotected side. So we’ll protect on the platine, which is more durable than the matte surface print just because of the coating and how that works. So it will definitely help it’s not going to prevent scratches. It will definitely help avoid fingerprints, though, because you can wipe those off with a soft cloth.
01:03:23
Andrea Zocchi: So let’s see. I’m just kind of going through there. We’ve kind of answered a lot of these questions. So oh, on the float print that you showed, “How is that attached to the strainer? Is it glued on? Or?” I think they’re talking about the yeah.
01:03:44
Eric Luden: The Dave Anderson one?
01:03:47
Andrea Zocchi: The Dave Anderson one yeah.
01:03:48
Eric Luden: Yep. So on that we’ve done we’ve changed our method, but this one has an aluminum strainer in here. Now we just use wood that goes around. So this is you know, and we make the depth of this depending on the depth of the frame and the piece we’re mounting. So this gets, so this piece gets glued to the back of the this riser piece if you want to call it that. The build-up gets glued with VHB which is an industrial-strength adhesive to the back of whatever substrate we’re using in this case, it’s Dibond. And then those get screwed together which is why we went with wood, then we could stop using these self-tapping screws. So that means again everything can come apart in a custom wood frame and reused.
01:04:37
Andrea Zocchi: So here’s a question, “For humid environments, how often do you need to reframe pictures to avoid mold inside the glass?” I think that’s probably more a question about how the print is originally framed and changing the actual framing don’t you think, Eric?
01:04:53
Eric Luden: Yeah, I mean humidity control is tough. You know, if you’re in Florida or you know maybe Vancouver or other really damp places. I can tell you in the Northeast, we’ve certainly had our share of rain this year. And I don’t have, I can’t give you a specific answer. You know, I think if you, it’s going to be based on your individual situation. If you see something that’s starting to build up, I would, you know, either take it back to your local framer or somebody else ask them to kind of like maybe reseal you know, a new piece of acrylic, reseal it, find out if there ways of sealing it up better. And if it’s a real valuable piece, I’d make sure you’re running a dehumidifier.
01:05:31
Andrea Zocchi: I also think that maybe requesting a paper backing if it’s a custom frame, it doesn’t come without a paper backing would help too. I think that’s just one more barrier to keeping the humidity out. What do you think about that?
01:05:44
Eric Luden: I don’t think it’s really gonna help with humidity but other things. So you know, if we were using a custom one of our custom frames as it normally comes it would still come with the strainer bar and everything but what we would do then is put, we can put paper on the back of this. And then screw D rings into the back and D rings or just you know then where you use picture wire or two nails in the wall. But that would allow us to do that. If you’re using a French cleat, obviously, which is our most preferred method, because because of how this is all screwed together, you know this isn’t really susceptible and especially because this is exposed. But we generally don’t put paper backing on our custom wood frames.
01:06:22
Andrea Zocchi: Okay. So let’s see that was another question about the Japanese kabuki, which is pretty much I would say the same answer we gave for the washi. And Lisa asks, “Foamcore in a regular frame is safe to about what size?” Think she’s asking about bowing more than anything else.
01:06:50
Eric Luden: If it’s your backing board, and you have a four-ply or eight-ply mat over it, right. We use those archival corners on the top and the bottom corners of a print. We generally will do that up to something about 20-by-24 but beyond that, we do like to mount a print, and then we’re not going to use foam core to mount that too. But as a backing board in a frame because again it’s those are all that use the, we have a nail gun that shoots these points into the wood and that kind of presses the foam core in. You know, I would say you’re pretty safe up to on that. If you’re just doing a frame like that, you know we’ve done that up to 30-by-40. Okay, but not if the print is being mounted. If the print is being mounted, then we’re gonna really recommend Gator, aluminum or Dibond.
01:07:41
Andrea Zocchi: Yep. So let’s see. I’m going through here, and oh, Rob said, “Thank you.” You’re welcome, Rob. And let’s see two interesting questions from Kenyon one was, is very brief it says, “VHB?” and “Adhesive?” I don’t know if you can interpret that Eric.
01:08:16
Eric Luden: Yep. VHB is a 3M product that literally stands for, “very high bond” and it was developed by the by 3M for the military. This stuff is a double sided adhesive and we’re using it to put our aluminum brackets on like these. And we’re going on to aluminum or Dibond. We use the VHB to stick this thing on here and I will tell you once this adheres it can it can hold it can hold a fender onto a car this stuff. I mean they use it in the sign industry outside to put up signs at construction sites, so the 3M product stands for VHB. And when you said adhesive, I’m not sure if you referring to the adhesive that goes with it. Was it about the boards? Like this kind of adhesive, sir?
01:09:08
Andrea Zocchi: Well might as well answer that. Kenyon didn’t specify.
01:09:12
Eric Luden: Okay.
01:09:17
Andrea Zocchi: And then I think we only have we’re just about out of time here. We’re getting very close. We have Kenyon also ask “My Epson frame prints are outgassing, any ideas on how to prevent this?”
01:09:32
Eric Luden: Yes, outgassing. It’s a very special term. It’s not a personal problem. It is a problem. It’s a problem with what happens with inks, and it really depends on whether you’re using a printer that has dye-based inks or pigment-based inks. Dye-based inks are more water soluble than pigment-based inks. Which also means that dye-based inks take longer to cure or dry once you print them. So the recommended time that I’ve read about waiting for a dye-based ink to cure is literally four to five days. Okay? And that is because what happens is if you make a print and then quickly throw it into a frame, you’re trapping the print inside of something and the inks haven’t cured and the outgassing is literally calling a ghosting of the image because the inks then start to evaporate off the print and adhere to the inside of the glazing. So that’s what outgassing is. It is less problematic for pigment-based prints because they are less water soluble, and they’re more permanent, but you still should wait a day or two, to let them out gas, which means uncovered open on a table and allowing anything that’s in there to completely cure.
01:10:56
Andrea Zocchi: So I think the very last thing is, could you show that the print hanger one more time, Eric?
01:11:05
Eric Luden: Yep, I have to just rotate around here. Past my, okay, so there’s the shipping table, okay. So that’s a pretty good angle. So you want so again, what it’s doing, I don’t know, if you need to see how it, how it hangs, or what it looks like. I will tell you, you have you know, again, if if you’re using a very, like curly Fine Art paper, you are going to get this slight curl on the edge. So again, trade offs, right? Very economical, easy way to hang something, you might get a little bowing on the outside edge, okay? But again, it’s pretty simple, very economical. You know, when we send these to people, we can roll your print in a tube and just include the print hangers with it. And again, keep in mind, if you’re going to print your own and just buy the hangers from us, but you’re welcome to do, you should always know that you’re going to lose a quarter-inch on the top and the bottom, because that’s what’s inside of the tube, okay. If you’re ordering the prints through us on our online value print service, we automatically build that into the border. And all it is is white so that when we slide the tube over it, you’re not losing anything from the top and the bottom of your image. And again, if you’ve already built in a white border, we are still automatically going to add a quarter-inch on the top and the bottom so that your white boarder around your image is consistent.
01:12:31
Andrea Zocchi: So I think we’ve pretty much answered all the questions that we can in the chat, and we’ve had some really great questions, and it’s some really nice audience participation. So David, I want to thank David Campbell from VII. And again, and also PhotoWings for allowing us to do this presentation. So remember, all our pricing is online at digitalsilverimaging.com. And we’re always available to answer your questions via email, or just pick up the phone and give us a call. So thank you.
01:13:07
Eric Luden: And I will say that, you know, if you’re new to Digital Silver Imaging, I mean two things. One is you will get a follow-up email from from the folks at VII. I believe with a link to the video, I hope is that correct? David? Can you chime in on that? If you’re still there?
01:13:24
David Campbell: Yes, we can, we can do that. It takes about a week to get the video up. So I will point out where people will find the video in a few days.
01:13:33
Eric Luden: Perfect. Yep. Great. That’s, yep. So there’ll be a link to that video. And all of the great programming that VII has put together, which is outstanding. And you’ll find a link to both there kind of individual stuff, as well as the technical series that we and other companies have provided to VII. So and with that link, with that email going out, we will keep you guessing, but don’t just click on that email or avoid it, we will have a promotion on our framing and mounting as a follow up to this as thanking you for participating. And I knew I had another thought in there. Oh, and then if you want to stay in touch with us, and this is your first time with us— we have a link on our website about us. And if you go in there and sign up, you will get our emails which you know, obviously we’re doing some promotional stuff, but we’re also including really important things that we’re doing. And I will just tell you that tonight we’re kind of doing a fun thing with Rick Smolan who is a renowned National Geographic photographer. And we’re doing this on Clubhouse, which is a cool new social media platform. You don’t, you don’t need an invitation. You can now just download the application to your smartphone and join in the conversation. So if you go to @RickSmolan on Instagram, you’ll find all the information there about the project so.
01:14:57
Andrea Zocchi: And Eric will be talking with Frans Lanting.
01:15:01
Eric Luden: Right, yep. So anyway, David, my thanks to you guys for this whole six part series. It’s been a lot of fun to connect with your audience as well as ours. We really appreciate working with you guys. And I know we’ve got a project, coming up with Ben Brody at a YMCA here in Boston that we helped put together. And I really think that VII is just doing an outstanding job in the photo community. And we’re really grateful to be able to collaborate with them. So thanks again, David. Thanks again to the people at PhotoWings for making all these possible. Andrea, thanks for managing the q&a you did as always an awesome job and really appreciate it. So thank you, everybody, for joining us. Please call, email with any questions about what we discussed, happy to walk you through it. And, most importantly, print your images. They’re not doing anything sitting on a computer. So number one, print with us. Number two, print yourself and number three, you could try and somebody else, but please print. Alright, so thank you, everybody. Hope you have a great rest of your week and be safe. And we’ll see another see another event. Bye.
01:16:09
David Campbell: Thanks Eric. Thanks, Andrea. And thanks, everyone for attending. Bye bye.
