Mike Leuzinger
Member
How many are/were in the same dilemma I'm in...
New owner of a larger format printer (S9000)... have several beautiful 12x18 prints around... but they are just that.... laying around.
My D30, 3 new lenses, and S9000 have pretty much saturated my wife-imposed spending limits and now I'm stuck trying to find an inexpensive way to cut, matte, and frame my prints.
The framed prints will be half for my own use, half to sell cheaply to family and friends, with the possibility of selling prints to others in the future.
So... what to do?
1) Do everything through our local Michael's? (probably way too expensive)
2) Try to wheel and deal and convince the local photo studio down the street to let me use their equipment cheaply? (I have no relationship with them at all right now - but I'm not a shy person)
3) Do everything through a web vendor such as pictureframes.com (any others you'd recommend?)
4) Buy a rotary trimmer, a mat cutter, matting board, and do everything except the actual frame myself? (expensive in short run)
5) Some combination of the above?
Right now, I'm thinking of getting some 18x24 frames I like at Michael's for $17 each, and buying custom mats from pictureframes.com with a 12x18 window for $10 each. I guess I wouldn't need to trim the print if it's going to be matted anyway? But then I'd still like to have a trimmer for 8x10's, 5x7's, etc. Can anyone recommend a relatively inexpensive trimmer that handle's 19" paper?
Any and all advice to the issues above highly recommended. I would love to see this turn into a popular and educational thread... I have a feeling I'm not the only one with the above questions. ;-)
New owner of a larger format printer (S9000)... have several beautiful 12x18 prints around... but they are just that.... laying around.
My D30, 3 new lenses, and S9000 have pretty much saturated my wife-imposed spending limits and now I'm stuck trying to find an inexpensive way to cut, matte, and frame my prints.
The framed prints will be half for my own use, half to sell cheaply to family and friends, with the possibility of selling prints to others in the future.
So... what to do?
1) Do everything through our local Michael's? (probably way too expensive)
2) Try to wheel and deal and convince the local photo studio down the street to let me use their equipment cheaply? (I have no relationship with them at all right now - but I'm not a shy person)
3) Do everything through a web vendor such as pictureframes.com (any others you'd recommend?)
4) Buy a rotary trimmer, a mat cutter, matting board, and do everything except the actual frame myself? (expensive in short run)
5) Some combination of the above?
Right now, I'm thinking of getting some 18x24 frames I like at Michael's for $17 each, and buying custom mats from pictureframes.com with a 12x18 window for $10 each. I guess I wouldn't need to trim the print if it's going to be matted anyway? But then I'd still like to have a trimmer for 8x10's, 5x7's, etc. Can anyone recommend a relatively inexpensive trimmer that handle's 19" paper?
Any and all advice to the issues above highly recommended. I would love to see this turn into a popular and educational thread... I have a feeling I'm not the only one with the above questions. ;-)
- Mike Leuzinger