Mounting digital prints

Does anyone have experience in mounting and framing digital prints? Mainly Epson Enhanced Matt, photo Luster and Velvet Fine Art papers. Some photographers say the prints need to be Museum mounted using an acid free mat board and lignin-free mounting tape giving the prints room to move and adjust to humidity. Others say I need to use a PMA (Positionable Mounting Adhesive) to keep the prints flat during humidity changes. Or is dry mount an option?

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

This aspect of digital photography is probably the most migraine headache producing issue around. I dry mount (I have a press) the inkjet prints after a couple of days of letting them dry. You have to test the temperature/time issue although these are papers are not resin coated so they seem to be less temp sensitive than some of the true photographic papers. Anyway, I've used 225 deg for 2 minutes on Kodak inkjet paper and it's happy.

If you send your files out to a lab, then you need to know what kind of paper they're using. The lab that I use (autumncolor.com) uses resin coated paper so either they mount the print or I do. If I do, I used 3M Photo Mount adhesive. I mount flush, that is if the print is 8x10, so is the mount board. Therefore I spray the mount board, then align the print and lay it down. This would be trickier if you float mount (position the print a set distance from the mounting board's borders.

The reason I flush mount is that my framing is a "california floater". I build a frame the same size as the mounted print then glue the mounted print to the frame. This positions the framed picture about 1.5 inches from the wall. It's a style I've always liked and have used for years.

The big bugaboo here seems to be print fading. There's a lot of info on the forum about it, but it does appear to be a problem. I'm holding off buying a larger inkjet printer (Canon i9900) because of this issue.

Ironically I've had 35mm prints on the walls for over 3 decades without noticeable fading, but I don't place mounted prints in direct sunlight. If I have a really good pic, I'll send it up to Autumncolor (Worcester Mass) and they'll print it using their LightJet printer. This printer uses lasers and photo print paper (Fuji Archival). I normally let them do the mounting (cold mounting so they're using some sort of spray adhesive). Anyway the prints come back looking excellent and they're on photo paper so ink fading isn't a problem.

I'm still doing 8x10s here, but I'm very careful where they end up in the house. I'm also looking into laminating the prints, but that means that like it or not, they'll be "glossy" (I think... new area for me so there may well be matte laminations out there).

Hope this helps.
rick

Rick,

Thanks for the great indepth information. That answers my questions and I appreciate your input.

that my wife has been using for about 2 years with no problems so far.

Cut some 1/8" or 1/4" foam board to the size of your print. Give it a LIGHT spray witih 3M spray-on adhesive (about $4 for a large can in most hardware stores.) Place one edge of the photo on the edge of the still tacky foam board and slowly roll the photo onto the board until it's all stuck on. You use the rolling motion to minimize air bubbles (but you will still get some.)

Turn the photo face down on a clean surface (we use the kitchen table) and use a clean roller of some sort (my wife uses a 4" stainless steel pastry roller with excellent results) on the back of the foam board to roll all the remaining air bubbles out. She rolls the entire width of the image in long strokes in the same direction, moving from one side to the other.

Then just mount the photo in whatever glass-fronted frame you want.

This is not nearly as sophisticated an approach as using a dry press mounting machine, but I found that even used ones of those were pretty expensive and I read that there can be problems with them in humid climates (I live near the ocean and have foggy days & nights sometimes.)

Good luck....and happy printing!

Birk Binnard
http://www.birkbinnard.com

Dennis Holt said:

Does anyone have experience in mounting and framing digital prints?
Mainly Epson Enhanced Matt, photo Luster and Velvet Fine Art
papers.

Click to expand...

I have mounted and framed about 40 13 x 19 prints (printed over the years on Epson 1200, 1270, 1280 and most recently Canon i9900) in 18 x 24 frames purchased over the Internet. Even the oldest prints (about 5 years old) which were produced with the less permanent ink and paper of the day show no signs of fading or other deterioration. My prints are all on glossy paper rather than the matte paper which you seem to prefer. I do not think that should make any difference, but I do not have any experience to back up my intuition.

My method is very simple. I use the self-adhesive mounting board available from any number of framing sites such as this one:

http://www.americanframe.com/catalog/mountingboard.html

The same sites sell overmats with custom cutouts as well as frames with glazing. I just put the glazing, overmat, and mounting board in a frame. I bought the special paper to seal the back of frames against dust but have never used it. (I have never seen any dust get in the frame.)

I strongly prefer pictures which are mounted absolutely flat on mounting board but have found no reason to use elaborate dry mounting or other "archival" methods. The self adhesive board costs about $5 or $6 and a 13 x 19 print costs around $4 (for paper and ink). If a print were to fade or deteriorate (and it has never happened so far), I would just reprint. It takes but a few minutes on the i9900.

Good luck with whatever approach you decide to pursue.

Hi. I thought you'd be interested in this web site

http://www.livick.com/method/inkjet/pg1.htm

Dennis Holt said:

Does anyone have experience in mounting and framing digital prints?
Mainly Epson Enhanced Matt, photo Luster and Velvet Fine Art
papers. Some photographers say the prints need to be Museum mounted
using an acid free mat board and lignin-free mounting tape giving
the prints room to move and adjust to humidity. Others say I need
to use a PMA (Positionable Mounting Adhesive) to keep the prints
flat during humidity changes. Or is dry mount an option?

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

Click to expand...

Part of it depends on whether you want the print to last 100 years or so. I'm gearing up to selling some prints (though I'll use a commercial lab to print them and not use my HP deskjet). At this point, while I would be thrilled if the prints lastest 100 years, I don't really see that long of of a lifetime for them, which means I'm not going hog wild in going for the archival framing, etc.

After having similar discussions on this forum, I'm currently buying double mats (ivory outside, black inside) and archival foam core backing from: http://www.worldviewpic.com/precut_%20mats.htm . At the moment, I am concentrating on doing 8x10 prints matted up to 11x14. I will probably do some 16x20 posters as well, sold in a poster tube.

The basic technique I'm using is from: http://www.danielsmith.net/learn/inksmith/200301/ , using t-mounts to hold the photograph, and to use a hinge mount to mount the mat. Because I'm just selling an unframed picture, I will use either glue or tape to make sure the mat is closed. Because I will selling pictures at an outdoor event, everything will go in a plastic bag.

Thanks everyone for the Great information!