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With any print, what size borders...

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Brad H

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This is a very fundamental question. How much border does one leave for any given situation. I want to sell my prints at a street fair. I'm printing on the 2200 with Epson Watercolor for now and I will be testing out mostly matte papers. The main problem is I have no clue what border to leave on, let's say a 13" x 19" paper, for getting it onto gatorboard etc. Lead me to a tutorial if you will, because I don't know where to start.

Also, I just bought a acid-free museum box but I don't know what paper to use for keeping the prints seperate.

Maybe there is a book about print preperation? I'll buy it if is good enough.

-Brad Horner
 
Are you using PC or MAC?
Brad H said:
This is a very fundamental question. How much border does one leave
for any given situation. I want to sell my prints at a street fair.
I'm printing on the 2200 with Epson Watercolor for now and I will
be testing out mostly matte papers. The main problem is I have no
clue what border to leave on, let's say a 13" x 19" paper, for
getting it onto gatorboard etc. Lead me to a tutorial if you will,
because I don't know where to start.

Also, I just bought a acid-free museum box but I don't know what
paper to use for keeping the prints seperate.

Maybe there is a book about print preperation? I'll buy it if is
good enough.

-Brad Horner
Click to expand...
 
Brad-

The standard sizes for photographic prints are 8x10, 11x14, 16x20. After that things get fuzzy. Each size print goes in the next size frame.

Having said that, the 4:3 ratio of most digital cameras doesn't match any of these settings. So - you have to decide if you want to use standard sizes and crop or if you want to make/buy non-standard mats and frames. If you go the latter route, look at the extra white space that's a part of the standard sizes and try to mimic that. For example, 8x10 in an 11x14 frame leaves 3x4 of border. Your 13x19 print would need 4x6 border (roughly).

--
Dave
 
Dave Schneider said:
Brad-

The standard sizes for photographic prints are 8x10, 11x14, 16x20.
After that things get fuzzy. Each size print goes in the next size
frame.

Having said that, the 4:3 ratio of most digital cameras doesn't
match any of these settings. So - you have to decide if you want to
use standard sizes and crop or if you want to make/buy non-standard
mats and frames. If you go the latter route, look at the extra
white space that's a part of the standard sizes and try to mimic
that. For example, 8x10 in an 11x14 frame leaves 3x4 of border.
Your 13x19 print would need 4x6 border (roughly).
Click to expand...
Dave Schneider said:
Dave
Click to expand...
I'm not looking for any originality in this area. What do other people usualy do, standard or custom sizes? I want my customers to have flexibility with their framing. I'm just offering the print on a mat board.

Honestly I think that I'm too lost here and I don't want to make any mistakes that I will be sorry about later so I will look for some comprhensive tutorial/book. What you said is helpful though, I won't shoot 3:2, I would rather do that in post.
 
Brad H said:
Dave Schneider said:
Brad-

The standard sizes for photographic prints are 8x10, 11x14, 16x20.
After that things get fuzzy. Each size print goes in the next size
frame.

Having said that, the 4:3 ratio of most digital cameras doesn't
match any of these settings. So - you have to decide if you want to
use standard sizes and crop or if you want to make/buy non-standard
mats and frames. If you go the latter route, look at the extra
white space that's a part of the standard sizes and try to mimic
that. For example, 8x10 in an 11x14 frame leaves 3x4 of border.
Your 13x19 print would need 4x6 border (roughly).
Click to expand...
Brad H said:
Dave
Click to expand...
I'm not looking for any originality in this area. What do other
people usualy do, standard or custom sizes? I want my customers to
have flexibility with their framing. I'm just offering the print on
a mat board.
Honestly I think that I'm too lost here and I don't want to make
any mistakes that I will be sorry about later so I will look for
some comprhensive tutorial/book. What you said is helpful though, I
won't shoot 3:2, I would rather do that in post.
Click to expand...
 
Hi Brad

Please excuse the vacant post above - hit the wong button

Popular print sizes include (in the UK at least), in inches, 6x4, 7x5, 10x8 and 12x10. Few of these conform to the 4/3 aspect ratio of consumer digitals, or the 3/2 ratio of pro/prosumer SLR's. Thus some image croppiing is inevitable. Over time you learn to leave some cropping room around a shot when composing it.

I do not know where you are, but a wander around a local shop (store) which keeps a decent variety of photo frames should inform you as to what are "normal" sizes. Ask the guy/lady who runs the shop which size frames sell the most. In the main, peope are very helpful and this should be informative. (10x8 and 7x5 are the biggest seller for us in the UK for "big value" prints. My own instinct is to go for mammoth prints - the A3+ style, but, as was gently pointed out to me by my, wife nobody has the room or the inclination to hang such relatively vast prints on their wall. What they want is a shelf stuffed with good sized, but not huge, frames)

For what it's worth, I would not personally go for mounting the prints on board, other than perhaps for sale display. It cramps the buyer's framing options, and if they decide to physically crop it, it makes life difficult.

I would suggest you board-mount/dry mount a few different sizes and formats from 6x4 up to (say) 10x8 for display to show what you can do. Maybe one really big beasty at A3 to show off, but expect the smaller ones to be the money-spinners.

I hope this helps

Regards

Ewen Cameron
 
Forgot to finish - if you are not board mounting, the borders will, of course, be whatever's left over from the print size on the paper you are printing on!

Have you thought of offering to frame them yourself? Can be high added value. Your customers may not know what hey want ad you can show them the way to go......

Ewen
 
ewencameron said:
Forgot to finish - if you are not board mounting, the borders will,
of course, be whatever's left over from the print size on the paper
you are printing on!

Have you thought of offering to frame them yourself? Can be high
added value. Your customers may not know what hey want ad you can
show them the way to go......
Click to expand...
Framing myself is a possibility, but I havn't figured out how I am going to sell yet. From the street I think that I want to frameless, for now. Like you said before, I need to go to some shops and size things out, or at least I need to see some pictures of different framing. -thank you.
 
Maybe I'm not understanig the question but in the darkroom we needed 1/4 inch to hold the paper flat so most standard mats are cut to a little less than 7 1/2 by 9 1/2 (8x10) or 4 1/2 by 6 1/2 (5x7)or 10 1/2 by 13 1/2(11x14). Therefore I like to size my images 7.7 x 9.7 etc to allow for mat error and so that the image can be framed w/o cutting off part of the image. If you are printing 8x10 on an 11x14 sheet for example, I would still print 7.7x9.7 remembering to leave more white space at the bottom than the top for a better look.
Bill
 
Bill Turnbull said:
Maybe I'm not understanig the question but in the darkroom we
needed 1/4 inch to hold the paper flat so most standard mats are
cut to a little less than 7 1/2 by 9 1/2 (8x10) or 4 1/2 by 6 1/2
(5x7)or 10 1/2 by 13 1/2(11x14). Therefore I like to size my images
7.7 x 9.7 etc to allow for mat error and so that the image can be
framed w/o cutting off part of the image. If you are printing 8x10
on an 11x14 sheet for example, I would still print 7.7x9.7
remembering to leave more white space at the bottom than the top
for a better look.
Bill
Click to expand...
That answers it pretty much. For 13"x 19" I am doing around 3/4" around top AND bottom, and a little less than 1/2" on the sides. Maybe I will end up cutting my own mats, not sure yet. I don't think I understand the whitespace at the bottom thing. Don't I just make the mat bigger and insert some overlay that creates any style border that I want?
 
Brad H said:
That answers it pretty much. For 13"x 19" I am doing around 3/4"
around top AND bottom, and a little less than 1/2" on the sides.
Maybe I will end up cutting my own mats, not sure yet. I don't
think I understand the whitespace at the bottom thing. Don't I just
make the mat bigger and insert some overlay that creates any style
border that I want?
Click to expand...
I was only saying that when traditional framers custom cuts a mat, they traditionally would cut equal margins side to side and wider at the bottom for aesthetic reasons. Maybe that was to allow balance for a signature line, I'm not sure.
Lood Luck.
Bill
 
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