[hxdrummerxc]

So im fairly new to printing....
I have been into photography for several years now, but mostly never did anything with my pictures other than posting them online etc.

I have printed a few occasionally, but nothing too serious.
I recently went on vacation to California (national parks, big sur, Santa Monica) and proposed to my girlfriend (she said yes!). Sadly I was also faced with the toughest decision that I have ever made in my life. While we were gone (all the way in California, coming from Michigan), The day after we got engaged, I received news from back home that my Grandfather had passed away. I had talked to my grandpa the day before we left and he told me that he has seen it all, to make sure that I take the time to see everything and take some great pictures. So I had to make the choice to come home and lose all of the money in hotels / flight / car rental packages or, stay and miss my Grandpa's funeral. It was very hard, but I stayed and attended the funeral via video chat services.

So these pictures mean a lot to me, and this is the first time that I have seriously considered printing my images.
And now I am so confused as to how to print these images. So many factors come into play when printing / mounting / framing.

I wan't to start off by printing a couple 16x24 large photos. One will likely be on E-surface, and the other on Metallic. I plan on framing them, so I was going to get them on double-weighted matboard. This is where I get confused. If I have sized my images to exactly 16x24, then there will be no border on the print. However, when I choose to get it mounted on a matboard, there is no option to select a larger board, to achieve a border. I thought that people generally used a matboard larger than the print to achieve the border around the image (if that makes any sense)??.

I guess I could size down the image a little to add a border, but I always thought that the border looks better on matboard than on the actual print itself? Or am I crazy?

Or should I just order the full 16x24 print and then buy a larger frame and mat it myself to have the extra border? But im not really sure how to do that.

How would YOU go about printing / framing a 16x24 photo?



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Thanks a lot for any help,
Nick

[Chris#]

hxdrummerxc, on 12 June 2012 - 02:49 PM, said:

So im fairly new to printing....
I have been into photography for several years now, but mostly never did anything with my pictures other than posting them online etc.

I have printed a few occasionally, but nothing too serious.
I recently went on vacation to California (national parks, big sur, Santa Monica) and proposed to my girlfriend (she said yes!). Sadly I was also faced with the toughest decision that I have ever made in my life. While we were gone (all the way in California, coming from Michigan), The day after we got engaged, I received news from back home that my Grandfather had passed away. I had talked to my grandpa the day before we left and he told me that he has seen it all, to make sure that I take the time to see everything and take some great pictures. So I had to make the choice to come home and lose all of the money in hotels / flight / car rental packages or, stay and miss my Grandpa's funeral. It was very hard, but I stayed and attended the funeral via video chat services.

So these pictures mean a lot to me, and this is the first time that I have seriously considered printing my images.
And now I am so confused as to how to print these images. So many factors come into play when printing / mounting / framing.

I wan't to start off by printing a couple 16x24 large photos. One will likely be on E-surface, and the other on Metallic. I plan on framing them, so I was going to get them on double-weighted matboard. This is where I get confused. If I have sized my images to exactly 16x24, then there will be no border on the print. However, when I choose to get it mounted on a matboard, there is no option to select a larger board, to achieve a border. I thought that people generally used a matboard larger than the print to achieve the border around the image (if that makes any sense)??.

I guess I could size down the image a little to add a border, but I always thought that the border looks better on matboard than on the actual print itself? Or am I crazy?

Or should I just order the full 16x24 print and then buy a larger frame and mat it myself to have the extra border? But im not really sure how to do that.

How would YOU go about printing / framing a 16x24 photo?



-------


Thanks a lot for any help,
Nick

The mounting you get here for your picture isn't for cosmetic purposes, but for strengthening the picture. When you go to your local frame shop, you'll select a decorative matte to go around your picture.

[cort]

If you are going to mat and frame prints do not have Mpix mount them, it makes matting and framing harder.