Anyone Frame Your Own?

PixelRabbit · Nov 5, 2015

I'm working away at creating products for a few things, a new store a friend is opening, some showings I have coming up next summer as well as looking at different ways to offer products, mainly prints already framed and ready to go.

After a lot of shooting in the dark I think that having a physical print ready to go is an important step for me as opposed to solely digital copies and offering prints to be ordered (doesn't work). I'm also working towards doing my own printing and exploring more artistic routes that way. Another HUGE reason is much of my work isn't standard sizes, cropping often is bad for the composition and I would much rather cut my own mats to fit the work instead of trying to fit the work in the mat but I really want to eliminate the middle man.

That brings me to my question, has/does anyone do their own matting and framing? What can you share about it? I'm sourcing resources for materials and finding a LOT of pre cut mats but not much that isn't cut thus far. I have the space and tools to do this with only an investment in materials and I'm hitting a wall here trying to put it all together, help?

Directway · Nov 5, 2015

We order in frames and mat our own work. We print ourselves. The matting and framing is easy with a little practice. Printing is a big investment to get into. What size of prints are you looking at doing?

Directway · Nov 5, 2015

Oh and as for materials I live in alBerta and deal with a place called vestate. They are out of Edmonton. Their website is vestatemousing.com. They ship anywhere and are great to deal with. Not sure of anything that would be more local to you but I am sure a google search should turn something up.

PixelRabbit · Nov 5, 2015

Thanks Directway, I'm actually looking at printing film to start and perhaps move into digital at some point but not right away but I do want to start matting and framing it all myself right away. Much of my digital work will be printed large but buying a large format printer wouldn't be in my current budget

PixelRabbit · Nov 5, 2015

Ah cool, thanks for the suggestion for supplies, I'll check them out. I'm a few hours from Toronto and was hoping to find something there but so far nothing is standing out.

Directway · Nov 5, 2015

Yes large format digital printers are expensive. And ink is even worse. I started out with a 13 in printer about 12 years ago just for myself. I loved doing everything from start to finish. Then when my wife and I decided to turn this into a business I jumped into a 24 in printer and then a 44. And then a large vacuum dry mount press and assorted matting and framing equipment. My wife actually thinks I am crazy. We were getting close to breaking even last year when we decided to set up a studio (before that we were just working out of out home and ran out of room for all that equipment and our 5 kids lol). Now we are back in the hole for a few more years. Good thing this is fun.

PixelRabbit · Nov 5, 2015

You sound a lot like me, I want to do it all from start to finish, I hate sending stuff away to get done and rely on someone else to do it "right"

I also think there is a lot of room for creativity in matting and framing unique to each piece and I really want to explore that and make a unique product. I'm at a very different place in my life than you guys are, 5 kids, holy cows! We have 3 who are working on adulting out in the world on their own now so it is just me, Hubby and the critters. We have tons of room here to set up and work out of so that is going to help keep costs down for sure!

Emanuel M · Nov 5, 2015

I have a canon pixma mg7550 and I use it all the time to print my own photos.
Usually I print smaller sizes, like 13x18cm or 10x15cm, but sometimes I print big A4's (21x29.7cm).
The quality is great.
The printer is new, so I can't say how much I spend per photo. From what I read on the internet, a smaller pic will cost me around 0.80€/1€ and the bigger one (A4) will cost me around 2.5€/3€ - with paper included (that costs around 0.5€ per sheet.

Cheers

Directway · Nov 5, 2015

Lol. We have a 23 y old boy and a 17,9,4And 2 y old girls. Yes our house is full.

snowbear · Nov 5, 2015

I cut my own mats and get frames on sale. If I were selling prints, I'd probably go with white mats to keep it simple but for my own wall art, I take the photo with me when picking out the mat board. I but from a store in DC because the sheets are in pretty good shape and they have a cutter available so I can get them home without bending them up.