Framing Your Fine Art Print

We offer a limited selection of quality wood and metal frames that you can purchase with your artwork. We will be happy to frame your artwork in your selected frame and can usually do this for a price that cannot be matched by your local frame shop. We realize however that not all frames appeal to everyone and so we also offer some suggestions for framing our prints or for having someone else frame the print for you.

Our Framing Service

When you purchase a matted print from use you can also elect to have it framed with any of our quality metal or wood frames. Each frame has been selected for its quality, beauty, and overall style.

We treat all of our wood frames to ensure the wood never comes in contact with any part of the artwork. Such contact invites disaster and we take care to avoid these problems with all of our wood frames. Metal frames do not require this treatment as they cannot develop acidic compounds through natural processes.

When you elect to have us frame your artwork we will provide the selected frame, frame your artwork, provide a hanging wire (we tape the lose ends of the framing wire to reduce the risk of you being poked as you hang the artwork), include wall bumpers to reduce the risk of the frame marring your wall, and then recheck and clean everything before packing it for shipment.

Framed artworks are shipped in a flat shipping box with ample padding. Corners are protected by cardboard corner protectors to reduce the chances of damage during shipment.

Framing Considerations

If you decide to frame a matted artwork yourself then there are a few things you should consider before tackling the job. First of course, you will need to decide if you want a wood or a metal frame. Metal frames (commonly aluminum) are easy to assemble and come in a great variety of sizes, shapes, and colors. Assembly usually involves no more than a screwdriver and a wire cutter.

Unassembled wood frames are often difficult to assemble if you do not have the right tools. Some frame manufactures provide wood frames that are relatively easy to assemble, but these are the exception rather than the rule. If you don't have the proper framing tools then we suggest you purchase a pre-assembled wood frame from your local frame supply store.

Once you have an assembled wood frame it is essential that you purchase and apply some barrier tape, or coat the inside edge of the wood frame rabbet (where the edge of the matted artwork will rest) with several coats of varnish. This acts as a barrier to prevent acids in the wood from contacting any part of the artwork assembly. Failure to properly isolate the wood and the artwork is likely to lead to discoloration and deterioration of the mat board and potentially the print.

Wood frames can be heavy so use heavy duty wire and wire hangers on the frames. Metal frames typically come with locking screw wire hangers that are usually plenty strong for most art works. If your artwork is heavy, then you should consider using heavy-duty wire whether you are using wood or metal frames.

The glazing material (glass or acrylic) that protects the print from contact typically comes in several different types. There are too many of these materials to discuss in detail, but the general classifications are as follows (in order of increasing cost):

Regular - the glass or acrylic is intended as a clear barrier. This material usually causes little or no distortion, but is subject to some glare and reflection that can be distracting in bright rooms.
Anti-glare - this material is not quite as clear as normal regular glazing, but has the added benefit of reducing glare and reflections. Anti-glare glazing materials often introduce some minor distortion due to the way they diffuse light to reduce glare. This distortion is normally quite minimal and is only an issue on prints that exhibit extreme detail. Anti-glare glazing can be useful in locations subject to a significant amount of bright light where the minor (and usually unnoticeable) distortion is more than outweighed by the improved viewing possible due to reduced glare and reflections.
UV Protective - this material offers protection against damaging ultra violet rays that can eventually cause fading in a print. In our experience these products also offer some image distortion and muting of colors in the image. These materials are most worthwhile if you have an extremely valuable and irreplaceable artwork or if your artwork will be subject to a significant amount of direct sunlight.

In general you might want to consider using acrylic instead of glass for your glazing material. Acrylic has the advantages of being much lighter in weight, shatter resistant, somewhat flexible, and it generally it has slightly better UV protective properties than normal glass. Because of these advantages (and the reduced cost to our customers for shipping this material) we use acrylic materials exclusively.

If you purchase an unframed artwork from us it comes in a protective plastic bag with a re-sealable flap. The flap is there to prevent dirt and dust from getting to the artwork and to prevent the artwork from accidentally falling out of the bag. We place a warning label on this flap because it is possible, that while removing the print from the protective bag, this re-sealable flap will adhere to the print causing permanent damage. We recommend that you keep the print in its protective bag until you are ready to frame it, and that you then open and cut off the re-sealable flap with scissors so it cannot contact the print as the artwork is removed from the bag.

Third Party Framing Cautions

Most third party framing stores will do an excellent job of placing your artwork into a suitable frame. Here are a few things to consider so that you have a positive result when using a third party framer.

Warn the person who will do the framing (not just the clerk at the counter) about the possibility that the adhesive strip on the protective plastic bag may contact and damage the print when the artwork is being removed from the protective bag. Even though we place a warning label on the adhesive strip we still see cases where framers have permanently damaged fine art pieces.

If you are having your artwork placed into a wood frame, ensure that the framing store will place a barrier between the frame and the artwork. Good framing shops will do this automatically, but it never hurts to ask.