Paper choice is not only personal, it depends on image. A fellow came in here recently to check out some papers. He picked up an image on paper X." Feels like cardboard," he said.
"It looks cheap and trashy. What is it?" "It's paper x " I said. He then looked at a number of other papers Finally he picked up another print. "This is what I want " he said. "This one looks fantastic.It's exactly what I was looking for". Needless to say it was paper x
Re. glass framing. It does protect the print physically and from a lot of UV and ozone damage.
Acrylic encapsulation does the same thing. Both help appearance of saturation and blacks but distance the "presence" of the print. It has to be the way to go in domestic situations.
Galleries have more options. A work we have recently completed for artist Valerie Sparks at 1.1 x 6 meters was much too big for glass. The National Gallery of Victoria , who purchased it, are now displaying it by pinning it to a wall. Another method that I have seen uses tiny but powerful magnets to hold the print to a sheet of steel. No pin marks.
Artists books, with tipped in images are becoming popular.
In any of the non-framed situations some sort of protective coating is a must.
This comment does not apply to Platinum/Palladium
Cheers,
Brian,
www.pharoseditions.com.au