If so, what do you use for glass, mounting board, backing?
I'm going to buy as much locally as reasonable, but I don’t know a dang thing about preferred brands or values.
As example, I received a quote for about $40 per 50 sq feet for a low reflection glass. But I don’t know if most use low reflection glass, UV glass, or something that does both. I also heard that there is an acrylic which is both low reflection and also provides UV reflection.
TIA for the feedback!
REAL anti reflection material like Optium costs more like $40+ per single square foot! What you were quoted is probably slightly frosted glass that kills reflections...and also your image. Don't use it, it's ugly!
BTW Optium is essentially invisible except for slight reflections from the brightest parts of spotlights and fluorescent fixtures, museums use it in the thicker sizes as a protection against physical attacks. It's beautiful stuff if you can afford it. Very easy to scratch and a royal PITA to handle because of it. There are similar glass products which are no less delicate than Optium.
Just regular clear framing glass is probably a better choice, the reflections are to my eye less objectionable than a hazy image. Acrylite-FF acrylic sheets are another possibility, use the 0.110 inch size (3mm) for anything up through 24 x 36 to maybe as big as 30 x 40, beyond that you need 1/4 inch. Most plastic suppliers will cut acrylic sheets to size for you with little or no additional charge.
Any type of glazing (the fancy word for glass or acrylic aka plexiglas) offers a lot more UV protection than nothing at all. For about twice the price of regular plexiglas you can get something like Cyro OP3 which guarantees "98%" UV protection", but in fact I believe just regular plexiglas (or acrylic or glass) offers significant protection.
3/16 inch foamcore is pretty much the standard backing material for all but very high end work. You can dry mount or glue to it with relative ease. The archival version is rather floppy and thus loses the desirable stiffness of the "normal" type.
For matboard you want rag based archival types, although for very low end stuff just regular matboard is OK if it is "buffered." Buffering de-acidifies the cheaper paper matboard materials. A company called Rising makes great rag based, fully archival matboard called "Rising Museum Board" for about $17 for a 40x60 inch 4-play sheet, almost any framing supplier will carry Rising. You can go to 6 or 8 ply if you like thickish matte bevels.
If you work at standard sizes, your path of least resistance to decent framing is probably to buy "kits" from various online suppliers who offer everything from precut matboard all the way up to complete frame kits. Your local framer is of course always ready to help, most will be glad to just cut mattes or mount photos for you if you don't want their full services.
Hint...most photographers are really lousy framers, and the art buying public knows it. You want to either become very skillful at it, or let a pro do it for you.
