Framing: Glass vs. Acrylic

[mearussi]

One of the main reasons I switched from traditional framing is because I'm not as young or as strong as I used to be and carrying a box full of framed prints is far heavier than ones mounted on acrylic. Nor is my pocket deep enough to afford $100/ea for Water White glass (16x24).

[deanwork]

What a lot of people I work for these days do is mount to dibond with a cleat on the back for hanging and show the work without anything in front of it for the duration of the show. If someone buys a print it is then framed behind plexi and the client pays for it. I've been doing this with both fiber matte and semi gloss media as well as rc gloss and rc satin media.

People like the clarity of the imagery and it saves a lot of additional framing expense that could be twice what they pay me for printing it. It too me a LONG time to even suggest such a thing. Wheather it is feasible or not is determined by whether or not you have a place to work with who actually knows how to mount without destroying the art work. In the past we didn't have anyone, now we do. But with small things I just like to dry mount myself to 8 ply rag board and put in a shadow box frame with r without  plexi. With wood frames that is very lightweight. Though you could do the less expensive route of mounting even the small ones to dibond and hanging that on the wall. Key is to find someone who is a craftsman at mounting. Easier said than done.

,

One of the main reasons I switched from traditional framing is because I'm not as young or as strong as I used to be and carrying a box full of framed prints is far heavier than ones mounted on acrylic. Nor is my pocket deep enough to afford $100/ea for Water White glass (16x24).

[drralph]

In the wet darkroom days, I preferred dry mounting, especially for fiber based B&W prints which usually did not dry flat.  My framer did not like to dry mount my work, as he recognized that mounting the print was irreversible, and no museum would ever do that.  But I found the wavy look of other mounting techniques unsettling.  These days, seeing surface variations in a print is a mark of analog chic, and lends an air of authenticity and uniqueness that I have warmed to.  In the digital age, the paper is nice and flat, and I no longer see any reason to dry mount.

I have a collection of traditional darkroom prints which are dry mounted and matted, and stored in Solander boxes.  The mats are in a few standardized sizes, which allowed me to rotate the pieces into frames for display.  Storage of these collections has become an issue.  One prime benefit of my digital approach is that prints are stored in archival boxes without mount or mat.  I have a set of standard window mats with corner mounts, which allows me to rotate images easily while minimizing storage requirements.

[deanwork]

Museums collect a lot of dry mounted photographs. After major longevity were done about 20 years ago by RIT, it was shown that not only was there no chemical contamination of gelatin silver prints by drymounting, but the dry mounted prints actually were more protected by sealing the back of the paper from contaminants. All this used to be online, maybe it still is. It's true that archives used to prefer unmounted prints that could be easily removed if the mount was damaged. It's also true that museums have no control over which adhesives and mount boards the artist might have used.

When I worked at the Center for Creative Photography in Arizona, I showed all of the Ansel Adams portfolios to researchers, and they were all drymounted, as was the work of Frederick Sommer, Emmit Gown, Paul Caponigro, Ralph Gibson, and a lot if people I no longer remember. It's really the only way you could keep silver prints flat. They looked really good.  They all used good 100% cotton rag mounts and matts. Both the Seal MT5 and the Colormount tissue, as well as the Fusiin 4000, that can be removed, are very stable long term  according to RIT, Wilhelm, etc. from their tests many years ago.  But at the same time, all of Eugene Smith's master prints were drymounted on some cheap black wood pulp  matte board when they were submitted to life magazine for publication, and are most likely full of acid. That horrified the curators but they couldn't be removed so they just sandwiched them all between white rag materials to make them look better to the public and somewhat isolate the acids from the box. That's all they could do. That was 38 years ago. I only wonder how they look now. I'll bet Adams portfolios stored in ideal conditions in dark storage still look pristine.

In the wet darkroom days, I preferred dry mounting, especially for fiber based B&W prints which usually did not dry flat.  My framer did not like to dry mount my work, as he recognized that mounting the print was irreversible, and no museum would ever do that.  But I found the wavy look of other mounting techniques unsettling.  These days, seeing surface variations in a print is a mark of analog chic, and lends an air of authenticity and uniqueness that I have warmed to.  In the digital age, the paper is nice and flat, and I no longer see any reason to dry mount.

I have a collection of traditional darkroom prints which are dry mounted and matted, and stored in Solander boxes.  The mats are in a few standardized sizes, which allowed me to rotate the pieces into frames for display.  Storage of these collections has become an issue.  One prime benefit of my digital approach is that prints are stored in archival boxes without mount or mat.  I have a set of standard window mats with corner mounts, which allows me to rotate images easily while minimizing storage requirements.

[stevehayes]

Agree with everyone Acrylic is better than a simple glass. I cannot understand why are you still thinking about it. I started to use acrylic after I had a lot of bad experiences with the glass. And I had it not just with my camera but with my house's windows too. Near me is a park and there are a lot of squirrels. When I had simple glass they always made different scratches on it. That is why I had to call scratching experts to come and repair my glass. One of my friends told me once to change the simple glass for the acrylic and this is. I don't have headaches anymore. So I think that you know what to choose now.

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

Agree with everyone Acrylic is better than a simple glass.

I used to use glass until someone "helping" me hang an exhibit dropped one, smashing the glass (but not the print.) I've used only acrylic ever since and it loks at least as good as glass.