To dry mount or not to dry mount

[Allen in Montreal]

I just left my framing shop, having dropped off a few prints.
I asked that they be dry mounted, and the owner cringed and recoiled saying no!

She is going to flatten them then matt them and call me to see them before framing.

I have almost always dry mounted fiber prints, did I miss them memo about no longer dry mounting?

What do most of you do?

[John Bowen]

I dry mount, but my work is only for me....at this point.

YMMV

[bobwysiwyg]

You might find this an interesting read. Though the subject of the thread would suggest otherwise, there is a good deal associated with dry mounting. Some find that a "reversable" method is the only kind of mounting method acceptable.

http://www.apug.org/forums/forum46/67756-3m-spray-adhesive-mount-prints.html

[bob carnie]

Depending on the size of the print she may be right, if they are larger than 16x20 you will probably wish they were drymounted. 11x14 and smaller we will rarely mount the print, any print larger than 16x20 we always recommend mounting.
If the piece is being sold to a collector they may not want any mounting and that would then be the buyers decision.
I have many prints hanging on our walls and you can tell immediately the ones that were not mounted.



I just left my framing shop, having dropped off a few prints.
I asked that they be dry mounted, and the owner cringed and recoiled saying no!

She is going to flatten them then matt them and call me to see them before framing.

I have almost always dry mounted fiber prints, did I miss them memo about no longer dry mounting?

What do most of you do?

[jp]

The trend in framing is to be able to display artwork without permanently altering or damaging it. They've probably reframed or redone a lot of poor jobs that were irreversibly affected by the prior framing job.

I don't do fiber prints, so I can't suggest options for that material.

For inkjet and RC I've used filmoplast p90 tape hinge with the best success.

I have used adhesive spray as mentioned in the apug link and save it for non-art uses like mounting a display poster on foamcore for work or civic purposes. If it weren't for the overspray, I'd use it more.

[Bruce Watson]

I just left my framing shop, having dropped off a few prints. I asked that they be dry mounted, and the owner cringed and recoiled saying no!

She is going to flatten them then mat them and call me to see them before framing.

I have almost always dry mounted fiber prints, did I miss them memo about no longer dry mounting?

What do most of you do?

The interesting thing about dry mounting a darkroom print is that it actually provides a fair amount of protection for the print. In particular, protection for the substrate. The matte board you mount to (assuming it's not junk) protects the back of the substrate from environmental pollutants. The gelatin coating on the front of the print does much the same. The only part of the print exposed to the "elements" inside the frame are the edges of the print. This is why some old prints tend to yellow around the edges -- that's the only path open to pollutants.

We know it works because there are some really old prints out there still dry mounted to their matte boards, and still looking remarkably good.

All that said, museum curators and preservationists really hate dry mounting. Because it's not reversible. If something happens to the matte board, the print is toast too. They like the idea that they can pull the print out of the framing, toss everything but the print and start over.

But... if the non-dry mounted print isn't really well protected in the frame, and atmospheric pollution can make it's way into the frame, it can get to the matte board and the print at the same time, and damage both. And the image itself can't be reversibly removed from the substrate no matter how badly conservators want it (they'd like canvas and oil paints to be fully separable too :)

So my thought is that it's perhaps better to seal the print up via dry mounting than it is to hang it naked and hope for the best.

But I'm sure you'll find this a religious issue -- with vehement arguments on both sides. In the end, it's your money. If you want it dry mounted, then dry mount it. I don't really think you can go wrong either way.

[Stephen Willard]

I have used adhesive spray as mentioned in the apug link and save it for non-art uses like mounting a display poster on foamcore for work or civic purposes. If it weren't for the overspray, I'd use it more.

JP, I use the 3M Photo Mounting Adhesive spray for small prints to very big prints (20x50s 30x40s) and have had very good success with it. If what you mean by overspray is adhesive get on the print itself, then it can be completely removed with PEC-12 and soft toilet paper.

[ki6mf]

Museum, archival and most gallery work is never dry mounted. The problem is, as was pointed out above, acid in the mat board eats away at the image and if dry mounted you cant replace the underlying image. The underlying board should be archival grade 100 % acid free.

[jp]

JP, I use the 3M Photo Mounting Adhesive spray for small prints to very big prints (20x50s 30x40s) and have had very good success with it. If what you mean by overspray is adhesive get on the print itself, then it can be completely removed with PEC-12 and soft toilet paper.

Thanks, I don't think any liquid would be good for cleaning an inkjet print. I put the print face down and flat when applying the spray. I tend to get spray on my fingers, hands, any anything within 12" of the work and it makes the room smell like a car painting booth. It is very effective indeed. I could take additional steps like rubber gloves and ventilation, but I don't do enough of it to really need that.

[Drew Wiley]

What kind of prints are you specifically referring to? If you are talking about fiber-based silver-gelatin prints, a good argument can be made for drymounting them. The
mounting tissue isolates and protects the back of the print, and the surrounding board
gives one something to handle besides the print itself. If necessary, you can use a
removeable drymount tissue, although I think the permanent ones are more reliable.
Who wants to look at warped or wrinkled prints? Paper absorbs moisure and won't stay
flat by itself. I get the suspicion some framers are just lazy. Yes, on some handcoated
papers with a deckle edge on watercolor paper, you might prefer the print floating,
but then you need extra thick overmats to prevent the print from touching the glazing.
Color prints are a whole different subject. Haven't seen drymounting diminish the value
of the prints of any of the famous photographers of yore. If you gouged the ragboard
behind the print and had to replace it, the odds are just as high you'd gouge and ruin
the print itself. I drymount all my own black and white prints, at least if I intend to
keep them or sell them. Period. Anything else just looks half-assed.

[jim kitchen]

Dear Allen,

I dry-mount my images, and I have done so for more than thirty years, and during that time I was never asked by any museum, any gallery, or any collector whether dry-mounting affected the image's permanency. My dry-mounted images have never stained nor have they ever been returned, where I have always made certain that the mount board is cotton based, not lignin based, and I have always made certain that the matte was made of the same material as the mount board.

That said, this issue will always draw much debate among archivists, but I made a decision many years ago to never issue an image unless it was dry-mounted, matted, and signed. I have always been fortunate to have access to a vacuum press while using low temperature bonding tissue to mount the images.

If for some reason my archival framer went out of business, and I was forced to find another framer, and the new framer informed me that they would not dry-mount an image, I would find another archival framer quickly, and without hesitation. I would find a framer that knew how to frame and mount an image with archival properties.

My two pennies... :)

jim k

[willwilson]

For me a fiber print is not finished until it is trimmed and dry mounted. The mounted print becomes the final work. I simply can't stand an unmounted fiber print. The waves make it difficult to observe the print in the way that I originally intended.

As for having a framer dry mount a fiber print...not a chance but YMMV. I have had this done in the past; before I had a press and before I new better. You really have to trust that your framer knows what they are doing. Any bit of dust anywhere, wrong mounting temperature, slightly damp cover board (sticks to print), inaccurate trimming, along with any number of other things and the print is toast. I would give them a few work prints as a trial run at least. It's pretty easy once you get the kinks worked out though.

That said, if archival and reversible is important to you then you might want to take another approach besides dry mounting. Frankly, I don't care about reversible or museum curators. If my work ends up in a museum the curator will just have to deal with it. Weston and Adams dry mounted, along with countless other masters, and their work looks great and has lasted just fine, that's good enough for me.

PS. If anybody has one of those crappy dry mounted versions of Pepper #30 I will gladly take it off your hands.

[John Jarosz]

I was at the Weston gallery a while back and talked with the curator about this. Yes, curators and SOME gallery people are trying to perpetuate the fad that dry mounting is bad. So I asked him what do the "big names" in photography do when it comes to dry mounting. He said the big names do whatever they want and the gallery people and curators have to live with it. It's only the little people that get bullied by the know-it-all's.

This dry mounting thing is second on my list of most irritating photography "rules" imposed by know-it-all's. The first on my list are museum curators that mount photography shows in rooms that are so dark that attendees need miner's helmets with lights in order to see the prints. if the prints are so damned valuable and fragile then don't show them at all. The Art Institute of Chicago is one of the worst offenders in this regard.

Rant off. There, I feel better.

John

[Kirk Gittings]

FWIW, I've never had a collector or museum (200+ images) care (at least they never mentioned it) how a print was mounted whether silver or ink. For better or worse, I guess they assume I know what I am doing. For silver prints I dry mount everything, for ink I hinge tape them 11x14 and smaller and dry mount larger.

[Rafal Lukawiecki]

I really like the dry-mounted look and I like dry mounting as a process - with all its weirdness - so I dry mount my own silver prints. I have recently decided to dry mount inkjet prints (K3 Ultrachrome on cotton rag baryta papers) and it has been more of a re-learning curve than I expected. Mounting silver is easy in comparison. I think I got the process, temperatures etc sorted out, but I am still undecided about the application of any protective sprays after the dry mounting had been done. Only time will show how those prints keep - I hope to know more in 2040 or so, I should post here I guess.

Having said that, it is all mostly just for my own pleasure though I have exhibited and would like to exhibit with that dry-mounted look. Perhaps it even makes you look a little different, nowadays...

Rafal

[Drew Wiley]

Come to think of it, I don't think I've even seen a 20th-Century silver print displayed in
any museum or gallery that WASN'T drymounted! The possible exception are a few tiny contact prints. I just spent five days drymounting everything from 5x7's to
20X24's, but have drymounted much large pieces in the past. Inkjet is a different medium with different requirements.

[Sal Santamaura]

...soft toilet paper.But where can one find toilet paper that passes the Photographic Activity Test? ;)

[Greg Blank]

I am with all the other Folk, that dry mount. I use Crescent Perfect Bond Archival tissue which is acid free it is lower temp adhering and also can be removed "If need be" though I have never had to do so.


I just left my framing shop, having dropped off a few prints.
I asked that they be dry mounted, and the owner cringed and recoiled saying no!

She is going to flatten them then matt them and call me to see them before framing.

I have almost always dry mounted fiber prints, did I miss them memo about no longer dry mounting?

What do most of you do?

[BetterSense]

For those that dry-mount, what equipment do you use? Do you all have your own dry-mount presses? It seems one would need a press as big as the largest print he needed to mount. That's a pretty big piece of equipment to have around. What kind of dry-mount tissue and mounting board is considered the "old standby"?

[Allen in Montreal]

Thank you Gents.

A few years ago she mounted, framed and installed three 6 foot prints, as well as some smaller sized work, in a client's offices for me, so it was a bit of a surprise to see her refuse now.

I normally try to do my own, but my old Seal is resting on its side while my reno project drags on for eternity!

Bettersense,
Yes, they are large and they are heavy, as I mentioned above, mine is flipped on its side against a wall for the time being but I placed an oversized umbrella against it for a little bit of scale. I can not get this up on a table with two people to lift it.
Forgive the crap cell phone picture.

[Paul Metcalf]

I dry mount my images because I want the mount to be part of the artwork. I sign the mount, it's all part of the final art product.

[MIke Sherck]

I dry mount, because I like to see my prints flat, without waves and curls. They don't get or stay flat enough otherwise.

Mike

[cory stickley]

Hi Allen,
I agree with those who dry mount. I like the look, I can sign it, handle it and know it is better protected. The worst dry mount job I had done was at a local framing shop so you cannot assume they know what they are doing.
And I have purchased large hinge mounted fibre prints framed at a well known gallery, only to find within a year that the print was no longer flat. Then what do you do with the print? In the end, it is up to you and as you can see, there are advocates of each point of view.

[jnantz]

i have prints that are almost 30 years old that i didn't dry mount
and some that i did ... the dry mounted ones are becoming unmounted
while the window matted ones are still flat and OK.
i don't dry mount because i don't like the look, or the idea that
the print can come loose ... to each their own ...

[Drew Wiley]

If drymounted prints become loose they were never mounted correctly in the first place. Common mistakes include failing to predry to mount board or print itself, too
low a temperature, or insufficient time or pressure in the press.

[jnantz]

i did it as directed ( instructions on the tissue )
and the prints / board were not damp or wet ...
hmmm, maybe the thermostat on the press was on the blink ...


thanks for the info drew ...

[Drew Wiley]

Older Seal presses are still servicable, and many of the larger picture framing wholesalers carry replacement thermostats. Seal also made temperature indicator
strips (also avail from Scientific and industrial suppliers) which will allow you to check
the temp inside the print, although I have never had to use them myself. Also, some
tissues bond permanently during the cooling cycle, not heat cycle itself. After the final mount, I place the print under a large sheet of place glass for about five minutes.
Seal used to publish a very useful handbook of common drymounting problems.

[jnantz]

good to know drew

last time i dry mounted was when i was taking classes at a university.
the press probably saw a lot of use without regular maintenance so it being
messed-up makes sense ... i haven't dry mounted since i took that class ...

typically, i window cut a mat with acid free corners or stitch prints into a book ...

[Louie Powell]

I

What do most of you do?

Dry mount

[Mike1234]

"Dry mount"?? Nahh, I can't post what I want to... way too dirty for this group. :D

[Rafal Lukawiecki]

It seems one would need a press as big as the largest print he needed to mount.

Not necessarily. You can mount in sections as most presses that I have seen allow a much bigger "sandwich" to be placed between the platens. They have a kind-of U-shape design to allow for this. So you mount in halves or in quarters. AA wrote in "The Print" that you should keep it for 20-30 seconds in each section, rotating as you go, until you got more-or-less the accumulated time right. I had to try and waste a good few prints to learn.

My little bit of advice would be to quite ruthlessly attempt separating a print from the board after your first few mounting experiences increasing the time/temperature until you hit the point that you clearly see the tissue has melted and bonded - it will not come off cleanly. Starting at the other end, that is too long or too hot can be discouraging, but going too low means things will separate in time. Also decide what you are likely to mount (silver or inkjet too) before you stock up on the tissue etc.

Rafal

[mandoman7]

When I used to dry mount everything, I used to go nuts when bits of dust would get underneath and make a little raised point, effectively ruining a print. Even when I got fastidious I'd lose one out of five. After washing and toning fiber prints forever, I got real tired of losing prints in the mounting process. My dealer would hold the prints up to the light and if the surface was not perfect it was rejected. I was amazed at what I got for the press (210M) on ebay and was happy to see it go, and I don't miss that dealer either.

I really wonder how many people would be doing dry mounting if the prints would stay flat on their own. Now printing digitally, that's one of the things I appreciate about it; the ability to frame the prints without having to deal with curl (prints look better, too).

[Eric Woodbury]

I dry mount everything, but I don't print very large. Storage has become an issue and some small prints I now mount on 2-ply. I understood this to be the reason that museums disliked mounted prints, the large volume. I like the idea of not mounting. It would increase yield and decrease mass and volume. I would have to print on larger paper, however. Whatever, it is a style and do whatever you like. Here's a short article by Alan Ross on the subject:

http://www.alanrossphotography.com/2009/06/mounting/

[Drew Wiley]

John - how did you manage to get lint or grit in the drymount sandwich? Somewhat
rarely I've had it happen with high-tack acrylic adhesives, which is a far more tricky
mounting process, but almost never drymounting. Just takes a small compressor and blowgun to keep things out of the way. You also need to change the pad in the
press if it gets too old and starts to decompose. All these "problem" comments on
this thread make me wonder if people are ever properly trained in the use of this
kind of equipment. Drymounting is just about the easiest and more reliable form of
permanent mounting I can think of, at least for fiber-based prints. And believe me, I've worked with all kinds of mounting techniques, and even have invented a couple of specialized ones. I just wish every kind of photographic print could be so amenable to such a direct and relatively inexpensive technique.

[Merg Ross]

Hi Allen, I sincerely hope that you have your answer from this thread, and choose the best way to display your work. I am assuming that you are considering dry mounting gelatin fiber prints.

I dry mounted my first prints in 1953, and have continued to use this process ever since. It has been my only method of presentation, to private collectors, museum exhibitions and museum collections. I have never been asked by any of the aforementioned to alter this method of presentation.

Simply, it is the best presentation of a fiber print. So good in fact, that a fiber print dry mounted on acid board can fetch over a million dollars at auction. Prints just look better dry mounted.

[vinny]

Hi Allen, I sincerely hope that you have your answer from this thread, and choose the best way to display your work. I am assuming that you are considering dry mounting gelatin fiber prints.

I dry mounted my first prints in 1953, and have continued to use this process ever since. It has been my only method of presentation, to private collectors, museum exhibitions and museum collections. I have never been asked by any of the aforementioned to alter this method of presentation.

Simply, it is the best presentation of a fiber print. So good in fact, that a fiber print dry mounted on acid board can fetch over a million dollars at auction. Prints just look better dry mounted.

Exactly!
There's nothing worse than a beautiful print that has become wavy behind the glass.

[mandoman7]

John - how did you manage to get lint or grit in the drymount sandwich? Somewhat
rarely I've had it happen with high-tack acrylic adhesives, which is a far more tricky
mounting process, but almost never drymounting. Just takes a small compressor and blowgun to keep things out of the way. You also need to change the pad in the
press if it gets too old and starts to decompose. All these "problem" comments on
this thread make me wonder if people are ever properly trained in the use of this
kind of equipment. Drymounting is just about the easiest and more reliable form of
permanent mounting I can think of, at least for fiber-based prints. And believe me, I've worked with all kinds of mounting techniques, and even have invented a couple of specialized ones. I just wish every kind of photographic print could be so amenable to such a direct and relatively inexpensive technique.

It mystified me, too. I didn't have compressed air and maybe that would've solved my problem. I did use a brush and went over all surfaces repeatedly. I was working in isolation and didn't have anyone to compare notes with (pre-internet). I am taking note of those who like the process, though, and its possible that I am someone people should ignore...

[Allen in Montreal]

Hi Allen, I sincerely hope that you have your answer from this thread, and choose the best way to display your work. I am assuming that you are considering dry mounting gelatin fiber prints.

I dry mounted my first prints in 1953, and have continued to use this process ever since. It has been my only method of presentation, to private collectors, museum exhibitions and museum collections. I have never been asked by any of the aforementioned to alter this method of presentation.

Simply, it is the best presentation of a fiber print. So good in fact, that a fiber print dry mounted on acid board can fetch over a million dollars at auction. Prints just look better dry mounted.

Hello Merg,

Yes, I will stay the course and continue dry mounting.
I was taken aback by her reaction since everything she has done for me to date has been dry mounted. I spoke with her last night by phone and she will go ahead and dry mount the prints.

I googled the top selling prints, Edward Weston has two in the very small, million dollar plus group.

[Merg Ross]

I googled the top selling prints, Edward Weston has two in the very small, million dollar plus group.

Yes, and dry mounted to acid board.

[Roger Thoms]

If drymounted prints become loose they were never mounted correctly in the first place. Common mistakes include failing to predry to mount board or print itself, too
low a temperature, or insufficient time or pressure in the press.

I agree. I use an older Seal dry mount press which doesn't have a thermometer. I use temperature indicator strip to set the press to the correct temperature (Seal Cat. No. 908). This way I know I have the thermostat set correctly, which on my press is about 60 degrees off.

Oh yes I generally drymount my silver prints. I like to cut the window mat about a half inch bigger than the mounted print and then I sign the mount board directly below the print. I also use the same mat board for the window mat and mount board.

On the occasional inkjet print which I print on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag I use photo corners. I print up to 13x19 and have found that the paper say flat, or at least flat enough for my tastes.

Roger

[Drew Wiley]

I have reason to believe that some of the older drymount tissues were fairly effective
acid barriers in their own right. I've had some fairly detailed conversations with paper
conservators about this, but there's a bit of disagreement about what actually went in
some of these tissues. Similarly today, polyester print bases like one encounters with
Cibachrome and Fuji Supergloss are very effective barriers themselves. However, I
always play it safe and mount silver prints only on linen ragboard. This is not the best
substrate for every kind of print. Things like albumen prints and dye transfer prints
should not be mounted on an alkaline (buffered) substrate. For these you get the
unbuffered equivalent.

[Ken Lee]

Is there a way to keep larger prints flat, without dry mounting ?

How about a few strips of archival tape, in the shape of an X, behind the print ?

Will heavier paper stay flatter as a matter of principal ?

I like glossy inkjet paper. Is there a heavy glossy inkjet paper that people can recommend ?

[John Jarosz]

The reason the paper curls is because the gelatin emulsion absorbs humidity and changes dimension. It also changes dimension as temperature changes. The paper and gelatin expand & contract at different rates, so there is really no way to prevent curling long term.

I have thought about dry mounting another sheet of fixed out white silver paper to the back of the print so all the forces are symmetrical (Both emulsions face out.) Then the sandwich would probably stay flat. I think the "X" idea whould should up in the viewing side of the print after some time has passed.

John

[csant]

Yes, and dry mounted to acid board.

Would it get less if it was not dry mounted?

[Drew Wiley]

Yes, there are other ways to keep prints flat - like wet mounting, which is often used
for very large prints, but ideally requires a vacuum press and is trickier than dry mounting. You can use spray adhesives, which are effective at shortening your own life as well as that of the image. Back-to-back mounting? That's like putting the print
on a super thin mount board. I will still warp, especially on display. I've mentioned acrylic foil adhesives earlier, which are generally used for big color display prints -
require special equipment and are absolutely unforgiving of even the slightest mistake.
Expensive too. Tape applied to the sides or one edge? - the print will buckle in the
middle unless it's quite small. All these things have been tried over and over again.
Some things work, some things don't. That is why drymounting has been popular for
decades.

[tgtaylor]

Interesting thread.

Yesterday, while researching mounting methods on the forum, I was referred to Ross Alan's website where he states:

"I quit dry mounting prints sometime in the mid 1980’s, or at least I stopped mounting them in the conventional fashion. I print with a minimum of a 1″ margin between the image and the edge of the paper. Prints 11×14 and smaller I don’t mount at all. I flatten the air-dried prints in a mount press and then put them in a presentation/handling mat. A properly sized bevel overmat is hinged to a backing board, and the print is then positioned in the window and then corner-mounted to the backing. 16×20 and 20×24 prints are mounted onto a sheet of 2-ply museum board to stiffen the print and make it flatter, but they are corner-mounted in a handling mat in much the same manner as the smaller prints."

The above, however - pasted from his website this evening - is not in the exact language that I was referred to yesterday in which he states that, unless specifically requested by the client, he corner mats all prints sized 20x24 and below to a 2-ply board the same size as the paper and then mounts that inside a 4-ply matt. For those prints greater than 20x24 he dry mounts. What would be the benefit of that as compared to corner mounting the print to the 4 ply board and maybe putting foam board in the back?

[NER]

I always dry mount, and I don't agree that the process is irreversible. You can remove a mounted print by heating it in a press for a period sufficient to drive the adhesive into the mount. (This follows from the fact that when tissue adheres to print but not the mount, the temperature is too low, and that when tissue adheres to the mount but not the print, the temperature is too high.)

N. Riley
http://normanrileyphotography.com