When framing pictures do you use glass or not....

[ataim]

If you do, what kind do you like?

[Gem Singer]

Years ago, I used glass for framing prints.

Glass is heavy weight, especially for large prints. A valuable prized print was lost because the hangers broke under the weight, the glass splintered, and the print was ruined.

In another incident, a glass framed print was destroyed because the glass shattered and the print was severely damaged during a move.

Since then, I have been using Plexiglass (acrylic) from Amarican Frame. It's lighter weight and less breakable. It's also available in UV and glare-proof versions.

www.americanframe.com

[Michael Graves]

Since then, I have been using Plexiglass (acrylic) from Amarican Frame. It's lighter weight and less breakable. It's also available in UV and glare-proof versions.

www.americanframe.com

Ditto. They also have good prices on bulk framing materials.

[BrianShaw]

I still use glass but only 11x14 and smaller. Some of my older 20x24 are with glass, but for the last decade or so I've opted for plexi for the larger sizes.

[William McEwen]

Ansel wrote that photographers shouldn't use Plexiglas because its a gas that gives off harmful vapors, or something like that. I, too, lost a print to glass damage... I imagine more prints have been damaged by real glass than plastic glass.

I still have about 20 framed prints from a 1985 exhibition of mine. I used the UF3 (?) light protective Plexiglas, and I'm still bugged by the color -- it isn't clear, there is a yellowish tinge.

[coops]

I recently mounted several 20x30 color prints to foam core using a heat press and framed them in a plain metal frame with no Matt or glass/acrylic. I sprayed the prints with moab print protector. There is little to no reflection which really makes them pop and of course they are very light to carry. Of course this is not for every print, but it went down really well at a few art shows I did recently.

[Jon Shiu]

I think it would be cool to dry mount onto aluminum. Haven't done it myself yet. They do it for large prints for museum shows sometimes.

Jon

[William McEwen]

Thanks for mentioning American Frame. I'll check it out.

There used to be a company called Light Impressions :D and I purchased all my frames from them. A year or two ago, they discontinued my favorite wood frame and my favorite metal frame, so I've been forced to use ones I'm not as happy with.

By the way, for those interested in such things, the word is Plexiglas. It's a trademark, and it's spelled with one s.

[Ash]

Jon, I got in trouble for mounting some prints onto plain mountboard and sticking them to the wall. The gallery said I should have taken more consideration and used metal instead...

I guess they didn't realise the added cost and risks involved. Like glass, if the metal falls, it will cause a lot of damage (sheet metal will cut deep)


Plastics are good instead of glass as you say, but they can still splinter. They are brittle at certain angles of pressure. I've found in the UK they attract a lot of dust and particles from static build-up.

[al olson]

I recently mounted several 20x30 color prints to foam core using a heat press and framed them in a plain metal frame with no Matt or glass/acrylic. I sprayed the prints with moab print protector. There is little to no reflection which really makes them pop and of course they are very light to carry. Of course this is not for every print, but it went down really well at a few art shows I did recently.

I concur. Five years ago I was exhibiting at an art show in Denver. The assigned flats were opposite large floor-to-ceiling, north-facing windows. After my work was hung I left. When I returned, as I walked toward my photos, the glare was so bad that I could scarcely identify the subject matter. I immediately pulled them down, removed the glass, and rehung them.

No matter what kind of glass you use there are reflections, attenuation of light passing through the glass both ways, and overall glare. The nonglare glass attenuates the light even more. Compared to glass-encased photographs, the contrast and tonality of glassless photographs stand out in their richness.

I have come up against the argument that the glass is needed to "protect" the photograph. What is it being protected from? No one uses glass to protect a one-of-a-kind painting. Glass is not used over photographs printed on canvas. All of my photographs are replaceable if they incur damage. The only time I use glass on my photographs is when they are hung in a food preparation environment to shield them from airborne greases and other particulate matter.

[William McEwen]

All of my photographs are replaceable if they incur damage.

I'm NOT picking on you, Al -- but I'm curious if everyone else shares this view...

[BrianShaw]

I mostly agree with al's sentiment. Only a couple that were printed by a real master printer who is no longer with us are considered by me to be irreplacable.

[ataim]

Compared to glass-encased photographs, the contrast and tonality of glassless photographs stand out in their richness.

I agree here. Normally at home I don't have glass or Plexiglas. But I'm am donating a few pictures, and was curious on how others presented theirs.



All of my photographs are replaceable if they incur damage.

Yep, me too. Cost of reprinting is the only "cost of loss"

[Gem Singer]

Why would anyone want to allow a perfectly good print to be destroyed with the reason: "what the hell, I can always make another one".

Doesn't sound reasonable to me.

What if it was impossible to make another one?

Better safe than sorry.

[BrianShaw]

Doesn't sound reasonable to me.

But that's a very nice benefit of an art that allows for relatively easy and faithful reproduction.

[William McEwen]

Even if I stopped photographing today (which so many have urged me to do), I would still be facing 10 years of printing all the negatives I've ignored or wanted a few extra prints of.

Life is short and getting shorter, and I don't consider any of my prints expendable.

[Gem Singer]

In both cases I described in post #2 the artists was no longer alive.

Both were irreplaceable original prints.

How would you go about solving that situation?

[Merg Ross]

For the past twenty years I have used only acrylic when exhibiting my prints. It used to be the standard for museums and galleries to use glass, but fortunately that has changed for the most part. The glass gave a definite tint to the print beneath and there was also the breakage issue already noted.

As to being replaceable, some of mine are not. There is a thread presently on the forum as to why; "the permanence of film". In some cases I no longer have a printable negative. Also, vintage prints are not replaceable, as the replacement would not be a vintage print. My prices reflect that they are not easily replaceable.

I agree, that there is nothing to rival viewing a print free of glass or acrylic; however, when my prints are returned from exhibition with the acrylic scratched and gouged, I am glad the emulsion had protection.

[BrianShaw]

Both were irreplaceable original prints.

How would you go about solving that situation?

Those are either hard-to-replace or irreplaceable and warrant additional cautions. Many other photographic prints aren't in that category.

[bob carnie]

Has anyone heard of a sprayon glass that is being used in the UK on sides of trains?
I thought this was a potentially amazing development

mount print to aluminum, spray on glass, floated on wall -WoW

We do a lot of float frames on aluminum but always the protection of the print
becomes an issue.

[Drew Wiley]

Bob - I'd be concerned about the solvents. A number of years ago I did an experiment
just for the hell of it, and set up a spray booth and proper ventilation and respiratory
gear, taking a clue from the trade which bascially applies mirror-gloss veneers of mylar
of thin stainless on display walls - it's tricky. So I figured out how to permanently mount a large Ciba print absolutely smooth - no orangepeel whatsoever, using this
nasty industrial contact adhesive. Obviously, I wasn't experienting with my best prints,
but with big "test" prints. One of them I hung indoors for a client who understood the
archival risk, but where it sits unfaded to this day. The other I propped up in the window where it received moderate direct sunlight, and it faded out in a week! This
showed me just how stressed the dyes can get - or how close to the threshold of
failing, from just a single exposure to hostile solvents (even those which dry in a matter of minutes). But I would have never offered that display technique anyway,
even if it had proven OK for the print, because the solvents were so unhealthy.

[ataim]

As to being replaceable, some of mine are not. Also, vintage prints are not replaceable, as the replacement would not be a vintage print. My prices reflect that they are not easily replaceable..... however, whe my prints are returned from exhibition with the acrylic scratced and gouged, I am glad the emulsion had protection

I agree that exhibitions should be protected. But in my own house, there little to zero chance that a pictures when properly hung will ever fall of the wall or be damaged. Well maybe from UV rays, but none have direct sunlight hitting them.

[Jim Jones]

If you do, what kind do you like?

I don't like window glass, but it is appropriate here. I just finished replacing broken glass in 7 16x20 frames that were mishandled in a move. It's an acceptable risk for us with unsophisticated and low budget clients. Using proper glass or Plexiglas might increase costs severalfold. I'd rather make photographs available to many than affordable to only a wealthy few.

[paulr]

I switched years ago from glass to plexi.

But the best looking options I've seen are museum glass (http://www.tru-vue.com/Tru-Vue/Products/33/), and another similar product whose name I forget.

The stuff is so glare-free it's practically invisible. I first saw it at a high end gallery showing Steven Shore prints ... for a minute I thought there was no glass at all. The gallery director looked annoyed when she found out I was interested in the glass, not in buying a print ...

The stuff has no color cast and it blocks UV. It is not shatter resistant, so I wouldn't ship anything in it. It's also really expensive.

[Drew Wiley]

Paul - there is a shatter-resistant plastic equivalent to this - optically-coated acrylic.
But it's much more expensive than even optically coating picture glass. At the moment it's probably around six hundred bucks for a small sheet big enough to
make glazing for two 20X24 prints, or one 30x20, and that's wholesale!

[polyglot]

I use museum glass but that's for display at home where the air is not necessarily clean. I have some canvases unprotected but they're trivially replaceable by sending a file to the printers again. Given that my 16x20s represent an hour or three of work, I'm not keen to redo them though it's physically possible.

[Arne Croell]

My preference is the coated glass, like the Museum glass mentioned, followed by acrylic. Btw, there are more manufacturers in addition to Tru-Vue, the maker of Museum glass, Ultravue (same thing as Museum glass but with less UV protection and cheaper), and Optium (the insanely expensive coated acrylic version). Schott makes Mirogard, which comes in different thicknesses and also in a thicker shatterproof laminated version, and there are also ArtGlass by Groglass and Luxar by Hy-Tech-Glass. In addition to the antireflective coating, those glasses are also low in iron, removing the greenish tinge of regular window glass.

[lloyd]

Pollutants in the air, dust, fingerprints, etc., I would personally not display without glazing. That being said I agree with Merg and Arne, can't have that green tint of window glass screwing up my hard won toning, so acrylic it is. Optionally, Howard Glass in Worcester MA sells schott 270 optically clear glass-no coloration-for pretty reasonable prices in a variety of thicknesses.....I use this for contact frames, glass neg carriers etc. Not sure how it compares to the Mirogard Arne mentions.

[Drew Wiley]

Optically coated glass is considerably cheap than optically-coated acrylic and lies nice and flat, and is conspicuously clearer
than ordinary float glass; but besides being fragile, it is much more prone to condensation than acrylic. This fact can be a big deal in display environments where the temperature or humidity can fluctuate. It's a magnet for mildew.

[Kirk Gittings]

Coming up in the next couple of years with 100 shows of my work since 1972 (not including restaurants or such) many not framed by me but by the museum or gallery, everyone of them has been glazed, if large with UV Plexi (above 16x20) if small with a clear glass. Caveat when I sell prints framed, if the print, no matter what the size, will be hung in a high traffic area I always use UV Plexi, with inkjet no matter what I use a uv blocking glass or Plexi.

[Drew Wiley]

I never liked what the slightly yellowish tint of UV-plexi did to blues in color prints (slightly muted them, naturally). And in
actual testing, it seemed to make very little difference when harsh UV like direct window light or halogens were involved. I ran quite a number of actual tests - the improvment in dye longevity was marginal at best. But the whole question of how optical brighteners and spotting dyes hold up in silver-gelatin prints is another question - I've never seen any degredation in my own prints yet. Inkjet has a lot of unknowns, especially with regard to the integrity of the surface, since there's not any gelatin binder. UV resistance of the underlying fiber structure would be one of my worries - if it goes, so will everything on top, and everyone know that "archival" has become a bit of a misleading marketing term for merely buffered paper. Better to be safe than sorry, I guess.... but only time will tell.

[andrew gardiner]

I have come up against the argument that the glass is needed to "protect" the photograph. What is it being protected from? No one uses glass to protect a one-of-a-kind painting.

I don't know if you've ever noticed Al but people have the annoying habit of spitting as they talk, particularly at something like a private view where everyones had a few drinks and are all gassing away. I've even seen people do it when talking about prints that are laid out on the table, they don't mean to but they do. I have one very polite artist friend who always covers his mouth with his hand as he talks when looking at another's unprotected work.
I have to say also I've rarely seen paper based paintings or drawings exhibited without protection. Oil paintings aren't nearly so vulnerable for obvious reasons.

[al olson]

Wow! After 26 months of dormancy this thread has been resuscitated . . .


I don't know if you've ever noticed Al but people have the annoying habit of spitting as they talk, particularly at something like a private view where everyones had a few drinks and are all gassing away.

. . .

I have noticed. In fact a print that I had on exhibit was returned with tiny wine-colored specs (from the opening?) on the emulsion and on the matte. A PEC PAD with a little PEC spray cleaned it right off. I always carefully inspect my prints when they have been returned from exhibit.

So far none of my glassless prints have suffered irreparable damage, neither on exhibit nor on my own walls. None of my own photography is irreplaceable. From my experience, the likelihood of damage to unglazed prints is extremely low.

I always use glass on prints that are exhibited in restaurants because of the contaminants from cooking. For three years I was rotating prints monthly in a doughnut shop. You would not believe the amount of cinnamon dust that would accumulate in a month.

However, where galleries are insistent on glass, I comply. In those cases I use sheet glass for frames to 16x20 and plexiglass for the larger frames.

[mike rosenlof]

No one uses glass to protect a one-of-a-kind painting. Glass is not used over photographs printed on canvas. All of my photographs are replaceable if they incur damage. The only time I use glass on my photographs is when they are hung in a food preparation environment to shield them from airborne greases and other particulate matter.

I don't think this is correct. I was recently at a Van Goh exhibit and many of the paintings were framed behind glass. Or at least a sheet of transparent material of some kind. I wasn't about to tap on it and see if it was glass or acrylic. There was _very_ little reflection from the glass. I suspect it had antireflection coating just like our lenses.

I am under the impression that acrylic or even polycarbonate is the choice for framing now. It's lighter, doesn't shatter, and is (should be?) UV blocking. Static dust attraction and scratching seem to be the major disadvantages, add cost too, I guess. None of my framed photos are larger than 11x14 in 16x20 frames. I use glass. Nothing special. 3/32" picture framing glass. I would probably use polycarbonate for something really special.

[Drew Wiley]

More and more, optically coated acrylic is being used over valuable paintings. It's got a big advantage over museum glass in
terms of being break-resistant, but is even more expensive. I remember being in the Natl Gallery in DC, and there were Vermeers, Van Goghs, and Rembrandts totally exposed. The guard were just chatting with one another way off in the next
building. I'm sure there were alarms behind the paintings, but that would not stop a nut from pulling out a can of spray paint
or a knife and vandalizing them. It has happened in other places, and I guess for an appraised value of a hundred million
dollars or so, they could afford to invest in a few square feet of the appropriate acrylic.

[emmett]

More and more, optically coated acrylic is being used over valuable paintings. It's got a big advantage over museum glass in
terms of being break-resistant, but is even more expensive. I remember being in the Natl Gallery in DC, and there were Vermeers, Van Goghs, and Rembrandts totally exposed. The guard were just chatting with one another way off in the next
building. I'm sure there were alarms behind the paintings, but that would not stop a nut from pulling out a can of spray paint
or a knife and vandalizing them. It has happened in other places, and I guess for an appraised value of a hundred million
dollars or so, they could afford to invest in a few square feet of the appropriate acrylic.


We use Tru Vue Optium. It's beyond expensive. I just ordered some of the 6mm stuff which you wouldn't necessarily use for framing photographs but a 6'x10' sheet costs $4,250.00

[Drew Wiley]

Yeah, that's pretty wild, but twice the area and thickness of what one would typically use for cutting down to photograph size. The going rate is around $550 per sheet (wholesale) - still five times the cost ordinary acrylic - but it's sure an elegant
way to get rid of reflections.

[Drew Wiley]

Mike - on ordinary acrylic, static is controlled with a simple wipe down with antitstatic cleaner. Polycarbonate is not typically
used because it is not as clear - between 10% to 15% less light transmission.

[John Brady]

I love glass and use it for pieces up to 40x60 in. I am using Tru Vue Ultravue glass which is like a poor mans museum glass. It's water white, anti reflective and thinner than normal glass.

Glass is flat, acrylic always looks bowed in larger pieces.

www.timeandlight.com

[Drew Wiley]

Yeah, but that coated picture glass is fragile, so not ideal for shipping, and is far less insulating, and prone to condensation
behind it if there are harsh day/night cooling cycles in humid climates. I always ask where a print is to be displayed before
I frame it. I worked with several varieties of optically coated glass. But just displaying things at a whim - and wham! That
clarity was like throwing a Super Duper lure at a trout than had never seen one. ... sure clinched a few print sales for me!

[Xavier Cook]

I prefer using glass picture frames. I usually get 20*30 picture frames (http://www.arttoframe.com/20x30_picture_frames/1). The reasons why I use them are several. They protect the images from airborne pollutants. Everything from methane to sulfur dioxide to breath & spit from those who look from an inch away & explain your image to everyone within earshot.

Try a few images on a wall without the glass & see how long they last before fingerprints, scratches & food get on them & you may look more positively at the glass as something needed to show the images.

[Kirk Gittings]

I'm NOT picking on you, Al -- but I'm curious if everyone else shares this view...

I don't. The best printers and galleries and museums in the world put prints under glass. What don't they know? Each of my prints have a value and that is lost if someone hawks a big fluggy on one. :) I can reprint it but the value of that damaged print is lost. Whether it can be reprinted does not diminish the value of that print. Is one's time and materials worth nothing? Paintings, either oil or acrylic, are far more cleanable than a silver print. I've tried both and there is a huge difference. But prints are not whether they are lithographs, woodcuts or gelatin silver photographs and yes lithographs and woodcuts are put under glass/acrylic. Photographs on canvas usually get a protective coating which is also much more cleanable that a bare print. I have no experience with alt process prints like carbon.

What can happen? One thing I have seen is the end of a broom or mop handle poking your print leaving a decent scuff mark.

[John Kasaian]

Our District Fair Photography Competition prohibits using glass. After the 2 week run the prints being exhibited get kind of funky.

[Drew Wiley]

It is unthinkable to me to display any kind of valuable print unprotected. I prefer acrylic to glass per se because it is shatter-resistant and a much better thermal
insulator. I've seen mold grow behind glass due to condensation. I once saw about 75% of a master set of Manual Alvarez Bravo's prints ruined due to being unprotected. Fingerprints, coffee splatters, donut jam. Wine and cheese don't help either. I frame everything myself. I've seen enough back rooms of galleries to
question their competence. Kinda like not wanting to eat out after you've seen a few actual restaurant kitchens.