Dale's Handy Dandy Quick Frame

The problem

Anyone who's been seriously bit by the photography bug is likely to have a photo-quality inkjet printer at home. If you've really gone off the deep end you probably have a wider carriage printer – 13 inch – or even wider. One of the challenges of doing your own prints is how to display them. Framing is expensive. Portfolios are less expensive but introduce a different set of problems.

The problem came to a head for me thusly: Like seemingly half of the world I spend my day job hours in a standard office cubicle made from modular partitions. I have two framed prints on the cubicle "walls" to keep me company, but the current pair of prints have been up for more than half a year, once again nagging me to bring new prints from home to replace the old. To make matters worse, the wretched fluorescent lighting at work conspires with the UltraChrome pigment inks to randomly turn blues purple and other metameric wonders, making it a crap shoot what any given print will look like once I get it to the office. All of which led me to re-think the process.

What I really wanted was some way to change prints both frequently and painlessly. One part of the solution was fairly easy: bring a batch of prints to work in an empty paper box, reducing the number of occasions I have to lug an awkwardly size print carrier on the commuter train. But how to display them? It's easy enough to swap prints in the modular frames I have at work, but I'm tired of getting a new mat cut every time I come up with a new aspect ratio or over-all print size. The obvious solution would be simply to tack or pin the prints to the partition fabric or a cork board, but I'm loathe to put pin holes in the relatively expensive prints, since their permanent home is in a portfolio. Using the pins to bracket the prints wouldn't work due to sagging.

Fig 1: Quick frame on the job

The solution

Fig 1 shows the solution I finally hit upon; and it's one you can easily and inexpensively add to your own arsenal of display options. What you see is a cardboard rectangle with a 13"x19" print in the middle. This display can be hung like a frame on any wall, propped up against a wall, or tacked up on the wall of your cubicle at work. Obviously, this is neither a permanent nor a posh alternative. One thing this approach is ideal for is getting a print up on the wall where you can live with it as long as it takes for you to decide whether it's worth framing, needs re-editing, or sadly does not make the final cut. Taking down one print and putting up a different print takes all of three seconds. Another biggie: no more cost and hassle with different mats for each print size and aspect ratio.

Limitation: 13"x19" is about the largest practical print size for quick framing, unless you're using unusually thick paper stock for your prints. Otherwise the print will sag and slip out of the top mounting corners. Even 13"x19" prints in portrait orientation will give you problems with sagging if the paper stock is flimsy, such as most photo papers are.

Note: if sagging is an issue, try small squares of double-sided removable document tape (such as Scotch/3M product 2002); but first test with a piece of scrap paper of the same type you used to make your print that the tape releases and doesn't leave adhesive behind.

Here's what you need:

a sheet of heavy card stock to serve as the back board. Standard 4 ply mat board is nearly ideal and is what I've used here. Poster board is too flimsy, but glue it to a piece of corrugated cardboard and you've got something.

I recommend using a dark colour back board. I know photographers are obsessive about white mats, and you get that by leaving a generous white margin of the paper around the print area. But putting the print on a white back board will almost certainly look tacky: the paper white and board white are unlikely to be identical, plus the shadow of the paper's edge against the back board will look tackier still.

Think of the back board as it shows around the print as being equivalent to the frame, not to the mat.

Clear, self-adhesive mylar mounting corners. In a pinch you can make mounting corners yourself out of paper, but the clear ones are available in most any arts & crafts shop and are more elegant by half. If you can find 1/2" or larger corners that will help secure larger print sizes.
Pencil, ruler, straight edge, and razor knife.
3/4" finishing nails and double-sided removable document tape, optional.

Fig 2: Mounting corner detail

Procedure

Cut a rectangle of your cardboard sheet to a size at at least half an inch larger than the prints you want to mount. For example, if you want to display 8.5"x11" prints then make your back board 9.5"x12" or larger to taste. (I haven't yet tried flush mounting – cutting the back board to the same size as the print. So you're on your own if you want to experiment with it.)
On the back board lightly mark where the corners of your print will fall when the print is centered on the back board. For example, the back board I've used in Fig 1 is 14"x20" and my print size is 13"x19". That means the print in this example needs to be in 1/2" from the left and right edges and in 1/2" from top and bottom.
With the back board lying flat on your work surface, stick one mounting corner to any one of the four pencil marks you made in step 2. Insert the appropriate corner of a print into that mounting corner then take another mounting corner and slip it over the opposite corner of the print without yet letting it make contact with the back board.
Now move the print and mounting corner until it aligns with the appropriate pencil mark, then press down to adhere the mounting corner to the back board.
Repeat for the other two corners.

... And that's really all there is to it.

Hanging

If you want to hang the quick frame on a wall instead of just propping it up, drill or punch two small holes near the corners of the top edge of the back board. Use short, small-headed nails such as finishing nails (thumb tacks are probably too short) and hammer them into the wall at a comfortable viewing height. The whole assemblage should be light enough that you won't need plugs even if the wall is plaster board.

If you haven't hung many frames you may be tempted to use just one nail in the top centre of the back board. The problems with this are that the quick frame will forever be going crooked, may want to bow at the corners, and will be less securely hung.

Another option would be to drill the nail holes still near the top of the back board but in the area that will be covered by the print itself.

Going fancy

Plexiglass: If you have the tools or can get it cut to size, plexiglass (or even glass?) should make an especially elegant back board, whether the plexiglass is clear, translucent, or opaque. Plexiglass is heavier than cardboard, so will require somewhat more secure fastening if hung on a wall. Careful, though: plexiglass scratches and mars very easily.

Fancier still? Use two sheets of plexiglass – at least one perfectly transparent – forming a sandwich with enough of a gap between them that the print can be slipped in and out. A series of holes and pegs could be used to vertically centre the the print within the quick frame.

Fig 3: Quick frame in a frame

Creme de la creme: slip the quick frame into a frame and hang. As shown in Fig 3 I cut the back board to 16"x20" for a 13"x19" print – 16"x20" is a standard (and therefore inexpensive) frame size and I have several on hand for use about the house.

You don't need glass over the print, but if you do retain the glass, you need to use hidden shims between the quick frame and the "real" frame to keep the print from being squashed against the glass. Otherwise the print might conceivably stick to the glass and leave some of itself behind when you take the print out of the frame.

A modest investment in a modular metal frame or two is quite useful for anyone who wants to display her latest prints at home. Take the frame off the wall, remove the bottom bar with a few twists of a screw driver, slip out the quick frame, replace the previous print with a new one, re-assemble and re-hang. And if you leave off the frame's glass, you don't even have to take the frame down and open it up.

Fig 4: Frame size chosen to match print size

Finally, in Fig 4 I've used Photoshop to create a mock-up of what it would look like if I shelled out for 14" side bars instead of the 16" ones I already have.