Hello! Learning about acrylic glazing -- UV, AR, etc.
Posted: Sat 30 Jun, 2018 10:11 pm
Hello! I'm in the L.A. area. Photography is a hobby. I've done mostly medium and large format B&W work, landscapes primarily, and some color work. Printing with Epson 3880. I often frame B&W images (usually in the 16X20 range) in the manner I've seen from Ansel Adams and a few others. Image mounted on white backing board, single white mat (my choice of whites might vary slightly, depending on how I print the image and if there is any toning) with 1/2 reveal around the image, and a simple black frame. I use a C&H Advantage Pro.
For color images I seem to prefer a double mat and often spend quite a lot of time selecting whites or colors and "matting" the image in photoshop to try to get a sense of how it will look. I usually find appropriate framing online. Or I'll use frames I've purchased at estate sales or yard sales and often find some remarkable frames at low prices. I sometimes alter the frames using a chop saw.
My interest in contacting the forum concerns the use of plexiglas in framing. Only indoors use. I'm not a museum, but I like very high quality. I like "archival", but just for great grandkids (who will have the digital files) not fans in the next millenium. I have a local mom-n-pop hardware store that is happy to cut plexi for me, so I can store large sheets and take over there for cutting. The choices I'm aware of currently are 1) UV filtering OP3/UF-5 acrylic; 2) Clear OP3/P99 UV filtering non-glare (seems to be about 50% more than OP3/UF-5); and 3) UV filtering museum grade OP2-UF-3 acrylic (seems to be about 100% more than OP3/UF-5). And then I see there is something called Tru-vue which has multiple options and seems to be the ne plus ultra of glazing, and very expensive. And "Groglass" which makes an anti-reflective glass product, and may enter the plastics arena in the future (or has already??) with a product to compete with Tru-vue Optimum Museum Acrylic (UV and anti-reflective). This article was helpful: http://cacaoeditions.com/anti-reflectio ... ing-glass/
There may be other choices that I am not aware of. I'd be interested in hearing from others. (By analogy, yes, if I were wealthy I'd buy a $200,000+ audio system, but my experience is that I (my ears only) can get 90-95% of that quality for 1/10 the price or much less.) I'm sure this is a topic that has been discussed at enormous length in many places already. I'm in the learning stages. I will check this forum, and buy some samples, and if anyone knows of a particular link, that would be great. I'll check back in with my 2 cents once I get some experience. Bob
For color images I seem to prefer a double mat and often spend quite a lot of time selecting whites or colors and "matting" the image in photoshop to try to get a sense of how it will look. I usually find appropriate framing online. Or I'll use frames I've purchased at estate sales or yard sales and often find some remarkable frames at low prices. I sometimes alter the frames using a chop saw.
My interest in contacting the forum concerns the use of plexiglas in framing. Only indoors use. I'm not a museum, but I like very high quality. I like "archival", but just for great grandkids (who will have the digital files) not fans in the next millenium. I have a local mom-n-pop hardware store that is happy to cut plexi for me, so I can store large sheets and take over there for cutting. The choices I'm aware of currently are 1) UV filtering OP3/UF-5 acrylic; 2) Clear OP3/P99 UV filtering non-glare (seems to be about 50% more than OP3/UF-5); and 3) UV filtering museum grade OP2-UF-3 acrylic (seems to be about 100% more than OP3/UF-5). And then I see there is something called Tru-vue which has multiple options and seems to be the ne plus ultra of glazing, and very expensive. And "Groglass" which makes an anti-reflective glass product, and may enter the plastics arena in the future (or has already??) with a product to compete with Tru-vue Optimum Museum Acrylic (UV and anti-reflective). This article was helpful: http://cacaoeditions.com/anti-reflectio ... ing-glass/
There may be other choices that I am not aware of. I'd be interested in hearing from others. (By analogy, yes, if I were wealthy I'd buy a $200,000+ audio system, but my experience is that I (my ears only) can get 90-95% of that quality for 1/10 the price or much less.) I'm sure this is a topic that has been discussed at enormous length in many places already. I'm in the learning stages. I will check this forum, and buy some samples, and if anyone knows of a particular link, that would be great. I'll check back in with my 2 cents once I get some experience. Bob