Rolled up photographic print

[louisesimon]

Hi all,

Me and my business partner have been framing for about 9 months and owe a lot of thanks for advice and tips we've read on this forum.

We recently had a V. expensive fine art photo brought in to be framed in a contemporary gallery style. The print is on a high gloss paper and is about 90cm by 70cm. The artist very rarely exhibits using frames and usually just hangs them from clips. As the customer is having the print in his house he wants it to be framed to conservation standard, but mounted in a similar fashion to how the artist would exhibit it.

So we plan on hinging the print with 2 hinges. No window mat, a small 15mm gap between the print and the frame, using 12mm spacers. Hopefully you're still following, the problem is the print had been stored in a poster tube for a couple of years. By leaving it flat under some weight for a month, and carefully back rolling it we've got it almost flat but both ends still have a curve.

The client is a friend and we've explained that as we're still learning we may take a while as we don't want to do anything incorrect, but we now are running out of flattening ideas. Should we think about using more hinges along the top and bottom? It would be very simple to drymount it but this would devalue the art work, so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[Uncle Sumo]

Search forum using "hedgehog". Honestly! Read a few threads and have a go.

[prospero]

This is where you need your magic wand. Photo paper can be very springy. If it's been rolled for any time there is no way that it's ever going to lay flat of it's own accord. I once had a panoramic photo that had been rolled in a tube since 1947. Unbelievably springy. I managed to unroll it and put it in a drawer under weight for about 6 weeks. Soon as I took the weight off it rolled back up just as tight as ever.
If you hedgehog it, it won't go perfectly flat. It will fight back. Unless it is dead matt it will show every slight wave. The only way to make it flat is to stick it to a board. Not the done thing as you rightly observe.

Sometimes you just have to do the best you can with what you are presented with and make the customer aware that you can't do the impossible.

[Jonny2morsos]

It irritates me somewhat when people don't look after items they need framing and then it becomes the framer's problem to solve.

Perhaps we too easily (me included) say "OK I will see what we can do" rather than facing the problem head on at the time and telling the customer there is no way we can do what they are asking. Trouble is once they have left the item with us we seem to take ownership of the problem.

To get it flat it looks like it is going to have to be dry mounted and it is going to lose its value but in the condition it is in it probably has anyway. What about getting it stuck down on Dibond for a glass like finish?

[Not your average framer]

I wonder if Steve Goodall has the answer to this one!

[prospero]

There are reversible drymount films/tissues. I did try some years ago and found that it sometimes decides the spontaneously reverse. I think there is a definite knack to using it. Think you have to use just the right time/temp/pressure and let it cool under pressure.

Uncle Steve will no doubt have the gen.

But while this might provide a solution the getting it flat and being reversible, consider that you still have the issue of subjecting a valuable piece to heat and pressure in the process. Make sure you acquaint the customer with the risks. Don't let their problem become yours.

[Steve Goodall]

I wonder if Steve Goodall has the answer to this one!

...SEE THE ORIGINAL POST...


It would be very simple to drymount it but this would devalue the art work, so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I don't think my opinion would be appropriate on this occasion

[Steve Goodall]

Uncle Steve will no doubt have the gen.

...if you know you may want to reverse it DO NOT stick it down - "simples" as that meerkat says (searching for a meerkat smiley)

[prospero]

Dang photographers!

[Not your average framer]

Hi Steve,

I just wondered if the print could be flattened in a vacuum press, such as other art on paper. Obviously photographic papers are a little different to normal art on paper.

[Steve Goodall]

Hi Mark,

I simply wouldn't mess with it - God knows what media it is on etc...

Here's an idea though...

Frame it like the "artist" exhibits it...

Deep box frame - AR / UV glass - to protect & keep clarity - spacers for the sides to hold the glass of course - then add a couple of D rings on the spacers - 6" down from the top. Then suspend a washing line across the inside of the frame & hang the picture off it with a couple of clothes pegs

You have now created "the look" the artist strives for

It would probably look awful - but it is reversible

Make sure the clothes pegs are to conservation grade though & not those cheap things off the market

[prospero]

If a job is worth doing.....

[strokebloke]

Careful Prospero.
With that EOS and the neg clips, your wrinkles are beginning to show

[prospero]

Good Grief! I shall stick my head in the press forthwith.

[Roboframer]

Welcome to The Forum!

we plan on hinging the print with 2 hinges. No window mat, a small 15mm gap between the print and the frame, using 12mm spacers.

IOW float mounting it with 15mm of the mounting board showing around it? It would need more than 2 hinges and however many it would need it would be problematic due to its nature - glossy and curled.

If it really has to be totally flat and it if really has to be float mounted then sticking it down may be the only solution, but it doesn't have to be dry mounted, it can be wet mounted using starch paste and a vacuum press with no heat. ...... practice is required and Stevie baby can flog you a press if you ain't already got one.

If being absolutely embalmed is not essential - and should it really be if the way the artist presents these things dose not make them flat - then why not make that 15mm around the image a window mat and use two hinges? Or, if that border could be made wider (much wider, would look far better IMHO - take the frame away from the action - the artist doesn't use one - so why make yours a feature right next to the artwork) you could use non-adhesive methods such as edge mounting strips.

[prospero]

Been thinking.....

This print really has no intrinsic value. It may have been expensive, but not the same thing.

Before the advent of digital photography there would have been a negative. Now that would have been where the value was. And if an artist had produced a limited series of prints from the neg - and then destroyed the neg, then the prints would have value as they can never again be made. OK, you could copy the prints, but with the olde wet system they would never be as good as the ones taken straight off the neg. Same with digi stuff come to that.

Now there is a big difference between an image file on your HD and a negative. You can't copy a neg perfectly. It's a one of. A file on your PC can be copied umpteen times and each copy a perfect clone. Ctrl-C Ctrl-V. There's another one. If the artist declares that all files have been deleted, who can ever be sure? Easy to verify the destruction of a single negative.

Point is, while the means and possibility of making more prints exists, the prints are never going to be valuable.


So why not dry-mount it?

[Not your average framer]

Or float mount it as intended with spacers between the glass and the mountboard, plus a piece of 3mm acrylic between the spacers and the mountboard, so that the acrylic presses the edges of the photo flat against the mountboard.

Acrylic does not usually cause the same level of condensation issues as glass and with a layer of glass spaced away from the acrylic any significant temperature gradients capable of causing condensation issue should be on the glass only.

The air volume between the glass and the acrylic should provide sufficient isolation to largely elliminate any risk of significant temperature gradients on the acrylic. Please note that there must be a sufficient temperature gradient for condensation to occur at all.

I think that in these circumstances, that this is the best solution I can think of.