The Framers Forum

Hi all,

I'm a keen photographer and I have no experience with framing. I have recently prepared the team photos for my cricket club and put these in some very simple, cheap frames. However after a short time - a matter of some weeks - the photos have developed some clear undulations or wrinkles, presumably due to the lack of insulation in the club house. Please note that these are undulations and not lines arising from creases or folds.

I have removed one photo and, literally overnight whilst pressed under some heavy books, these wrinkles have decreased markedly but not completely gone.

The photos are printed on 8" x 12" matte paper (standard matte photo paper from Snappy Snaps) and have been mounted in either 8" x 12" or A4 frames. The photo is placed against the glass and held in place by a backing board with is clipped in place by clips attached to the frame - no inner framing going on here.

My questions are:
- are there any good ways of removing these wrinkles / undulations from the photo paper?
- can anyone recommend a good way of simply and inexpensively re-framing these photos to avoid or reduce future wrinkles / undulations from appearing? Initial impressions are one or more of the following:

1) relocating the photos to a different part of the club house where there are fewer temperature variations (they are currently mounted above head height so when the club is used in winter the air will heat up quicker there)

2) packing extra material, such as thin card, between the photo and the frame backing to keep it sandwiched hard in place - however would having a photo pressed against the glass damage the photo?

3) using some sort of adhesive tape (such as framer's tape) to fix the photo in place

4) some other mounting technique that I don't know about - I don't know how effective dry or wet mounting would be in these circumstances and we don't have a huge amount of money to spend on these photos

The main points to note here is that the cricket club is looking for a cost-effective solution to present these photos - they are not for archival purposes but we would like them to look good for a while.

Many thanks in advance - please let me know if you need any additional information.

Stephen Kent

Hi and Welcome Steven.

Where do I start?

Paper absorbs moisture from the atmosphere. When it does this, it gets bigger. If you put it in a frame with the edges squeezed around the outside, there is no room for expansion. The extra paper has nowhere to go, so it goes wavy. Holding it tight against the glass in a sandwich will not cure this. The forces involved when paper swells are quite considerable. Hard to credit, but think of a tree root growing though a brick wall. It's slow but extremely powerful. You could sandwich the photo between a concrete paving slab and a sheet of 1" thick plate glass and it still would go wavy. I won't dwell on the consequences of having photos in contact with glass.......

Two ways:

Stick the photo to a solid board. Lots of ways of doing this. Then put it in the frame using spacers to keep the glass off the surface.

If it is not desirable to stick the photo down, the a window mount is the way to do go. Basically, a piece of card with an aperture in the middle hinged to a backing board. Known as a 'bookmount' as you can open it like a book. The photo is placed on he back board and aligned with the window. Then it fixed to the backboard using small tabs, or hinges as they are referred to in the trade. Generally two, along the top edge.
The subject of hinging artwork is quite involved, but that's the general idea.
This allows the paper greater freedom to swell/shrink and done properly will prevent wrinkling. The window mount also provides a gap between paper and glass.
There is also the aesthetic aspect of having a border around the print, but framers don't just put wide mounts in frames just to sell a bigger frame.

Paper is funny stuff. Some will go wavy whatever you do. As you observe, hanging the frames in a unheated room after they were (presumably) framed in a warmer environment is a sure-fire recipe for waviness. A cold room isn't necessarily bad for pictures. It's sudden changes that do the harm.

Hope that casts some light.

Hi, Steven

Standard matte photo paper is good to absorv inkjet, ... and of course moisture. For inkjet printing, and to avoid wrinkling ( not expansion !) I use 260 grs paper or higher body paper.

Regards
Alberto