Beginner Framing Odd-Size Photos

Sony Corleone

Sony Corleone

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Photo software programs contain a little joke. When you crop, they default to whatever standard proportions your camera puts out. To fix photos properly, you have to switch over to "unconstrained" to get a proper crop, unless your shots just happen to match common sizes perfectly.

A new printer is arriving today, and my wife and I plan to frame a lot of shots for our walls. Some will be in standard proportions, but some won't. I don't want to pay to have custom mats made for dozens of photos unless I have to, so what do most people here do in this situation? Are any of the DIY mat tools worth having?

For very large shots that were printed somewhere else, I have used custom-sized frames from Amazon, but I don't see myself doing that for a large number of smaller photos.
 
I have to frame the occasional odd proportioned photo, tried several of the plastic matt cutters and they can do the job although they occasionally make a mess of it veering off the ruler or not making it all the way through the matt board the first time. This can get expensive when a single cut can ruin a whole sheet of mount board. If you ever get to the point where you think I can get another cut out of this blade, don't just change it out.
Rather than go for one of the cheaper ones I would look at Logan Team systems matt cutting kit if you plan on doing a fair bit of framing. I bought one in the late 90's and it still works as well as it ever has, a bit pricey but waaay better than the plastic style ones.
 
You’re complaining about a constraint, then asking how others deal with ignoring the constraint. (Pun intentional)

The answer to ‘readily available mounts and frames’ is to use standard print ratios 5:4, 3:2 or 16:9 for pano’s. You create a problem by using custom ratios
 
Sometimes you have to depart from traditional sizes to make a photo work. That is the issue.
 
RyanB said:
....
Rather than go for one of the cheaper ones I would look at Logan Team systems matt cutting kit if you plan on doing a fair bit of framing. I bought one in the late 90's and it still works as well as it ever has, a bit pricey but waaay better than the plastic style ones.
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+1 for a Logan Matt cutter, easy to get the hang of and looks to be sufficiently robust to last me into my old age.
 
Sony Corleone said:
Sometimes you have to depart from traditional sizes to make a photo work. That is the issue.
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I understand the issue, my most prized framed image is a long pano stitch in a custom frame. And as it was a one-off I didn’t mind the expense. But as a general rule* I ‘see’ images at 3:2 because that’s what 40 odd years of camera use has done to me.

*my last remaining ‘job’ involves photographing an awards ceremony, and oddly I deliver those mostly 5:4 because of the location
 
The new printer is doing the initialization thing. I look forward to seeing what I can do.
 
Sony Corleone said:
from Amazon
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Amazon is not to be mentioned in this house, unless you want to disappear down the dark tube of consuming populism ...

Let's be genuine primitives, & claim our territories. Our futures are almost certainly dystopian, & to quibble about that is a waste of time. We faff with trivia.
 
I thought we already lived inside that tube.
 
Sony Corleone said:
Photo software programs contain a little joke. When you crop, they default to whatever standard proportions your camera puts out. To fix photos properly, you have to switch over to "unconstrained" to get a proper crop, unless your shots just happen to match common sizes perfectly.
Click to expand...
Or you can learn to see in the aspect ratio/s of your camera/cameras. :D

Remember when people filed their negative carriers to print a black border round their pictures to show they hadn't cropped? Framing to the native aspect ratio was considered a mark of compositional skill.
 
Sony Corleone said:
I thought we already lived inside that tube.
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I try not to. ;-)

Ed Sutton said:
Or you can learn to see in the aspect ratio/s of your camera/cameras.
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I've composed in camera for many, many years (given that my subjects are static) - and it's been a product of the cameras I've had that most of my images have been 3:2. Still true today.
 
Have you tried expanding the canvas to add a border and put your cropped image into the aspect ratio of the frame? Photoshop/Image/Canvas.
 
Hi. I never got involved in this forum before. I used photoshop and want to get it again. I used it to trim my pictures to standard picture sizes. You could make use of theire free online cloud.
 
I have found that even though I make every attempt at framing photos to the aspect ratio, it is sometimes the case that it is improved by cropping to different proportions. I'd be interested to see how such photos sit within a conventionally sized frame.
 
Seagull Shooter said:
I mean, do they always look inherently better with even sized borders?
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Not at all, it's just a convention. The image itself is the power in the frame, and the (matt) borders are very secondary. If you're buying ready-made frames, it's rarely going to be exact.

Sometimes the bottom border is given a bit of extra measure, anyway, which really comes into its own if the matt is being written on (with title / other info), which alters the distribution of visual weight.
 
There is a fad in which photos are displayed way up high in their matts. I am looking forward to the end of that. They look like butchers' aprons.
 
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