I just bought a really old seal dry mount press. It appears to work fine. If mounting an 8x10 print (less < inch all the way around) to a piece of "museum" card stock, what size boarders do you allow ? I know it is personal choice, but I read somewhere that 11x14 is not a good size. I was thinking of 11x13. The mounted prints will be kept as part of my portfolio or taped to a wall.

-- Craig Brown (csbrown@tastybuzz.com), October 29, 1999

Answers

It is a personal thing. I use 14x18. 14x17 and 12x15 are also common choices.

-- Jeff White (zonie@computer-concepts.com), October 29, 1999.

I envy you your dry mounting press. You say, it's a personal choice, and you are in the enviable position of being able to get your own, personal answer. Try and see. I have used 11x14 and liked it. The placement of the print can be critical, however. Do you have a routine for placing the print at or near the "optical center" of the board?

-- Paul Harris (pharris@neosoft.com), October 29, 1999.

FWIW life will be easier and less expensive if you stick with standarized frame sizes, (i.e. 8" X 10" mounted on 11" X 14" instead of 12" X 16") assuming after mounting you want to put your prints in a frame.

Some folks prefer to "center" their prints so that the top margin is slightly larger than the bottom one. It was never explained to me why but apparently this is/was de riguer in the art world. Now that I think of it, maybe it was the other way around?

-- Sean yates (yatescats@yahoo.com), November 01, 1999.

It is the other way around.

-- J.L. Kennedy (jlkennedy@qnet.com), November 01, 1999.

Yes, the other way round. The reason is that if the borders are equal, the bottom one looks too thin (an optical illusion), and the image seems to have 'slid down' the mount. If you make the bottom one very slightly wider than the rest, they all look equal. If you make it obviously wider, this gives the impression of the mount 'holding up' the image, and some people like this.

-- Alan Gibson (Alan.Gibson@technologist.com), November 03, 1999.

I was shown this way of finding the "optical center" of a mounted print.

-Tack the dry mount tissue to the back of the print.

-Trim the print to the size you want.

-Place the print in the upper left corner of the mounting board.

-Draw a vertical line (light pencil!) halfway between the right edge of the print and the right edge of the board.

-Draw a horizontal line halfway between the bottom of the print and the bottom of the board. (If you put the print at the intersection of these lines, it would of course be exactly centered...you are not going to do this!)

-Draw a light line from the LOWER LEFT corner of the print to the point where the horizontal line touches the RIGHT edge of the board. This line will cross the vertical line a little above the horizontal line.

-Align the print against the vertical line, and put the bottom at that point where that diagonal line that you just drew crosses the vertical line.

-Tack the print down, erase the pencil lines and mount.

This works pretty well for 8x10 and full-frame on 8x10 paper. Odd sizes may want some tweaking.

ALTERNATE METHOD: Just bump the print up about 1/2 inch ;)

-- Paul Harris (pharris@neosoft.com), November 08, 1999.