Framing Photos

I broke down and ordered an underpinner (v nailer). It's called an underpinner because the frame moldings are placed right side up, allowing the user (me) to see how the joint looks. The vnail is inserted from the bottom. This machine allows moldings up to 4 1/2" wide and can stack vnails.

The Nielsen Bainbridge wood frame kits I have been using are:
1) Way too expensive,
2) Poor and inconsistent quality - many times the moldings do not match or their cuts are far from perfect. These things really stand out on the black frames.
3) Lead time - it takes over a week to get these crappy things delivered!
I'm sick of it!

I found a nearby molding/foamboard/matboard supplier in Portland, Oregon so my lead times will be shorter. Because I will have the capability of joining my own wood frames, my costs will be much lower. Not only will I be able to make a little more money (now I can actually charge for my labor costs), my resale prices will be lower.

Color Problems with layered(flattened) images

I've pretty musch resolved my color problem (the oranges were too yellow - now they are perfect!) by using profiles. Occassionally I still have problem with oranges/reds being not being red/orange enough and blues coming out too purple. This only occurs on images that have been created (vs. digital photos).

I worked on an image by (#0037) Alan Crosswaite today with no embedded color profile. Using Photoshop CS, I usually convert images (most are srgb) to Adobe RGB and print with no problem. This particular image had been digitally created with layers. After trying to adjust with absolutely no luck, I went back to the original file, left it at the original color profile (none) and it printed perfectly! Duh!

THE LESSON HERE IS IF THERE IS NO EMBEDDED COLOR PROFILE ON A DIGITALLY CREATED IMAGE, DON'T CONVERT IT!

Same thing on one of Verna Bice's images - it was a digitally altered photo of a woman. Her portraits always print out with a greenish tint to the skin because of too much black. I just adjusted the tone of the entire image to the reddish side.

It never ceases to amaze me how an image or a photo can look on screen and how different it looks printed.

I love canvas prints - the texture of the canvas hides many imperfections in a digital image, and allows me to enlarge a small digital photo file or a scanned photograph more than printing on RC photo paper allows.

Canvas Print challenges

Previously I mentioned ink coming off the canvas along the edge of the wood frame when stretching/mounting the canvas. This is caused by the edges of the wood being too sharp. There are several cheap/offshore suppliers of the stretcher strips, but many of them leave the edges too sharp and I have to round them off with an xacto knife. I've learned through trial and error that the Fredrix brand works best; the edges are rounded and quality is pretty good. Ya gotta watch out - some of the suppliers out there market Fredrix brand, but ship cheap off brands.

I also changed from using an acrylic spray to the Premiere Art spray varnish. Since I use the Premiere Art canvas, it makes sense to use their product to finish it. When I do an unframed canvas print, I stretch it by hand vs. the canvas pliers. All of the above seem to have resolved the problem of ink coming off the edges of photos printed on canvas.