I have watched a great many prints go into wrong frames. Not bad frames, necessarily, just frames chosen before anyone understood what the print was doing. The glazing pressed the surface flat. The mount let acid migrate from behind. The timber swallowed the image rather than held it. Three decisions carry the whole frame: what sits in front of the print, what holds it inside, and what touches the paper. Get those right and the frame disappears, which is what a frame is supposed to do.
Glazing: what goes in front of the print
Glazing is the clear sheet between your eye and the paper. It shapes how the print reads on the wall, and the grade you choose determines how much of the light reaching the print it filters.
At any framer the two families are glass and acrylic. Within each there is a plain grade and a conservation grade. Conservation grades add UV filtering, which slows fading, and an anti-reflective coating, which cuts glare. Price rises as you add each property. UV filtering is the one that matters most for the life of the print: UV exposure is the main driver of fading over time.
Glass is harder, holds a flatter surface, and resists scratching. Conservation glass with UV filtering and anti-reflective coating gives the clearest view available. The trade-offs are weight and fragility: a large sheet is heavy and can break in transit. Acrylic is a fraction of the weight, does not shatter, and filters UV in its conservation grades. That makes it the common choice for large formats, high walls, homes with children, and any print that has to travel. It scratches more easily and carries a small static charge, so it wants a soft cloth and an anti-static spray rather than a paper towel.
Choose glass for smaller prints that will hang in one place, where you want the flattest, clearest surface. Choose acrylic for larger formats, or whenever a piece will be posted, carried, or hung where a fall would be dangerous. A print that lives out of direct sun in a low-light room reads well behind plain glazing; one on a bright wall, or catching a window, earns the conservation grade.
The prints I make frame in hand-cut glass on the flush mount, and Artglass on the float and shadow box. Artglass filters UV and cuts glare; I use it where the surface most needs that protection.
The mount: which finish suits the print
The mount is the finish that holds the print and sets it inside the frame. The options a work carries are matched to its paper and surface, so they vary from one work to the next.
There are up to four finishes.
Print-only is the bare sheet, sent so you can take it to a framer you trust and have it built the way you want. It is not a framed or hanging finish.
The flush mount is the most common framed finish: the sheet sits level inside solid Swedish pine behind plain hand-cut glass.
The float lifts the sheet off the backing so it appears to hover, the edge left free. This suits a deckled, handmade edge you want to show. The Solar Pavilion and What Comes Back are made on kozo washi and are offered as a float so the torn natural edge reads as part of the work.
The shadow box sets the sheet deeper in the frame, leaving space between the print and the glass. This suits a textured or metallic surface that needs room to catch the light rather than be pressed flat. Operator is on metallic paper and is offered as a shadow box so the surface keeps its shift and depth under the glass.
The float and shadow box carry Artglass. The choice between these finishes is not a good-better-best ladder. Each is matched to what the work asks for.
Should you ask for a spacer mount?
Yes, if a frame would otherwise press the print straight onto the glazing. A spacer, or a window mat doing the same job, holds the glass off the surface so the paper cannot stick to it and a textured stock keeps its relief. Cheap framing often skips this and lets the sheet sit flat against the glass, sometimes dry-mounted onto an acidic board. Ask the framer for the spacing by name.
The atelier builds that gap into every frame, whatever the glazing grade, so on a flush, float, or shadow-box finish the surface is never pressed flat. A window mat, the bevelled card border you often see around a print, does the spacing job as well as the visual one. When one is used, it must be acid-free.
Materials: everything that touches the paper
Ordinary card, tape, and backing board are acidic, and over time that acidity migrates into the paper as brown staining and brittleness. The frame and glazing handle the threats from outside; the materials sitting against the paper decide whether it ages cleanly or stains from within. Conservation framing solves this by making every component that touches the print acid-free and pH-neutral.
The frames I use are cut in solid Swedish pine with a slim 15mm face. They are made by Love, my local framer, third generation in the craft; I do not build them myself. Inside, everything is acid-free and pH-neutral: the backing board, the hinges, the tapes.
Hinging matters more than it sounds. The print is attached only along its top edge with reversible, pH-neutral hinges, so the paper can expand and contract with the room rather than buckle, and so the work can be removed later without damage. Dry-mounting or gluing a print flat onto an ordinary acidic board fixes it permanently to a material that will stain it from behind.
The prints are giclée, made with archival pigment inks on acid-free fine art paper. Acid-free framing carries that standard all the way through, so the weakest material in the stack is never an acidic backing board.
How do I care for a framed print?
Keep it out of direct sunlight and away from damp. The pigment inks on acid-free archival paper resist fading and yellowing far better than dye-based photo prints, and UV-filtering glazing adds another layer of protection. Dust the frame, not the print surface, and handle an unframed sheet by its edges with clean hands or cotton gloves. Framed and hung sensibly, a pigment print holds its colour for a long time.
How much does framing cost?
Framing cost rises with three things: the size of the frame, the grade of the glazing, and the conservation level of the materials. Take the spec you want, UV-filtering glazing with acid-free mount and hinging, plus the size of the sheet, and ask a conservation framer for a quote on exactly that.
The glazing grade and the archival materials are what protect the work. The frame timber and the mount style are choices of proportion and taste. Good framing protects condition, and condition is what lets a print hold its place in a collection. Whether a print appreciates is not something a framer can promise. The frame is the last decision in making the work, not separate from it.