Twin Geeks Photography

Things have been quite hectic with projects for me and Rachel, so this post is coming a bit late.  My apologies for the delay.  In this series of posts, I will go over how I print and frame, and why I decided to go this route, and the costs advantage of going the DIY route.   I’ll preface this post by identifying my target audience:  You’re considering printing and matting to save money and increase your profit margin from selling matted and framed art,  and you’re targetting the average consumer for your artwork.  Let’s be honest:  If you’re someone like Chase Jarvis, or if you’re fairly well booked wedding photographer, your time is probably more valuable taking pictures than trying to save a few bucks matting and framing your stuff.

Above is an example piece I did.  Cost of materials is about $55.00, plus the raw material cost of the print.  Print size is 12″ x 18″, printed using Canon dye-based ink on Canon Platinum Pro photo paper (A3+ size).  The framing profiles used  are Nielsen-Bainbridge #11 profiles in German Silver.  All mats are archival, acid-free mats – note that it is a double mat (with secondary border) around the photo.

Cost Analysis and Print Pricing:

One of the traditions that Rachel and I have is that we always try to visit a local farmer’s market every week.  Inevitably, there will be someone out there selling prints and artwork, and being photo geeks, we’d be drawn towards the booth like a furry little footrest going after a doggie biscuit.  And whenever I look another photographer’s work, I look at:

• What they shoot
• How they present their prints
• What they charge

And lately, the prices have been falling.  I’ve seen framed artwork, about 6″ x 6″, go for as little as $40.00.  Another vendor at the Fremont Solstice market was selling 12″ x 36″ panos, framed, for $195.  And let’s face it, with the US entering what most people have termed the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, discretionary spending is going to be down – way down.  Pretty objects to hang on walls certainly falls under discretion spending catagory.  Given what commercial frame shops charge – and let’s face it, they are good people trying to make a living in tough economic times too – it’s quite obvious that the only way these artists can be making money at these prices is by doing all the grunt work themselves, and hoping that increased volume will increase revenue.

In this post, we’ll go over the raw materials and cost data.  These prices are current as of Summer of 2009.  It’ll give you an idea of your “Cost of goods sold”.  You can then factor in your labor costs and know where your base-line pricing for your prints are.

Elements of a Framed Artwork

A framed artwork, for the purpose of our discussion, contains:

• The print – what you’re displaying.
• A frame.  Assumed to be a simple aluminum frame.
• “Lites”, or the protective, transparent cover.  Either glass, or acrylic.
• Mats.
• Dressing for the frame – the hanger wires, etc.

The print:

We’ll cover our experiences with printing in separate posts – Rachel uses a Canon Pixma Pro 9000 series printer – which is a very good, desktop sized, A3+ (13″ x 19″) printer that uses a dye based ink.  Terence uses an Epson Stylus Pro 4000 wide-format printer that’s been rescued and lovingly restored.  It is a 17″ wide roll-feed capable machine (paper tray will feed ANSI C paper @ 17″ x 22″) that uses pigment based ink.

The general rule of thumb is that for 4″ x 6″s, Costco, Walmart, etc, all have very competitive pricing – pricing that home users can’t hope to touch.  However, bigger than 8″ x10″s home users will see a benifit.  Then there is also the instant gratification of being able to see a print right away…

The Frame

I chose to go with metal framing for a few reasons – I like the look of a good brushed, anodized piece of aluminum, and I *hate* gluing.  It is also relatively easy to assemble a metal frame – only simple hand tools are needed if you buy pre-cut extrusions.

The Neilsen-Bainbridge company have been in business for quite a while – and they have a line of aluminum framing extrusions.  Most commonly, you’ll find them in pre-cut kits from a well-stocked arts supply store.  I use Daniel Smith for my art supplies – and this is Neilsen-Bainbridge #11 profile, in precut form:

Note that it takes 2 kits to form a complete frame.  The lengths are the X and Y measurements on a frame – so if you need a frame that’s 22″ x 30″, buy the 22″ kit, and buy the 30″ kit.  The extrusions are cut approximately 1/8″ to 3/16″ over norminal, to allow for the thickness of the aluminum profile and tolerance for the mat and glass.  This typically is typically not a concern for most people, unless you’re setting up an assembly line and are trying to calculate packaging and shelving space requirements.

Each of the frame kits also comes with half of a frame hardware kit:

These are the angle brackets for assembling the frame, the spring clips, and the clip for securing the hanging wires.  If you purchased the framing extrusions pre-cut, the ends are already cut with a 45 degree miter and deburred for you:

See how clean the cuts are?  If you’re going the DIY route and cutting the extrusions from stock 10ft lengths, you’ll need a good power miter saw, or a good fine-teeth hacksaw in a guided miter box to achieve this.  Cutting a thin aluminum profile this cleanly is no easy feat.  You’ll need a fine teeth carbide blade optimized for non-ferrous materials – an 80 teeth 10″ blade, with cutting lubricant, would be a good starting point, plus a scarificial fence setup to support the material to prevent tear-through.  Note that a blade like that costs more than my first chopsaw I bought in college.  Below is a shot with the hardware kit installed and the frame fitted together:

A cost table for pre-cut extrusions can be found here.  The astute reader will note that the pricing of the extrusion goes up per linear inch the shorter the extrusions are.  The really obssessive number crunchers will make the assumption that the pricing follows a linear equation of price = 2a*x + y; where a = cost per linear inch, x is the length of each piece in inches and y is the fixed cost element of the pricing – the costs of the mounting hardware, the store’s profits, etc.  Using linear curve fitting, one can arrive at the cost model of 13 cents per inch for the extrusion and about $4.80 for the fixed cost.   The verification of these figures shall be left as an exercise to the reader .

In an ever obsessive quest to “get a better price”, I started calling around to track down the wholesale distributor of these framing extrusions.  I found one place locally that carries it in 10 ft lengths.  Unfortunately they require a UBI number before they will sell you anything.  Price is $1.77 per foot – about 15c per inch, and a hardware kit costs $1.50.  Looking at the costing data above, this is a savings of, on average, of approximately $8.10 per frame, for cutting it yourself, vs buying pre-cut extrusions.  This does not include the wear and tear, and resharpening expense, of a carbide blade, the initial investment of a miter saw, plus the mess and headache of working with a miter saw and the clean-up time afterwards.  This is also assuming that I don’t have to buy and store additional scrap pieces, left over from cutting 10ft sections.  It is therefore my conclusion that unless I am doing a HUGE amount of framing, to standard sizes, it is not worth my time and effort to do the cuts myself.  (If I’m doing 10 – 20 frames at one time, then the analysis results would be different.  There, I can afford to setup a production stop guide, and at 10 frames, a savings of $81.00 might be worth it to lug out the saw, set it up and cut all my extrusions).

What if you don’t see a frame you like in the precut framing kit section?  You can order custom framing extrusions, cut to order, from the following vendors:

Daniel Smith – PictureFrames.com – AmericanFrame

Lites

In frame shop terminology, “Lites”, or glazing, refers to the glass or acrylic covering the artwork.  This serves to provide protection from the prints – in cases such as Ilford Smooth Pearl / Ilford Smooth Gloss paper, this is important for print archival as the porous microceramic coating on the paper is very susceptable to gas-fading.

In this department, the two most common, affordable choices are single strength window glass and acrylic.  Do not be tempted to use more shatter-resistant polycarbonate for framing – it may be more impact resistant, but it scratches a lot easier.

Glass can be purchased, cut to size, from the local Lowes.  Interestingly enough, Home Depot does not sell glass, cut to size, but Lowes does.  You buy from a pre-cut size and you get 2 cuts free.  Someone from the hardware department will operate the glass cutter for you.  Just remember that cut glass is really just broken glass with the break in a straight line – the edges are razor sharp and will draw blood at the slightest provocation.  In fact, most framing injuries occur with the sharp glass edge.  Make sure you wear leather work gloves when cleaning / handling glass.

Acrylic for framing comes in two grades:  plain, and reflection controlled.  Plain acrylic is just that – clear plastic.  Reflection controlled acrylic had been given a slight texture on one side to cut down on the amount of light reflected off the plastic’s surface.  When framed with an artwork close to the acrylic, this matt texture isn’t apparent, from normal viewing angles.  One can see the difference in the test shot below:

The glazing on the left is reflection controlled acrylic, the glazing on the right is plain window glass.  You’re seeing the glare from the overhead florescent lights in my garage in this shot.  Note that the reflection controlled stuff diffuses out the light evenly and improves somewhat the visibility of the text underneath.   Due to how reflection-controlled acrylic works, the print must be framed fairly close to the glazing.  Therefore, it’ll be very difficult to use this material with deep shadow boxes.

Reflection controlled acrylic is $5.45 per square foot from Tap Plastics, a local vendor, cut to size.  I started using glass, but have now switched over to this stuff, as it’s a lot safer to handle.  It comes with protective paper backing, so I don’t have to spend time cleaning it.  The drawback is that in the process of removing the paper backing, a lot of static electricity can be generated and the plastic becomes a dust magnet.  Still, this is nothing that a quick wipe with alcohol and lint-free wipe can’t fix.  As with any framing material, do not use ammonia-bearing cleaners, such as windex, to clean the glass /plastic, as degassing ammonia will greatly decrease the print’s life.  I’ve found that a mild detergent and distilled water / rubbing alcohol works quite well for cleaning.

One step up from reflection controlled acrylic would be anti-reflective glass.  This is glass that received an optical coating, by means of chemical vapor deposition.  Needless to say, this is very expensive, “museum grade” material.  Personally, if I ever need to frame stuff this way, I’ll go to the local frame shop.

In the next article, we’ll talk about the different types of mats, and the tools to work with them.  Stay tuned.

If you’re here in Seattle – the sun’s out, the weather’s nice, and there are all these fun events going on. Time to go rent that cool lens and get some great pics, right?

Well, you’re not the only one thinking that. In fact, as the summer months kick off, rental houses enter into their busiest season.

Most rental houses, such as online folks like LensRentals.com, or local resources such as Glazer’s Camera Rentals – take reservations. And, if you you know you are going to be shooting an event, you should call in your rental reservations the moment you know the dates.  You can always cancel them if plans fall through.

In other words, don’t be like my sweetie, who forgot to call in her rental EF70-200mm f/2.8L IS for shooting the Fremont Solstice Parade today. Fortunately, this is a lens that I own, and I did find out after calling all around a 70-200mm f/2.8L (non Image-Stabalized) lens that I can rent. This event being important for her, I’ll be shooting my backup 40D and her backup 40D – and giving her my treasured “magic drain pipe”, my beloved EOS 5D Mk II and my 8Gb UDMA memory card.

As for me? I called in the rental EF400mm f/2.8L IS a year ago when Seafair’s dates were set…

For those who don’t know me, I should preface this post to say that I’m mostly a self-taught photographer, and recently started dabbling in print making and framing my work.  I’m a firm believer in experience being directly porportional to mistakes made – and by that metric, I should be pretty dang experienced.  I also try to not take things too seriously and laugh at my mistakes, and share them openly in hopes that others won’t repeat them.

That out of the way, let me show you what *not* to do on framing a piece of artwork:

Don't do this!

The cuts are technically perfect – or pretty damn close.  There is some blade deflection in cutting the double bevel – something I’ll fix the next time by building an extension to the mat cutter.  But in the process of working out the border sizes – I had forgotten that I’m now framing things with a 3″ border instead of a 2″ border.  As such, I cut an almost perfect double-bevel opening 2″ too wide.  And if not for the fact that my cheap test ink-set in my Epson 4000 (the subject of another article) looks like mud – I’d be tempted to just re-crop the image in LightRoom and run a bigger print.  This was about 2, 3 hours of work down the drain.  (It took 2-3 hours because I was documenting as I go for this blog post – and screwed up the first go-around by cutting the bevels backwards.   In theory, I should be able to do this in an hour).

Now, that out of the way, let’s look at the framing tools.

First, the mat cutter.  Progressing up from a simple ruler / linear guide (such as Logan’s Adapt-a-Rule) system are board-mounted mat cutters.  They all feature some sort of adjustable fence system, with a base for the mat to be fed onto.  After playing with an Altos mat cutting system that my Dad owned, and the Logan mat cutters at Daniel Smith, I settled on the Logan Intermediate+ 450 model.

The 450 had a few BIG advantages over Dad’s Altos 4501:

• Cuts on the line.  Logan’s design for all their cut heads (pictured below) is that the cutter head cuts on the edge of the guide.  To use it, you simply line up the cut line under the guide’s edge, hook the cut head onto the rail and go.  A U-shaped feature on the cut heads guide the cutter to prevent it from wandering.  This is a HUGE step up from the Altos design, which requires offsetting the guide from the cutline (much like a Skillsaw).
• The 450+ cuts up to 40″ wide.  40″ is the “magic number” in framing.  Pre-cut metal frame strips comes in sizes up to 40″, and 32″ x 40″ is a standard size for matboards and foam board at any well-stocked crafts store.  It is possible to get matboard and frame extrusions larger than 40″, but I’d expect the cost to go up signifcantly, along with the transportation headache.  Besides, very few people have the wall space to hang a 40″+ piece of work, or files with the resolutions required to generate such pictures in the first place.
• At about $160-170, this is a fairly affordable tool.  The next step up is about $350 and adds a longer squaring arm, which I can build myself.  This is a good price point for the features you get.

The Logan mat cutter comes with two cut heads:  a Model 702 Bevel cutter and a Model 701 straight cutter.  The names are fairly self-explanatory:  the Bevel Cutter cuts a 45 degree bevel for the mat openings, while the Straight Cutter cuts mats to size with a straight 90 degree down blade angle.

One other attractive thing about the Logan system is that their blades are widely available.  Michaels, and chances are most local arts store, will carry their replacement blades.  This is not true with the Altos system.  It pays to change blades often (each blade can only make about 10-20 cuts before losing its optimum sharpness) and so blade availability is a BIG deal.

The 701’s blade is fixed – retracting it requires unscrewing the mount screw and physically moving the blade.  It is however very rigid and will cut 4 ply mat board like butter.  Just be careful setting it down, so you don’t gouge up artwork, or ding the blade’s razor edge.

The 702’s blade pivots down into the matboard.  The silver line scribed onto the edge indicates where to start the cut – simply line it up with your reference mark, press the silver button to pin the cutter to the board, and push the handle down.  It’s pretty straightforward.

Not quite a framing tool, but invaluable nonetheless.  This is a Bessey Vario-Angle  strap clamp - used in carpentry and fine furniture making to hold pieces together while glue dries.  As with any tool, it pays to get a good tool and take care of it.  Retails for about $30.00.  If you’re local in Seattle, you can pick this up at Hardwicks, or Woodcraft.  Just don’t bother with Home Depot.

The purpose of this tool is two folds:  When assembling pre-cut metal frame extrusions, it allows all 4 members of the frame to be held in tension and aligned into correct position before the corner brackets are tightened down.  When building wood frames from molding strips, it applies even pressure on all four corners while the glue dries.

Harbor Freight makes a much cheaper alternative.  I personally have not used it, but I believe it will work.  As the Harbor Freight design uses a ratcheting mechanism instead of a screw and nut mechanism to apply the tension, I expect that there will be less granuality in applying clamping force and pressure.  I would consider the HF alternative if I were building multiple wood frames and need to setup the clamping for hours, but for metal framing work, I am quite happy with this little tool.

Rounding up the tool collection is a screwdriver to work the fastening clamps for the metal extrusions, as well as a marking pencil.  I use 4H pencil lead in a 2mm lead holder – this is the same tool that I started learning drafting with, some 20 years ago.   A 4H pencil lead can be honed razor sharp for really clean marking lines.  This particular lead holder has a sharpener built into the cap, which is good for obssessive-compulsive engineers sharpening their lead.

Now that we covered the tools – stay tuned for the next post as to how to mat and frame *correctly*

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framing, printmaking

Sensor dust. Chances are if you’ve shot DSLRs for a while, you’ve been bit by the problem – ugly black splotches on your images that you’ll have to clone out.

Once upon a time, when photographers still loaded and unloaded strange little metal cans into their cameras, nobody paid any real attention to changing lenses in the field. After all, you’d get a new sensor with each shot you take. Not true with DSLRs. Even worse, most imaging sensors carries some degree of static charge, making them a dust magnet when the mirror box is exposed during a lens change.

So, how do you check for sensor dust? This is my method:

* Mount a lens that supports a small aperture – say, f/22 or even better, f/32
* Pop the flash.
* Set your camera to Manual, sync speed, f/32 and use the ISO to adjust your exposure.
* Aim camera at white wall, then defocus the lens.
* Shoot a frame so that the exposure is just shy of clipping in the histogram.

Because the lens is defocused, the only thing that will be in focus in the image would be debris sitting on top of your sensor casting shadows onto the shot – the sensor dust that you’ll need to clean.

The following shots of fire spinners are some of the more challenging shots I’ve taken with off-camera lighting. Here’s my thought process involved.

First of all, until PocketWizard’s ControlTL and RadioPoppers came along, off camera flash for the most part was a 100% manual affair. This may seem intimidating to beginners, but really, with a few simple rules, setting the exposure isn’t that difficult.

Let’s get the technical details out of the way: these shots were taken on a Canon EOS 5D Mk ii, with either the EF24-70mm f/2.8L or the EF70-200mm f/2.8L IS. Lighting was provided by a single, film era Nikon SB-25 ($60.00 used). The flash was gelled CTO and the camera’s white balance set to daylight. Balanced against daylight, the flash’s output takes on an orange tinge – making it appear that the subjects are lit by fire light.

As an engineer, I approach setting the correct exposure as an algebra problem. For any off camera shot there only exists 4 user-controlled variables:

* The output intensity of the flash (as seen by the subject)
* Shutter speed
* Aperture
* ISO

Just like solving an algebra equation, we try to nail down the unknowns. The first one I tackle is the flash’s output. I know that to have any chance of getting good shots, I need to shoot *a lot*, given the unpredictable nature of the dance subjects’ movements. So, having to sit around and wait for the flash to recharge (2-3 seconds) is probably not acceptable. My choices are really M1/4 and M1/8 – quarter and eighth power. I know that I’m going to be trying to drag my shutter speed (more below) out to possibly 1 sec exposure, so M1/4, and being mindful not doing a “spray and pray”, would be my good starting point.

Once I set my flash output, I arrive at preliminary numbers for 2 more variables: ISO and Aperture. By now, the sun had set and the sky’s rapidly darkening, so for a first order approximation I can afford to ignore the ambient light. From experience, I know that the combination of a gell and a diffuser is about 1.5 stops of light being taken out, so I started at f/2.8 and ISO200. the exposure is decent and so I run with it.

Now, my last variable: shutter speed. this really depends on the dancer i’m photographing. I want to capture as much of the fire trails as possible, so i experimented with various speeds, from 1/6 to 1 second.

Occasionally, the amount of fire being spun creates a large enough “light source” that it contributes to the ambient exposure and blurs my final images. when that happens, I up the flash output to 1/2 power or full power, and then stop down my aperture the corresponding 1-2 stops to compensate. this way, the ambient light contributes less to the overall exposure compared to the flash pulse – and thus a sharper, more well defined image.  See here – notice how there’s a lot less ghosting of the face, etc.  The flash’s much stronger pulse is what’s recording the face, but the aperture, stopped down to f/5.6, means that the ambient light sources isn’t recording much onto the sensor for the rest of the exposure.

Sometimes, having the flash misfire isn’t a bad thing.  The flash failed to go off for the following image, but I really liked the results.  It also gives you a good idea of what the ambient only contribution to the image is:

Two shots taken at the Fremont Sunday Market with off-camera flash using the PocketWizard ControlTL system. I’ve been experimenting with off-camera flash more often, lately!

This shot of a shipwreck on the Oregon coast was shot as a single RAW file, then turned into a psuedo-HDR with Photomatix to bring out the details better, then turned into a black-and-white image with Silver Efex Pro.

A lot of work for an effect I probably could’ve gotten by just bringing the film body and shooting Ilford HP5, but… hey, whatever works.