New ideas for display plus gallery wrap

[Sam4X5]

I am returning after going totally digital in 2006. I have been busy photographing and printing my pictures. I have found it necessary to immerse myself into framing too. I do not like picture frames. The glass interferes with viewing, and those expensive glorious frames are detracting proper viewing of my pictures. I am thinking outside the box. Coated glass for frames is cost prohibitive. I have tried acrylics with and without brush strokes, varnish with multiple coats, yes paste with mounting to canvas with brush strokes and display in float frames. One can see the picture well with all these methods. However my work looks rather commercial and sometimes cheap when compared to those lavish frames that people feel proud to display in their homes. I recently purchased the Epson 3880 and I am printing on the Epson 17 x 22 Professional Canvas Matte Sheets. I have just started making gallery wraps. I am doing this making mirrored borders with Photoshop CS4. This is quite laborious. Anyone know of a gallery wrap program. I don't want to buy Genuine Fractals or Blowup 2 just to get the gallery wrap program. Any ideas for display without reflective glass shall be appreciated. I really love digital- so fabulous!

[0lBaldy]

Sam4X5, Welcome to RetouchPRO Hope you enjoy your stay here and make lots of friends. Poke around, ask questions, offer help, have fun!

Maybe I am missing something here...

From : Canvas Printing Glossary of terms

Gallery-wrapping, the image on the front of the canvas is also wrapped around the edge of the frame. (so I believe the image is just printed larger by about 4 inches.. 2 inches each side.. to allow for the wrap.. no special program needed)

Border-wrapping involves a solid colour border (usually matching a colour tone from the main image) being printed around the edge of the wooden frame. The physical image remains on the front of your canvas print. Border-wrapping produces the most effective canvas prints when the subjects in the picture are close to the edge of the frame.

Hopefully, someone else can be more helpful and enlighten me also..

~Gallery Wrap~

[MiningArt]

You made a good choice in making gallery wraps. I did a little research last month and they are by far the leading seller in digital display art. Sorry no help on a program to do it, but I'll have a look around.

wiki:
In canvas printing, the term gallery wrap refers to an image that appears on the sides of the frame as well as the front. The image on the sides is either a continuation or a reflection of the main image.

[MiningArt]

Looks like this will do what you need.

Fred's ImageMagick Scripts
http://www.fmwconcepts.com/imagemagi...rder/index.php

[Kraellin]

hi sam and welcome to RP.

i'd suggest a trip to your local arts and crafts store. the first thing that comes to mind is that spray-on stuff that painters use to preserve their paintings. if that's no good for you, then you might try a plastic instead of glass. i've also tried urethane coatings (thick) with mixed results. plastic and urethane tend to be quite a bit less reflective than glass, but i'm not exactly sure what type of result you're after. and if you really want to think outside the box, try iron on transfer paper. with that, and a bit of imagination, you might come up with something quite unique there are some other tricks, but i'm not going to give it all away for free. i mean, i at least want dinner and a movie

[Sam4X5]

Thanks for responding to my questions. It is really hard for me to shoot allowing all the time for gallery wrap. Printing larger crops the image, and if my composition and cropping in camera are right on I can't then crop in any further. Therefore, the technique is to make a two inch border around the cropped image, and if this is done with a mirrored image of the last 2 inches it is interesting that the border then blends with the picture when it is wrapped around the side...you don't recognize a distinct line at the edges. Examples are on onOne's site. Look under Genuine Fractals for the gallery wrap, and they show examples. Alienskin's Blow Up 2 also has gallery wrap software.

[Sam4X5]

Thanks John. I wish I had a Unix or Mac operating system. Then I could use it if I could find someone to download it for me and show me how to use it. Not yet savvy with Scripts.

[Sam4X5]

Thanks Craig I am in the experimental stage. I wish I could put my own anti glare coating on glass. I found online in a frame outlet that they sell Plexiglas with a non glare coating, so I ordered the famous W Eugene Smith print poster from art.com framed in non glare Plexiglas. It looks pretty good. And that may be my best method yet. I have a big print coated with clear glossy self leveling acrylic, another with thick glossy acrylic showing brush strokes, another with a triple coat of clear glossy urethane varnish. They all look good side by side, and one can actually really see the photographs. Maybe one of those in a real frame right to the edge with no mat would work.

[Kraellin]

i've experimented with the liquid acrylic... once. i think i got the mix ratio wrong it wasnt bad, but wasnt what i had anticipated, either. it took a long time to dry and was tacky to the touch for days. just didnt work out for me. but, it did show the potential. what i was trying to do was embed a photo into the acrylic such that the whole acrylic block would be the 'frame' and i wouldnt have to do anything else with it. good idea, bad implementation. perhaps you would have more success?

[Sam4X5]

Krylon Triple-Thick Crystal Glaze, product 0500 does a good job. I first sprayed the mounted Epson print with Krylon Preserve It for uv resistance. Then I followed with the Triple-Thick Clear Glaze. This gave a good coating. It looks like lamination. I have no idea how long this will last, but it sure looks good.