Frame Destination Picture Framing

It is critical that you have an established account with some time and 100%
positive feedback. If you don’t your bids are limited to scammers, and people
that are ignorant about how eBay works. For products like used camera gear, the
law of supply and demand is as reliable as the law of gravity so I don’t use any
reserve and I set the starting bid at 1 cent. If it is a common item you can watch
it sell a few times and see the price window of where it sells. In general, the
poor quality ads will fetch less money. I always sell at the top of the window.
For my ads, I take lots of high quality pictures. If there is a defect, then I
will take a good picture of the defect, and I will point it out so people can
see what they are getting and feel more comfortable that I am not hiding things.
In addition to the specs I will provide some personal commentary on how I used
the equipment and what I liked about it. This helps people see that I am an
individual selling my own gear, as opposed to a thief selling stolen gear,
someone running a junk sale out of their garage, or a scammer that actually
isn’t selling anything at all. Thief’s and scammers are lazy and do not take
time to create personal ads. I have no need for hidden reserve prices and think
many just use them to try to sell to fools. I also have no need for a high
starting bid, it just cost more money. Since I have no reserve, and a 1 cent
starting bid I will usually have several bids in the first couple days which
helps it stand out in the listings. I have used this method on a dSLR that
ultimately sold for over $1,000. I have also used it for iPods, other
electronics, and tools with no problem. Do not try it with art or framing
products, it won’t work for those types of items.

Cheers,
Mark

Frame Destination is happy to announce that April 2009 is our 5 year anniversary. 5 years ago I was an electrical engineer starting to go pro with my photography. I started doing some work for hire and purchased an Epson 2200 printer. I was thrilled to be able to do my own archival printing and not have to crop my photo’s to standard photo lab and frame sizes. I really like 13×19 and 12×18 picture sizes but discovered a serious problem with a lack of picture frames in those sizes. I decided to form Frame Destination to help solve this issue. Since then we added all kinds of other framing products such as clearbags, photo and dvd storage products, and most recently our new stretcher bar frames.

Less than a year after forming Frame Destination I quite my job, started hiring employees and moved it into its own warehouse production space. Since then we have expanded into additional space, and later moved again. This year we are expanding again and will have over 11,000 sq ft.

I really appreciate the great support from all of our customers over the years. All of our customer service employees have always commented on how they enjoy working with our customers.

Cheers,
Mark
Frame Destination, Inc.

Picture Frame Destination has added a new line of stretcher bar frames. Traditional tongue and groove stretcher bars are difficult to square and might collapse when you try to stretch the canvas. Our stretcher frames are ready made, pre squared and have permanent 90 degree corners. We use high quality solid wood strainer stock that we hand glue and nail together before shipping to you. Spend less time playing with stretcher bars and more time creating or marketing your art. We have five different stretcher strip profiles from our inexpensive small S110 frame that allows your stretched canvas to be framed in a traditional wood frame all the way to our two inch tall S150 stretcher frame ideal for gallery wraps. We offer our stretchers in over 60 different sizes in addition to full custom frame sizes. Note: if you are concerned that your canvas may sag over time you will still want to use traditional stretcher bars with adjustable corners.

Cheers,
Mark

Picture Frame Dimensions can be very confusing since there are lots of different types of dimensions used in picture framing. Artwork size is the size of the print that you want to frame. It may or may not be the size of the image. You can print a 12×18 image on 13×19 paper. The artwork size is 12×18 but the paper size is 13×19. Frame size typically refers to the size of the glass the frame will hold. An 11×14 frame should have an inside dimension a little larger (normally 1/8 inch) so that 11×14 glass and backing will fit inside the frame without binding. If you use a mat to add borders around the artwork it will increase the size of the frame. A common mat for 11×14 artwork has 2-1/2 and 3 inch borders creating a frame size of 16×20. Although the mat is for 11×14 artwork, it will not have an opening that size. Most off the shelf mat boards will be cut 1/2 inch smaller so that the mat will overlap the artwork by about 1/4 inch all 4 sides. Custom frame companies and most Frame Destination picture mat boards are cut 1/4 inch smaller so they will not cover up as much of the photo. The mat opening should never be the same size as the artwork. If you do not want any of the artwork covered up you can do what is called float mount and use a matboard that is larger. Such mat openings will often be cut 1/2 to 1 inch larger so there will be a gap between the artwork and the image of at least 1/4 inch. In that case either paper (if the paper is larger than the image) or the mounting board will be exposed. Care must be taken to ensure the exposed border is an appropriate color for the overall picture frame presentation.

Cheers,
Mark

A common question from those new to framing is glass vs acrylic for the picture frame glazing. Glass is used almost exclusively for inexpensive off the shelf ready-made frames because it is cheap and acrylic is used almost exclusively by mail order or internet framing companies because it won’t break during shipping. At Frame Destination we sell both glass and acrylic but we limit the size of glass we ship to 20×24 inches to help reduce the chance of shipping damage. Acrylic is also lighter than glass which reduces the shipping cost. Custom frame shops will mostly use glass unless the frame is larger than 32×40. For large work they will tend towards acrylic because the glass gets very heavy at those sizes and you have to give extra attention to making sure the frame can handle it. The wall hanging hardware also has to be able to handle the extra weight. Museums prefer acrylic over glass because if the glass breaks it can slice and destroy rare artwork. Some galleries prefer acrylic due to reduced liability. Glass has a green tint due to the iron content unless you purchase a higher end water white or museum glass which costs more than acrylic. The drawbacks to the acrylic are increase cost over standard glass, lack of scratch resistance, and static charge. For a more comprehensive break down of the pros and cons of both, see glass vs acrylic on the frame information section of our website.

Cheers,
Mark

Frame Destination has recently added 6 new black wood picture frame profiles. They all have a smooth matte black finish ideal for gallery style framing. They vary from 3/4 to 2 inches wide. Our new wood frame 876 has 7/8 inch rabbet to allow plenty of room for double triple mats and spacers. It is just a little wider than our popular 3/4 inch wide profile such as 872 so it is better suited for larger frames. Our new wood profile 880 is even larger. It is over 1 and 1/2 inches wide and has a full 1 inch rabbet making it ideal for even larger framing jobs. If you don’t need a lot of depth, but you want more frontal presence to your frame our wood frame 875 has a full 2 inch wide face. We also carry the mats, mountboards, and glass or acrylic, and we can do custom wood frames.

Cheers,
Mark

Selecting a matboard for the first time can be challenging when you are not familiar with the terminology. To help make this easier I have updated the Frame Destination website to provide more information about our matting choices. Click on our Mat Board Help Page. We offer the three basic types of mat board: wood pulp, alpha cellulose, and cotton rag. They range in cost and cost and archival capabilities. Wood pulp, otherwise know as paper mat board is the least expensive but only recommended for temporary framing. Alpha cellulose and cotton rag matboards are archival because those materials are naturally inert and acid free. Papermat can be buffered but they will return to being acidic over time.

Cheers,
Mark

Frame Destination sells custom wood picture frames. On our website you can select the type of wood moulding, matboard, mount board, and glass or acrylic. One of the less obvious choices for our wood frames is the points. We use flexible metal taps called points that we fire into inside edge of the wood frame to hold all the contents in place. See the picture. If you are ordering everything from us you can use an easy selection for points which is “fit contents ordered”. We will place the mat, backing, and glass into your frame and the fire the points in directly behind the mount board. If you are going to use your own glass, mat or backing board then you will need to determine how thick everything will be and then select the proper depth for the points. For example, say your picture is already dry mounted on 3/16 inch foamcore and you buying wood, mat, and glass from us as a complete wood picture frame kit. Your foamcore is 3/16, our glass is 2mm which can rounded to 1/8 and 4-ply mat board is 1/16. Once you add all that up you end up with a total of 3/8 inches and so you select that option for the point’s depth.

Cheers,
Mark

In general there are three types of acrylic for picture framing: Standard Acrylic, UV-Filter Acrylic, and Non-Glare Acrylic. Standard acrylic is the most optically pure. It is more optically pure than glass also since glass has green tint. UV-filter acrylic or glass has a yellow filter which causes a minor warming effect. This effect is not as bad as the green tint effect in regular glass. Non-glare acrylic has an etched surface on one side. Cheap versions of this can create a hazing effect but higher quality versions just cause a minor loss in sharpness that is hard to notice as standard viewing distances but will be detectable by the creator of the photograph upon closer inspection. This loss of sharpness gets worse with distance making non-glare acrylic unusable for shadow box framing. I have tested a number of different types of non-glare acrylic and found Cyro to be the best at reducing glare with minimum loss of sharpness and of course that is what we sell. The best option is proper lighting because then you can use less expensive acrylic, and not have any reflections or loss of sharpness. You can find more info here: Acrylic choices for Picture Framing.

Cheers,
Mark

Frame Destination upgraded the frame kit page on our website to support custom sizes and double and triple mats. Now you only have to enter the custom size once and then you can select the moulding, mat board, backing and glass or acrylic. We have two different frame kit pages: wood frame and metal frame kits. When you first enter the page you can tell it if you want no mat, single mat, double mat or triple mat. If you don’t want any mat then you just select CUSTOM in the size pull-down and enter the size frame you require. If you want mat board you can enter the size of the opening in the mat board and then select the size of the mat boards around the opening. The webpage will calculate the frame size and automatically put in the appropriate custom size components to match the mat board dimensions you entered.

Cheers,
Mark