Advanced options
The mount does two jobs: it makes the print look finished, and it holds glass off the print surface (photos stuck to glass are ruined photos). Standard frame sizes are cheap: design the mount border to hit one (A3, 40x50, 50x70) rather than paying for a custom frame. Border proportions: 5cm suits most prints up to A3; go wider, not narrower, for bigger art.
What The Picture Frame Calculator Works Out
- Frame size to buy: the print plus twice the mount border, because the mount's outer size is the frame size. A 30 x 40cm print with a 5cm border is a 40 x 50cm frame from any high-street shelf.
- Mount aperture: the print less 1cm each way so that 5mm of board overlaps every edge and grips the print. With no border there is no aperture and the print is framed directly.
- Pro touch: bottom weighting, the extra centimetre or two on the lower border that stops a print reading as slipped. Galleries do it on almost everything and it costs nothing.
- Extra bottom weighting (advanced): adds the chosen amount to the bottom border only, so the frame height grows and the sub-line spells out all four borders for the mount cutter.
- Aperture overlap (advanced): change the 5mm overlap, for example 3mm for a print with a signature near the edge or 10mm for a ragged photo border.
- Nearest standard frame (advanced): finds the closest stock size (10 x 15 through A-series to 70 x 100) that leaves at least 1cm of border and tells you the side and top/bottom borders to cut to hit it exactly. The mass-market frame at a standard size costs a fraction of the bespoke quote; the difference funds the art.
- In inches (advanced): frame, aperture and print converted at 2.54cm to the inch for US-sized frames and online sellers who list in inches.
- Mount board (advanced): how many mounts cut from an A2, A1 or full 81 x 102cm sheet (trying both orientations) and the sheets needed for your number of prints, plus the glass area. Acid-free board is the sensible default: ordinary board's lignin browns its own bevel and, in time, the print's edges.
- Total cost (advanced): frames x price plus mount board sheets x price, with a cost per picture. A 40 x 50cm high-street frame is typically GBP 10 to GBP 25; a bespoke framer starts around GBP 80.
- Standard size table (advanced): every stock size your print could go in and the border each needs, flagged tight (under 3cm), good or very wide. Hinge the print at the top edge only with T-hinges of archival tape so it hangs free to expand; four-edges-taped and spray-mounted framing is irreversible.