It's Showtime!

[Punwit]

For those that might have a modicum of interest I thought I'd share that I've been offered booth space at an upcoming arts and crafts fair. I've accepted and am now frantically trying to select, edit, crop, add a signature, crop properly, upload for printing, mat, frame, order clear bags for display, design business cards... The amount of stuff to do has me reeling a bit and I expect my participation here will suffer but I'll pop in now and then when time permits.

Darren

[pippafox]

well done you, Darren. looks like you've got your hands full with stuff to do. keep us posted and let us know how it goes. for how long is your craft fair running? wahey... as well as a deserved boost to the ego, i hope it brings in some dosh too.
all the best
pippa

[Punwit]

Oh BTW anyone that has sage advice on cropping and standard formats please help me. I don't always crop to an accepted standard and that's no problem when just printing for family and friends but I'm reluctant to market anything but professionally printed images. The issue for me is that some shots I'm only comfortable cropped a certain way and that may be an odd aspect ratio. I've been distressed to upload one of these non standard crops to a lab and find that they've cropped as they will to make the image a standard aspect. Any advice on this would be appreciated.

Darren

[Buddy4344]

Ruth (RCT) and others on this site hae some experience. I have casually looked at this as I have sold a few to local doctor offices. I don't know your printing limitations, but It seems a common and easy to find frame size is 16x20 inches. Of course you can vary matte thickness, but assuming a 2" matte, that would be 12x16 print, which works great with my 13x19 epson printer.

Good luck.

[Rrdjserv]

If you have the time and patiece, then get yourself a matt cutter. That way you can keep your non-standard photo ratios and cut the matt to fit the frame.
You can pick up acid free matt board at local art supply stores.
Good luck and congratulations! --Rick

Edit- I perfer the double matting. It presents more of a professional look. Just an opinion.

[skeuos]

Congratulations, Darren! This is outstanding news, and I hope you're pretty chuffed about it (as Pippa might say).

Regards printing - I don't know if Adorama will give you the quality prints you need (but they might) but they will allow you to print what you have without cropping to fill the frame. I recently printed that Barcelona Grocer shot at 7x13. They just centered the shot on a 10x13 print and left the rest blank. Couple that with Rick's matt-cutting suggestion, and if you have the patience, you could do it yourself.

Not sure if that helps or not, but hope you enjoy the process!

steve

[KHedquist]

That is very exciting to hear. You have certainly worked hard on your photos and your recent wins are a testament to that dedication. good luck with the fair and definitely let us know how it goes.

Kevin

[SMcEvoy]

I did my first craft show last year and had a lot of fun. I'm doing two this year. For my larger prints I kept a standard size - e.g. 12x18, matted to 18x24. We have a Costco photo lab nearby that does phenomenal printing for me. I had a bunch of 9x9's, and they just charge the price of the nearest fitting paper. e.g. 11 x 14 and print them on that. If I had any cropped oddly, usually I could find a crop that worked well that would conform to standard sizing, then resized it using 300dpi to dimensions around 3008x2004 (a 2:3 ratio). The quality of the 12x18's was still high. I don't think I'd go any larger.

For the smaller prints and odd crops I printed them at home and put them into ready made mattes. This year I've added photo coasters to my collection and printed them myself - resizing to quite small, then putting them in a Word document and printing them and cutting them myself.

I'm also going to add some 'just matted' ones this year as craft fair goers tend to want items in the under $40 range - as I discovered. So we'll see how it goes. There's nothing like the feeling you get when people 'ooh and aah' at your photos!

Good luck!

[pippafox]

I’‚’‚…‚’‚…¾‚m finding all of the advice for Darren really interesting .
but the word mat, matte is really baffling me - what is it?
is it a standard photographic term? - I’‚’‚…‚’‚…¾‚ve not heard it here in the uk.

mat: is this mat finish on glass on photo or a cutting mat?
matt cutter? what is it, and what is the matt the cutter cuts.
double matting?
ready made mattes?

[Rrdjserv]

A mat is a piece of "cardboard" the surrounds the photo. A mat cutter is what cuts the mat to specific dimensions:
http://www.framingsupplies.com/Logan...t%20Cutter.htm
You probably have a differnt name for these over in England.
A double mat is one mat on top of another with the bottom mat showing through around the edges:
http://www.cheapjoes.com/art-supplie...-x-opening.asp

Hope this helps. --Rick

[pippafox]

ahhh - gotcha - thanks Rick

cant think what its called here but dont think its 'mat'.
good to know there's a cutter that does the job. i've tried to do a bevel cut with just a blade and a ruler and made a complete hash of it.
thanks again
pippa

[SMcEvoy]

Pippa, in the UK, it's often referred to as 'mount', so a single mount, double mount etc. (It's my British blood - I'm bilingual - North American and UK - and my brother-in-law has a framing shop in N.Ireland so I'm up to speed.)


Darren, in case you didn't see it, 'sizing for sale' relates to your post - it's 'Shootem's' reply to you that went awry and started it's own thread.

[pippafox]

'mount', that it - glad someone's on the ball, thanks Suzan. haha "bilingual", you need to be i guess. i wanted wholesale frames, he doesn't do those by any chance does he?

appologies Darren, don't mean to hijack your thread - its just such useful information here. i've copied and pasted for when i might need it - you never know. thanks for starting it.

[Punwit]

Thanks to one and all for your encouragement and your helpful hints and suggestions. I've got an order in to Adorama (Thanks Steve) they even had 11 x 14 prints on sale for 1.99 a piece. A special thank you to Carolyn for her generous tutelage of this bumbling neophyte. I'll let you all know how things turn out.

Darren

[northbeach]

Darren, do let us know how your Adorama prints turn out.

I never worry too much about off size images because I am able to get a matte special cut here for $2.00 and so I do that. I've just bought a new Epson 13x19 so I'm now albe to print larger too.

The advice to have just matted printed available is good - you will sell those more than your frames ones usually.

Can't wait to hear the full story of how it all went

This is pretty exciting stuff.

Sheila