Panoramic framing?

For those of you who shoot the panoramic formats, how do you frame your work? (i.e. what size mat/overmat?)

Hi Diane,

I usually mat with ~4 inches all the way around. 7x17 prints are matted to 15x25, 12x20 are matted to 20x28. I don't try to squeeze them into "standard" frame sizes. Yuk!

Kerik

I agree with Kerik - cut the mat's to keep the proportions to the printed panoramic image.

5x12 = 11x18
7x17 = 14x24
8x20 = 16x28
12x20 = 20x28

As the prints move up and down in size I also feel the width of the border should adjust accordingly... you can see that from 5x12 (~3") to 7x17 (~3.5") to 8x20/12x20 (~4").

Hope this helps!

Steve N

Diane,

I use 15x25 for the 7x17, and I think it works very well proportionally.

However, for the 5x12 images I made last year, I matted them in 13x19 matts and I think they look very good. That is a standard format so sleeves are available, and the slightly larger short dimension helps give the smaller 5x12 images a little more heft.

Let me say, however, that I overmat the print but I don't cut the window down onto the image. The window is cut about 1/2" larger in both dimensions so that the entire frame and a black border is visible all the way around the image area. That makes the matt a little thinner. If I were cropping onto the image with the matte, I'd probably prefer a slightly smaller border width for each size.


---Michael

I mat my panoramics (from my xpan) with a 6 1/2" x 18" window in a 12"x24" frame. This overmats a little, just covering the border of my filed-out carrier, more or less tight to the image area. If I want a black border on the image, I'd make it more like 6 3/4 x 18 1/4. The frame size would stay the same.

I did one where I had a spare 20x24 frame sitting around, so I put the 6 1/2 x 18 in the middle, with a slight topward weight (it is a horizontal image, so the huge bottom and top borders don't look too ridiculous). I wouldn't do that again, just because it wastes too much mat board, but it looks nice.