Storing Larger Prints (e.g 12x16)

Svenedin · Sep 28, 2016

I have only really started printing again fairly recently after a prolonged gap. Years ago I wasn't at all careful with the prints I made and tended to stick them to the walls with drawing pins (or even worse blu-tack). Awful I know but I was a daft student at the time and now I am still daft but middle-aged. Some 8x10 prints I did put away in boxes and these are still in good condition.

Anyway, I usually print at 8X10 and occasionally smaller. I know there are archive boxes available and these could be stored fairly easily.

I would like to make some bigger prints (up to 12x16) of selected photographs but how do people store bigger prints? I cannot frame them all for the wall. It is not just a question of whether there are boxes available but where to put them in the house.

Edit: I now realise I should have put this in the enlarging section but I cannot remove the thread and start again.

adelorenzo · Sep 28, 2016

I store most of my prints in empty Ilford paper boxes.

For a particular 12x16 print project I did buy one of these Ilford Archiva boxes. More of a portfolio type box. Very nice.

M Carter · Sep 28, 2016

I use empty paper boxes, but also I got some general dept. store plastic storage boxes - they're sort of like a plastic bin in a frame that acts as a lid and turns it into a "drawer". Maybe not "museum archival", but I have prints I've already framed versions of, and often people drop by that are amazed people still do this, and it's nice to say "pick something out of the bin". Friends really get thrilled by that. I generally - at least - put a tracing paper flap on them, or tape them to cardboard with a tracing flap.

None of those will hold anyone's interest in 100 years, mainly I try to keep them flat and unscratched.

MattKing · Sep 28, 2016

Under-bed storage units work great.

RalphLambrecht · Sep 28, 2016

Svenedin said:
I have only really started printing again fairly recently after a prolonged gap. Years ago I wasn't at all careful with the prints I made and tended to stick them to the walls with drawing pins (or even worse blu-tack). Awful I know but I was a daft student at the time and now I am still daft but middle-aged. Some 8x10 prints I did put away in boxes and these are still in good condition.

Anyway, I usually print at 8X10 and occasionally smaller. I know there are archive boxes available and these could be stored fairly easily.

I would like to make some bigger prints (up to 12x16) of selected photographs but how do people store bigger prints? I cannot frame them all for the wall. It is not just a question of whether there are boxes available but where to put them in the house.

Edit: I now realise I should have put this in the enlarging section but I cannot remove the thread and start again.

You give your own answer archival boxes on the way to go.

Poisson Du Jour · Sep 29, 2016

This (IKEA) drawer set is what I am having delivered to my studio next week. The drawers may be a tad bigger than your max 12x16 (~30cm) prints as opposed to my larger RA-4H prints. Some older drawer sets (wooden) can be found at second hand markets, and also artist supply stores (probably more expensive than the behemoth that is IKEA...).

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/categories/departments/workspaces/10711/

Another option, for portability and showing, is an artist folio; very little space is taken up and it stores flat. I use one of these not so much for permanent storage, but for transporting the prints to the frameshop. Old wet-darkroom RA-4 prints produced in 1987 are still in beautiful condition stored in one of the first folios I bought looking for a "temporary" storage solution. "Temporary"?? And yes, they're still in there, 29 years later!

What is shown in these two examples is very common everywhere in Australia at e.g. artist supply stores and there is a lot of scope for experimenting with IKEA stuff, too (lots of folk build up their darkrooms with trinkets from IKEA!). In any case, individual prints are best stored with slips of webbed, acid-free tissue paper (same thing with the larger IKEA drawer set above). Archival storage boxes, for their expense, are over-rated, unless you are conserving or safekeeping precious (and pricey!) antiquarian prints e.g. Book of Hours leaves.

http://www.officeworks.com.au/shop/officeworks/p/quill-art-portfolio-a2-black-qu20415

Patrick Robert James · Sep 29, 2016

I use paper boxes as well. For finished prints I tend to use archival boxes.

One tip I can pass on is if you use fiber paper overstuff your boxes and keep them in stacks so the weight of the boxes above are carried by the prints. It will keep them flat forever.

BMbikerider · Sep 29, 2016

If I don't mount them for competitions in the club they stay flat in boxes. If they are mounted then they stay flat but on top of each other and covered over with 3 or 4 thicknesses of sheet. I have sets of 12 and 20 mounted prints from my assessment for a distinction in the Royal Photographic Society that have been stored this way since the early 90's and are as good as the day they were made.

Svenedin · Sep 29, 2016

Poisson Du Jour said:
This (IKEA) drawer set is what I am having delivered to my studio next week. The drawers may be a tad bigger than your max 12x16 (~30cm) prints as opposed to my larger RA-4H prints. Some older drawer sets (wooden) can be found at second hand markets, and also artist supply stores (probably more expensive than the behemoth that is IKEA...).

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/categories/departments/workspaces/10711/

Another option, for portability and showing, is an artist folio; very little space is taken up and it stores flat. I use one of these not so much for permanent storage, but for transporting the prints to the frameshop. Old wet-darkroom RA-4 prints produced in 1987 are still in beautiful condition stored in one of the first folios I bought looking for a "temporary" storage solution. "Temporary"?? And yes, they're still in there, 29 years later!

What is shown in these two examples is very common everywhere in Australia at e.g. artist supply stores and there is a lot of scope for experimenting with IKEA stuff, too (lots of folk build up their darkrooms with trinkets from IKEA!). In any case, individual prints are best stored with slips of webbed, acid-free tissue paper (same thing with the larger IKEA drawer set above). Archival storage boxes, for their expense, are over-rated, unless you are conserving or safekeeping precious (and pricey!) antiquarian prints e.g. Book of Hours leaves.

http://www.officeworks.com.au/shop/officeworks/p/quill-art-portfolio-a2-black-qu20415

Thank you for all your answers and thank you especially Poisson Du Jour. I like you drawer set idea. This has got me thinking about the kind of chest of drawers that Victorian collectors used. Those do turn up at car-boot sales and there is always the Ikea option as well. I am trying to be sensible now because I was foolish and careless with my prints in my youth and I now regret this (but I did store the negatives properly and they are all fine).

Ian Grant · Sep 29, 2016

For many years I stored in a set of Map drwers, a bit larger (wider/taller0 but similar to the Ikea drawers linked to above. Most are still in Agfa Record Rapid boxes, new ones will be in Ilford boxes. There's too many to store under a bed so they are stored on shelving in my garage.

Ian

Svenedin · Sep 29, 2016

Ian Grant said:
For many years I stored in a set of Map drwers, a bit larger (wider/taller0 but similar to the Ikea drawers linked to above. Most are still in Agfa Record Rapid boxes, new ones will be in Ilford boxes. There's too many to store under a bed so they are stored on shelving in my garage.

Ian

Yes, map drawer cabinet. That is the type of antique thing I am thinking about. Nice wooden drawers, looks attractive and practical for what I need. I have to convince the "higher management" of the household that my hobby is not taking over the entire house! Any storage solution has to meet approval criteria.....

Ian Grant · Sep 29, 2016

I had two sets of map drawers for work, both ex MOD surplus bought around 1976 and used to house artwork etc. I had the one set in the spare bedroom of my last house and they looded OK painted to match the funitue. Now they house all my camera restoration parts & materials and get used more as a workbench, they'd begun to show their age and there's only so many times they could be restored The drawers have worn through constant use and looking at replacement would be over £400 for a decent set the same size.

Ian

Storing Larger Prints (e.g 12x16)

Moderator

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency