Frames and framing

Whilst Picturesonline are not framers, we do have an interest in helping you find the right frame for your pictures, especially when, with exquisite taste, you have purchased them from us. There are three options for you that prevail here: 1. the print size and shape, will, where possible, conform to a standard off-the-shelf frame from the likes of Ikea or The Range, or any of a dozen good on-line framing shops; 2. we can recommend a Fine Art Trade Guild member in your area (see under Links) who will help you with mount and frame, or 3. you can refer to our examples of frame mouldings below, each of which can be purchased online to your exact dimensions. These come from the extensive range of mouldings from eframe.co.uk, whom we have used successfully in the past for our own frames.

Framing can be a bit of a black art, and often depends on whether you want the finished picture to be ‘comfortable’ within your existing decor or whether it is the picture itself that is paramount so that the frame should ‘work’ with the picture. We have included a digital example of each image in a suggested frame on most individual picture pages. In general, avoid elaborate frames, ‘swept’ (eg. Victorian-style embossed or guilded) frames, and anything that draws more attention to the frame than the picture. Unlike oil paintings and watercolours, photographs are often best suited to a plain black, white, wood or metal frame, or even no frame at all.

If you like a coloured frame, photographs respond well to a frame style that matches, in colour, some part of the image, not necessarily a dominant colour but not a complimentary colour either. For instance, a picture that has a large component of blue, for instance, would not normally ‘work’ in a reddish frame. As stated above, we tend to feel that photographs, either black and white or in colour, look best in either black frames (and tending to a thin bezel rather than thick), or in a classic wood such as oak or beech.

Frames and framing: general information