A photograph printed on cotton paper travels best rolled. The tube keeps corners and edges safe on the way to you, and the paper recovers completely once it lies flat. Everything between opening the tube and hanging the frame takes about a day and one conversation with a framer. Here is the process, in order.
Let the tube rest indoors for an hour or two before opening it, especially if it sat in a hot delivery truck or came in from a humid porch to an air conditioned room. Paper that moves suddenly from warm, damp air into cold air takes on moisture unevenly, and that shows up as ripples.
Wash and dry your hands. Clear a table larger than the print and wipe it clean and completely dry.
Remove the end cap and look inside before pulling anything. The print is rolled inside a protective sheet. Hold the roll by that outer sheet and slide it out slowly. If it resists, reach in with your fingertips and tighten the roll slightly so it lets go of the tube walls. Never pull the print by a corner.
Unroll it face up on the table and keep the protective sheet between the image and anything that touches it. Place weights on the white margins only, never on the image. Small books wrapped in clean paper work well. Leave it for a few hours. Larger sizes, or a print that spent a long time in transit, may need a full day.
A little curl at the edges after that is normal. Your framer will take care of it. Please avoid the shortcuts:
Cotton paper creases easily, and a crease is permanent.
Carry it flat between two clean boards, or roll it back loosely the way it came, inside its protective sheet, and return it to the tube. Bring the protective sheet with you in either case.
A good framer will recognize every item on this list. If one of them gets pushback, ask why before agreeing.
UV filtering glazing. Glass or acrylic with UV protection slows fading from daylight and lamps. For works around 30 inches and larger, acrylic is lighter and safer to hang.
A mat or a spacer. Nothing should rest directly on the image. Paper that touches glazing for years eventually sticks to it.
Acid free materials. The mat and the backing board should be cotton rag or purified cellulose. Ordinary board releases acid over time and yellows the paper it touches.
Hinging at the top edge only. The print should hang from two or three hinges along the top, made with reversible conservation tape or Japanese paper. This lets the paper expand and contract with the seasons and keeps it flat in the long run.
Never dry mounted, never ordinary tape. Dry mounting glues the print permanently to a board, and household or masking tape stains through the paper. Both are irreversible and both remove the value a limited edition exists to protect.
Three presentations suit a Wesden print. A mat frames the image with a wide border of board and gives it room to breathe on a busy wall. A float mount shows the whole sheet, white border included, raised slightly off the backing on a spacer, which reads as more contemporary. Edge to edge, with the frame meeting the image, is the most minimal and needs a spacer to keep the image off the glazing.
The frame changes the size of what goes on the wall. A 3 inch mat adds 6 inches to each dimension before the moulding, and the moulding adds more. If you are choosing between two sizes, our guide on how to choose the right print size for your wall walks through the math. Wesden sizes are always listed as height × width.
Choose a dry wall with no direct sun on the work, away from kitchens, bathrooms and air vents. In a very humid week you may notice a soft wave in the paper behind the glass. That is the top hinging at work, and it settles as the air dries.
Unsure about something your framer suggested? Write to us at hello@wesden.us. We would rather answer before the work goes into the frame.
The photograph above breaks our own sizing rule and still looks right. The reason is the wall. When a wall has panels or a recess, the art takes its measure from the wall, not from the furniture.
Most art hangs a hand's width too high. One number fixes it, and a little arithmetic tells you exactly where the hook goes.