Tips For Building Your Football Card Collection Fast

How to Choose the Right Picture Frame

Anyone who creates images as a hobby or on a semi-professional basis ought to consider just how important their choice of frame is to the overall image. If you are thinking about giving away your pictures as Christmas presents or hoping to sell them at a gallery, then choosing the right sort of frame for the picture is essential to ensure that it is presented in the best light possible. Whether you are a watercolourist, a photographer, a charcoal sketcher or work with canvas and oils, framing your image correctly takes skill. Read on to discover the tips that will help get your custom picture framing right.

Be Sensitive In Your Choice

When you visit your picture framing store and look for something that will be suitable for the image you have in mind, then it is always helpful to have some sensitivity for the image you are going to set in the frame. Bright frames with a bold design may be very good for posters and pop art work, but they will detract from a scenic image or one that has colours that will clash with the frame's. Equally, lots of gilt and floral patterns on the frame might suit a nineteenth-century oil portrait but they will rarely look good with a black and white photo. Unless you are deliberately setting out to make a clash of styles, go for something that sits in the background, visually speaking, and that complements the subject matter of the central image.

Sizing Options

Don't be put off a frame because it is 'too large' for your image. Often a small image can sit perfectly well in a frame that has dimensions that are one-and-a-half times as large. So long as the painting or photograph is positioned centrally with a plain border, an oversized frame can even draw more attention to the image. Don't exceed the proportions of your picture by much more than this ratio, however. A frame that is twice as large as the picture it is holding tends to swamp it. Furthermore, don't crop your image to fit a frame that is too small. Most artists end up regretting such an act when they hang their picture.

Material Considerations

Rustic artwork always looks good in a wooden frame. Light coloured woods and woven mats are particularly effective if your images are drawn from inspiration in nature. Detailed dark wood and metal frames tend to suit pictures of city life and architecture, on the other hand. If in doubt, because your picture does not fit any defined category well, opt for a plain white border for the most neutral choice.