Picture Matting

Picture matting is the unsung hero of interior design. As most homes use some sort of picture framing, altering just how you frame your painting and photography can go a long way to making your home look more inviting and sophisticated. Picture matting, or the art of placing your photograph in a mat for framing, allows you to add a frame within a frame, introducing additional colors and style into your decor.

When you begin a picture matting process, you will need to take several measurements. The first measurement is the size of the photograph. However, this is not the complete size of the photograph, but the size of the area you wish displayed. This will become the inner dimensions of the picture matting. You will need both the height and width of the area you wish displayed. Next, you will need to have the inner dimensions of your frame. This is the space that the mat will occupy within the frame itself. The mat must fit within the frame in order for your picture matting to be successful.

When you mat, you will need the colored picture matting board, as well as an underlying board. The underlying board will go behind the photograph and secure the photograph to the mat. For those who are permanently matting a photograph, tape is often used to secure the picture into place. However, for rare photographs, it is strongly suggested that tape and glue are avoided, as this can ruin the photograph.

You should pick your picture matting supplies with care. While higher quality materials do cost you more immediately, it is these materials that are known to last significantly longer compared to lower quality materials of the same category. As picture matting is considered work intensive, requiring a great deal of measuring, meticulous cutting and careful placement, using higher quality materials results in having to only do the matting job once, rather than several times in order to maintain color quality.

When you use picture matting as a part of your decor, you should avoid matting the same photograph many times. The process of matting can damage photographs if you are not careful. Select your supplies with care so that you only need to mat your photograph once.

Al picture frames should be fully cleaned and allowed to dry prior to beginning the matting process.

Picture matting supplies can be purchased online or at a local retail store. You will want to take measurements of the pictures you wish to mat prior to purchasing so that you do not rush the measurement process.