Archival Mats and Boards

[eaglescout53]

What is everyone's thoughts on the use of Archival Mats and Boards compared to standard mats and boards which are much cheaper? I am planning to prepare some of my work to sell at Arts and Crafts show this fall and trying to decide if it is worth the money to go for the expensive archival mats and boards. What does everyone else use?

[R. House]

I use archival products always. And I let people know that I do. I also print on the best paper that suits the image. Sure it costs more, so I just pass the extra costs on to the client.

[KrozFan]

Use the archival materials. Not only is it better for the picture, but if you use a cheap mat board the white you see on the beveled edge will turn brown in less than a year, the acid free stuff stays white. It looks a lot better

[BusToBedlam]

Originally Posted by KrozFan

Use the archival materials. Not only is it better for the picture, but if you use a cheap mat board the white you see on the beveled edge will turn brown in less than a year, the acid free stuff stays white. It looks a lot better

I have to agree. If your spending the time and money on fine art paper or prints then a little extra on the matting is not much. Getting good quality conservation or archival mats in bulk is easy to keep the cost down. The boards referred above that darken are the plan paper mats, often labeled in retail stores as acid-free when what they are is simply a buffered acid-free. The term "acid free" is used all over the mat board industry and means very little. Conservation, archival or museum grade are the terms that have to be asked about.

Use the best 4ply or 8ply cotton rag or alpha-cellulose matting and label your prints as such with confidence. I get my 11x14 mats for less than $2 each.

[eaglescout53]

Where do purchase the mats from? When you say 11x14, is that the photo size or the outside dimension of the mat.

[wingspar]

Haven’t done this yet, but I was looking at this site today. If you look at about the middle of the page, you will see Crescent Select as the choice for archival photography, and it is acid free.

A couple more sites from todays research.

Redimat.com

Pictureframes.com

[BusToBedlam]

Originally Posted by eaglescout53

Where do purchase the mats from? When you say 11x14, is that the photo size or the outside dimension of the mat.

By 11x14, I was referring to the outside dimensions. I get all my matting at Redimat.com

For my 11x14 mats I pay 1.89 each for them in the acid free Crescent Select material.