Advice on displaying photos wanted

[Badlad]

Hi all

An opportunity has arisen to display some caving photos in a public building. A small exhibition if you like which will help promote caving to the non caver.

I am wondering on the best way to print the shots for display. There is a healthy budget, but most importantly the display must look professional and have a real impact. I also don't want to be printing or framing myself. I was wondering about acrylic - has anyone got experience of this?

.. or what would you recommend?

 

[Steve Clark]

I have a couple of small prints of our kids printed on 7"x5" acrylic blocks. They are quite good and robust enough to survive a decade in our madhouse. About 15mm thick and there is a bit of a weird effect at the edges where you can see the reflection of the image. The front surface is also quite reflective so be careful of lighting behind the viewer, windows etc. I've no experience of the larger sheet prints, but I'd be wary of the thinner 3mm stuff. We worked with loads of thin sheet for covid screens and the reflections/distortions are all over the place below 5-6mm.

( For low budget or home stuff, an economical option is standard-sized/aspect-ratio large prints from photobox or similar, combined with 'RIBBA', 'HOVSTA' or 'LOMVIKEN' frames from IKEA. The IKEA frames have a pre-cut internal card mount that is one size down from the full frame size, so a 50x40cm frame will take a 40x30cm print in the mount, with the actual 'hole' being 39x29cm, giving a little bit of room for error. If you catch the almost permanent offers on these sites, a print this size is about £10 + £8-12 for the frame. )

 

[TheBitterEnd]

If there is a reasonable budget, its probably worth talking to some companies like https://www.loxleycolour.com/ or https://www.peak-imaging.com and seeing what they suggest

 

[Eds]

Sid designs at Staveley are worth contacting, they do acrylic printing and various other options.
www.Siddesigns.com

 

[Ian Ball]

I'm quite out of touch but I thought acrylic printing was sticking a print with double sided clear sheeting to a clear acrylic sheet to form a top coat? and then backing it into a sandwich.

I think the benefit is UV stability for dye inks which give a better range of colours but I've not worked in the graphics section of printing, only technical where speed and line accuracy is more important.

If you want the acrylic back print sandwich, with raised mounts that are popular in offices I would say the range of colours will be reduced as you would have to use pigment ink (or maybe wax) which is more uv stable but adheres to the surface rather than dye inks which give a better colour gamut so more vibrant image but fade over time and need to interact with the media so I assume acrylic isn't suitable for dye ink as it will have no absorption.

I ask how long you need them to be displayed for and how often you want to transport them? Acryclic is something once up, you don't really want to move as it's not very scratch resistant and larger sizes are heavier so need better mounting, 4 corner mount post is the most common.

The SID design site is a good find but doesn't look like a photographic company to me, I'm sure they would say otherwise, as a local business please drop them an email?