Printing Ratios and Framing

awmphoto

I tried searching through past posts but couldn't find a definitive answer regarding the printing and framing of panoramic photos.

First for some background on what I'm trying to do. I currently work at a local country club as an assistant tennis pro, but they also pay me to do some graphic and photo work for them. My boss, the head pro, wanted to allow me to offer a more wide variety of products. (He doesn't make any money off the sales, but just wants the members of the club to have high quality keepsakes of the summer program) He suggested combining my photo and graphics work together into a product for the members. An example of one of the items I want to sell looks something like this.




Currently the photo with border is at a 5x2 aspect ratio. I just made it this way because quite frankly it worked with how I needed to fit everything. At this point though I want to know a few things.

First would it be easier to print through EZ prints directly and get a 12x30 inch print without having to cut or crop any of my image? Also is there any place that prints larger then this. Ideally I'd love to print 16x40, but I don't know if this is feasible with out a large amount of work on my part.

The next thing I need to know is opinions on mating this type of work. Would it work on its own in a frame, or should I mat it, then frame it?

Third is framing, is this type of work pretty much only going to get done by custom framing, or is there another option of high quality, large, premade frames?

Thanks in advance for your help.:D

OsirisPhoto

I've been relying on a custom framing company for landscape prints at 40".. not cheap! I'm now planning to use IKEA Ribba frames at 30x88cm (34.6") scaling and trimming photos as required to fit... frame cost £12.49 ($25).

Like your prints, mine have borders and text so I don't use mounts for that size.

If you are using EZprints, double up on the print (i.e. get a 30x40" print with two images on it).

fdi

I am the owner of a picture frame company that specializes in fine art photography. There are no standard panoramic picture frame sizes although some companies have various pano’s produced and imported. My company carries a few 1:2 and 1:3 ratio pano’s but for 16 we stop at 16x32 artwork size because we don’t wan to go over 40 inches on the frame size. We also have pano sizes of 10x30 and 12x36. The bulk of your mat and mounting products are manufactured at 32x40 inches, although a subset of products are available at 40x60 inches. We sell custom mats and frame up to 60 inches but you have to consider the shipping cost which easily becomes significant. Adhesive mounting gets more complicated with larger images, but you can still t-hinge pano’s you just use a t-hinge about every 12 inches.
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We have more info about mounting here:
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A list of our 80 standard mat sizes here:
http://www.framedestination.com/picture_frames_help_2.html

Cheers,
Mark