Art - mattes and frames

[warbler]

Hi all!

I'm an artist and I'd like my paintings to look good on my website. For prints, I'd like them to have a matte and frame. I understand I need to add rectangles and, maybe, some effects, but does anyone have a good, tried-and-true technique to create a realistic simulation of this?

Any help is much appreciated!

[SrPx]

I'd find it easy to make using image editing/retouch techniques. Even very realistically. If I understood right, frames to set in your web portfolio to make them look like real frames. (not sure about the matte thing, language barrier, maybe). I haven't dug in doing this specifically with A. Photo, but done tons of works like this in Photoshop and others. Am positive is VERY doable, and without limits.

One other way  is doing them in 3D, do a very nice render, and use it as a graphic to add around the image. And/or 2D retouch over it, even.

[firstdefence]

You can make a matte pretty easily using rectangles and trapezoid shapes like this...

[Polygonius]

For more batch-processing-like...create ONE trapez you like. Duplicate, move and color them as you like. RASTER this and save! 

Via "gradient" tool you can "bitmap" import and save as style. 

Create a "frame" with this on a rectangle shape. Now you can use this "shape" as frame for all your pictures. If you want to move/resize the picture, make shure the pic is selected, if you want resize/move all, make sure, the "frame" is selected... 

[gdenby]

Hi, warbler,

I had to do this sort of thing some years ago for an art museum. Some was for presenting images from the collection on our the new fangled web page. In that case, it was not for framing images, but using the period frames to form a boundary for the text presentation about  exhibits. But mostly as a way to help the designer and curators mock up exhibitions.

The basic problem is the frame. Painting frames are often quite elaborate.  I'll suggest you find or make good quality photos of different frame stock, and show one of your works w. a frame you think appropriate, and then have links to alternative styles so the client can, if they want, choose something that might work better for their situation. Tone adjustment to make a frame look like it has different kinds of gilding shouldn't be too hard. But assembling something like a baroque style w. center embellishments, and different corner moldings will probably take some skill in compositing.

For prints, I tried using 2d software, but the results were not so good at that time. At this point, I suppose one might make a reasonable approximation of a brushed metal frame, or a painted wooden moulding. But at that time I used 3-D software as the best solution. The important thing is that the frame and matte have a subtle shading that indicates a flow of light across the surface. Both AD and AP can lay multiple layers of very subtle gradients across the matte shape that will get close to what one would see in actuality. Likewise, selective additions of noise across the surface. 

Note, this was for faking "photo-realistic" installations, and only an approximation of what the real presentation of the piece might be.

 

[firstdefence]

A simple frame.

Frame.afdesign

[firstdefence]

If you want something a tad more ostentatious: https://pixabay.com/en/photos/Frame gilded/?

[R C-R]

Just something you might want to consider when making your framed art for your website, but using placed images, layer stacking, & layer clipping can simplify the process & make it easier to adjust & reuse copies of the basic layout.

For example, in the attached (horribly unartistic) lame frame.afphoto file, the "art of a sort" layer is a placed image clipped as a child layer to the "ART Parent" layer. The art layer can be replaced via the "Replace Image" for different artworks & the size of the parent rectangle layer can be adjusted as needed. The same thing goes for the "FRAME Parent" layer & its "Wavy green" child layer.

Also, because of how everything is stacked, the lower layers can be simple filled in rectangles & shapes since layers above them cover the parts that otherwise would have to be removed. This makes size adjustments less tedious than they otherwise would be. In fact, there is only one curve layer in this example, the "bevel 1" layer that just needs an extra pair of nodes to line up the edges with the matte.

[warbler]

Wow! Thanks very much for all the good suggestions.

I especially appreciate the .afphoto file, R C-R. ...makin' it easy for me. Yes!