Lesson 4: Mountin' Them Fine Pictures - Finding your Mat

So what is a mat? As I walked around the trade show floor, I heard vendors calling all kinds of different things a matted album. Technically they are all right because a matted album can be loosely defined as an album where the photographs within the album are surround by some type of frame. Problem is, there are many ways to create a frame around a picture that results in a variety of qualities. Translation? Costs passed onto you.

Starting with the basics, there are three parts of the matting process to be aware of:

1) the photograph - self explanatory
2) the page - or also known as the backing. This is what the photograph adhered to or in some cases, just literally a backing
3) the mat - the frame around the picture.

In this lesson, I'm going to focus on the types of mats you might find. Although mats all perform the same essential function - to frame the picture - there are many varieties of mats that an album binder can use. Here are some that I've seen:

The Cardstock Mat. This is a mat that is made of heavy cardstock. Album makers will use card stock as a more cost effective alternative to a heavier (thicker) mat. Not only is the mat itself less expensive but so is cutting the mat. No special blades are needed to cut card stock.

This example shows a card stock mat that has an embellished edge. The embellished edge sets off the picture better and is printed onto the card stock.


















This is an example of how the cards tock and the page mount work together to set off the picture. The mat itself (in black) is made of a textured cardstock. The picture is mounted onto a gold colored page. Therefore, the picture is actually being framed by the negative space created by mounting the picture about 1/2 inch away from the mat. The gold colored page mount creates a border around the picture. This is also a cost effective alternative to traditional mats.









The Traditional Mat. Most photograph mats are made of wood pulp, or in other words, thick paper. Although the thickness of mats may vary, most traditional mats are about 1/16th of an inch thick.

The traditional mat frames a picture, like this example. The map is beveled, or in other words, cut at a 45 degree angle, to give the photograph depth. Mats come in many colors, usually with a white or cream core. The core is the beveled part of the mat.













The Double Thick Mat. A double thick mat is approximately 1/8th of an inch, roughly double that of an traditional mat. Occasionally, two traditional mats stacked together is also called a double thick mat.


This double thick mat really shows off the beveled edge and gives the photo even more depth.














This is an example of a double thick white mat with a black core. In this case, the mat itself is made from black paper. The top layer of the mat is covered in white paper. That is way when the album maker cuts into the paper, the mat core is black. Another way to make a colored core is to paint the core once it has been cut. This is much more time intensive and therefore, probably more costly.






The Double Mat. The double mat is two mats stacked on top of each other. This gives more depth to the picture and provides you the option of mixing and matching colors. By choosing two different colored mats, you can create unique borders.

This example shows two mats stacked on top of each other, creating depth. If you choose a different color for the bottom mat, for example - black, then there would be two borders around the the picture -- the black created by the second mat and the white beveled edge of the second mat.













In essence, you can mix and match any combination to make beautifully matted albums. Depending on the type of mat you choose and the way the mats are mounted (next lesson!), you'll be able to better determine the quality and value of the album.

Lesson 4: Mountin' Them Fine Pictures - Flush Mounts

Understanding how photographs are mounted into albums is one of the most important decisions you'll have to make when choosing your albums. Mounting can be defined as the method used to adhere a photograph to a medium. In the case of albums, photographs are usually adhered to paper. Remember these things?

Yup, these were the dreaded corner mounts. I hated these things because they never stuck to my backing and the pictures never stayed in place!

There are dozens of ways a photograph can be printed and mounted. Thankfully, album makers don't use corner mounts. However, album vendors have been known to mount their photographs differently, calling each process by different names. Because I feel that this topic is so important to understand, I'm going to break this subject into a few lessons. Today, I'm going to focus on flush mount.

Generally, there is one standard definition for flush mount - printing a single image and mounting it completely (or flush) to the backing of the company's choosing. I use the term "backing" losely but for albums, it refers to the thick card stock that are bound together to make the album leaves or pages. The singular image is likely to be a digital, printed image and may contain multiple pictures. Depending on your album maker, they may choose to print and mount an entire spread...like so...

...or cut your spread into two and mount the pictures as two pages. (Remember the gutters?)


Either way, the picture will be firmly adhered to the backing (usually thick card stock) - hence the term "flush" mount.

Also, don't be fooled - there are two types of flush mount albums - those that are mounted by the album company and those that you mount yourself. More on that next time...

Lesson 1, Part II: A New Leaf

I'm always discovering something new when I help my photographer friends wade through the design process. Today, as I was reading through an album maker's design spec information, I discovered a term that should have been a part of Lesson 1, which was -- leaf or leaves. I've heard people use this term before, primarily in publishing and less in design, but I haven't heard it recently. So what exactly is a leaf?

A leaf refers to the physical sheet that is turned when you flip through an album. It is made up of two sides or two pages. So now for the trick question - how many spreads are in a leaf?

Answer: A leaf is made up of two half spreads!

So why would someone use leaf vs. spreads? It probably depends on their background and whether they are referring to a design element (which would spreads) or a publishing term (which would use leaf). Either way, it's important to know how to differentiate them so you don't accidentally end up with the wrong number of ... whatever that album maker calls it.

Lesson 3: Pano or Not

You might have heard album vendors refer to some of their books as "pano" books. It is important to distinguish between panoramic pictures that can go into a book and a panoramic book. The official definition of panoramic is "wide" format and most album makers allow for you to place panoramic pictures across two pages of a spread. (See Lesson 1)

In the past, when book binding technology was in the pre-digital age, the easiest way for an album maker to have one picture span across two pages (1 spread) was to cut the picture in half and place each half on either page. Sometimes this is also called "split binding." This way, the album maker did not need to bend the photo to make the album close. However, this created a "visible" gutter right in the middle of the picture!

However, now in the digital age, photo printing has changed dramatically. Photographs can now be printed on various types of paper using a variety of inks and still look like a photograph. Therefore, many album makers can now supply a "pano" book. In other words, they will print the entire picture or deisgn on one spread (both pages at the same time) and mount it into the album as one piece. Even though the book still technically has a gutter (the book has to bend somewhere), it is sometimes called an "invisible" gutter. This is what album makers call an pano(ramic) book because the picture or design is in full panoramic view - no more cutting.

Depending on your style, you may still choose to go with an album that has a gutter. There are many good reasons to choose an album with a gutter and there are many designs that look great in non-pano books. Either way, keep your album style and design in mind when you choose that next great album!

Example photograph from Pictobooks

Lesson 2: Where's my Gutter?

In the publishing world, gutters are really important. If you're a photographer who offers albums, you should have some baseline understanding of gutters - what they are and why they exists - because it will impact what type of album you chose and how your photographs are presented.

So, what is a gutter? When you open a book, the center of the book where the pages come together is called the gutter. More often than not, the center of the book curves inward. Many things, such as pencil, would roll toward the center of the book - just like rain rolling towards a gutter.


Why is there a gutter?
Gutters exist (or not) as a direct result of how a book is bound. There are many methods of binding a book and each method creates a different type of gutter. More importantly - different binding processes have different costs - which is then passed to you! Generally speaking, it is easier to bind a book with very visible gutters rather than books that have non-visible gutters. Here are a few examples of binding that creates different types of gutters:



This is a Japanese Stitch Bound book. It is one of the easiest types of binding which many artists use. It also creates a deep gutter. For albums, it creates a great, classic feel but you will only be able to place a few photos per page. Photos will also be printed, then placed on a page. Cypress makes albums in this style which are beautiful and very traditional.









This a standard stitch binding or called oversewing. It is the most common for hardback books because it can bind many pages together at one time. Pages bound in this type of style must also be relatively thin. Most album makers don't use this type of binding but I believe some of the Couture Books do use this style of binding. (They also require 100 pages per book.)













This is a board book - often used for books for young children. These books tend to be more durable because of the thickness of the pages and do not have visible gutters. However, there is a limit to the number of pages that can be bound in this method. Most album makers use a modified version of this binding process in order to deliver a book that lays flat.






So regardless of which album maker you choose, it is important keep your mind in the gutter! It will impact the type of album you give your bride.

Lesson 1: Spreads, pages, and sides - OH MY!

Having been in photography, editing, and publishing, I sometimes take it for granted that everyone understands design terminology. On top of that, Album vendors don't help. They use terms and definitions interchangeably depending on the products they offer. Totally confusing - even to me!!

Here's a shout out to a friend and great photographer - Moshe Zusman - who stopped me while we were on the trade show floor at WPPI and asked, "Is a side or a page the same a spread?" What a great question, and of course we're all scratching our heads because we use all of those terms!

So from a design perspective, here are the definitions:

A spread is a standard design term for the entire image that you see when you open a book and lay it flat. For example:A page is the design (and common) term for the half of a spread divided by the gutter. I remember it by thinking about where page numbers are located. If you would put a page number on it, it is a page. A spread is always made up of two adjoining pages. For example:

A side is essentially the same as a page. However, the difference in design terms would be that a side can be used to describe any page whereas a page is often associated to be a part of a spread. In other words, the front and back of a single sheet of paper would also consider sides. For example:


So after all of that, it's all really the same thing to the bride so use whatever terminology makes sense to them. But when you're talking to a vendor, you'll know how to ask them -- "When you say 20 sides, you really mean 10 spreads, right?"

What a photographer really needs...

...is the truth! Or at least someone who can answer some basic design questions in an objective way.

I just got back from a couple of fun filled days at WPPI. I met some incredibly talented photographers, got a chance to walk the trade show floor with a couple of them, and made some wonderful new friends. As I was spending most of my time visiting album vendor booths, I realized 2 things - 1) vendors never take the time to explain, they only try to SELL and 2) at first glance, all vendors look alike. So after getting some input from my new found friends, I thought two specific items would be helpful to all my photographer friends:

1) To define some basic album design terminology and guidelines
2) To provide basic album vendor reviews and provide tid-bits on vendors as I hear about them.

For all you readers out there, please send me any design related questions you might have. If you're asking, I'm sure someone else is asking the same thing!