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Comment by DanielBMarkham | Hacker News Reader

Related sidebar: last week I was on holiday and took some nice landscape photographs. They were nice enough that I had a few people on my social networks ask if I could frame them.

Being a computer nerd and not a professional photographer, I was at a bit of a loss. I ended up googling for professional print services online and ordering some sample prints.

Here's the thing: contrary to this article, they offered backing. Not sure about the rest of it. I included a couple of oddball-sized prints just to see how they did.

Why couldn't they offer frames? Is there some technical reason this isn't already done? I confess to quickly scanning the second-half of the article, but is there some barrier to entry that I'm not aware of?

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Well, here's the thing: "backing" is considered antithetical to proper framing, for the most part. That may be less of a concern with digital prints (no matter the medium), since those prints can easily be recreated as necessary, but full-surface mounting to a rigid substrate is not a reversible process; once it's done, it's done. And while that may be good enough for most people most of the time (for decorative applications or commercial display) it's not something that anyone who is selling into the "fine art" world would touch with a ten-foot (or three-metre) pole. Conservationally-sound framing (with reversible hinges, etc.) is fiddly, time-consuming stuff and requires a lot of horizontal storage space for drying, etc., between stages. And you'd have to deal with expensive and easy-to-break museum glass if you offer glossy prints. Since the market is largely dry-mount or frame, and framing is the fiddly, expensive and (relatively) low-margin part of the trade, that's the easier option to drop.

There's a fascinating amount of detail here that the home/prosumer photographer is unaware of. There's also an impressive amount of manual work. I'm not sure, but that kind of sounds like a startup opportunity to me.

We'll soon be able to print and frame your photos - and thinking about making them available (opt-in of course) for other people to purchase. Would love to know if that interests you (or anyone else here). Also feel free to sign up for the newsletter on the site (the bottom button in the footer at www.levleframes.com) to stay posted. And hanks for sharing that experience!

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