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The Why & How of Matting Photographs
A Tutorial byAlain Briot
Why Mat Your Photographs?
Matting consists of mounting a photograph to a mat board into which an opening the size of the photograph has been cut. The photograph is attached to the back of the mat with framing or archival tape (see suppliers section at the end of this article). 
Matting your photographs may be more important than you think especially if you want to sell your photographs either framed or unframed.
Matting a photograph provides three main benefits:
First, it insures that the photograph will not touch the glass once it is framed - the mat board acts as a spacer between the photograph and the glass.
Second, once the photograph is framed and displayed matting helps separate the photograph from its surroundings. It gives it its own unique space and presence.
Third, but not last, matting a photograph makes it more sellable. A matted photograph is a finished product ready to frame, since all your customer h...

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Alain Briot creates fine art photographs, teaches workshops and offers DVD tutorials on composition, raw conversion, optimization, printing and marketing. Alain is the author of Mastering Landscape Photography, Mastering Photographic Composition and Marketing Fine Art Photography. All 3 books are available from Alain’s website as well as from most bookstores. You can find more information about Alain's work, writings and tutorials as well as subscribe to Alain’s Free Monthly Newsletter on his <a href="http://www.beautiful-landscape.com/">website</a>. You will receive over 40 essays in PDF format, including chapters from Alain’s books, when you subscribe.
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