I feel the large matte frame enhances the colours. Do You?

[JBW]

[Donald]

I don't know, as we'd need to compare it with the image without the matte. I do wonder if the colour of the matte is so strong that it is competing with the image rather than complementing it.

[Manfred M]

I would have to agree with Donald on this one. While I like matted prints, I have a very strong preference for white mats. I guess the really comes from my wet darkroom background when I printed with borders and when I mounted the prints, the white border would be up against the inner most mat board.

I've also seen some nice mats where the mat uses colours found in the image itself. I don't thing the gray does anything for this image.

[JBW]

I don't know, as we'd need to compare it with the image without the matte. I do wonder if the colour of the matte is so strong that it is competing with the image rather than complementing it.

Donald and Grumpy, I went back to do some work on the frame. I found out that once saved in Gimp saving mode I could not remove the frame. All i could do was have a checkered design. But i did try.

[bnnrcn]

I agree with the above comments Brian. If you can't get rid of the frame, you might as well crop it

[Manfred M]

Donald and Grumpy, I went back to do some work on the frame. I found out that once saved in Gimp saving mode I could not remove the frame. All i could do was have a checkered design. But i did try.

I don't know that much about Gimp, but the "checkered design" in Photoshop means a transparent area on the image.

[rpcrowe]

Here are several varieties of mattes...

#1


#2


#3


I think that I tend to like #3 the best... Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder...

[flashback]

While I don't think the grey frame does anything for the image, regarding the image itself I think it would have been much better had the entire bottom leaves been included. And I think that goes for including the entire leaf in the upper RHS. For me it's not about a frame (were one to hang such a photograph, that is the time when mattes and frames would come into play) so much as it is about an image. In this case it would be a considerably (IMHO) stronger image were the aforementioned issues addressed.
The above said this is one of your images I think would work wonderfully on any wall as it strikes me as a very contemplative image.

[rpcrowe]

While I don't think the grey frame does anything for the image, regarding the image itself I think it would have been much better had the entire bottom leaves been included. And I think that goes for including the entire leaf in the upper RHS. For me it's not about a frame (were one to hang such a photograph, that is the time when mattes and frames would come into play) so much as it is about an image. In this case it would be a considerably (IMHO) stronger image were the aforementioned issues addressed.
The above said this is one of your images I think would work wonderfully on any wall as it strikes me as a very contemplative image.

I'd love to see the bottom leaf stretching over the frame!

[Wandjina]

All my printed entries at the local camera club competitions are submitted with a matte around them. A general rule is that the colour of the matte should compliment the dominant colour in the photo.
So I would suggest, if you are going to print this photo then use a very dark green matte or a black matte. For a digital photo on display here, then don't worry about the matte at all!

[Mike Buckley]

I've got an additional thought about digital mats: When we view a physical mat surrounding a print, there is always variation in the lighting that creates at least some very subtle if not a lot of tonal variation in the display of the mat. I think that explains why I dislike digital mats that lack tonal variation. Even when a white digital mat is displayed, I prefer a drop shadow to be used on two of the sides and I think that's because the drop shadow provides at least some tonal variation outside the image being "matted."