If you have not yet been won over to buying a digital picture frame for your matted and non-matted photos, you can easily set up a nice show using your PC.  In talking with customers, some people are using an old lap top or outdated computer as an alternative to buying digital frames.

Using the XP operating system, it is easy to set up a nice looking slideshow of your digital pictures as a screen saver, using one of two options available.  To accomplish this, place the pictures you want to display in a specific directory without any other directories underneath.  Next, right click on your desktop, and choose the “Properties” option on the dialog that pops up.

When you see the Display Properties dialog, choose the Screen Saver tab.  From the list of screen saver options, choose My Pictures Slideshow, or My Pictures Premium.  When your choice appears in the Screen saver selection box, click on the Settings button and set the options you prefer for your slideshow.  Do not forget to use the Browse button to select the directory where your pictures are located.  Once you have chosen your preferred settings, click “OK” on all your dialog windows to confirm your selections. 

Depending on your selected wait interval, the screen saver slideshow will start displaying your pictures after the computer has been idle long enough to engage the screen saver program.  You can use your Display Properties dialog to set the Wait time for your slideshow, and you can also adjust your Power settings to keep your computer from turning off your monitor or putting the system on standby. 

If you want to get a feel for how your photos will look in a digital picture frame, this screen saver slideshow setting will give you a good idea of how a frame would look.  Using this method, you can create a slide show of hundreds or thousands of your most cherished photos.  In some cases, you may even be able to buy a used or cheaper computer system for less money than what the premium digital picture frames sell for in some stores, and get more uses from a computer than just a frame.  Whatever you choose to do, it is easy to get hooked on the benefits and results you can accomplish with a nice digital photo set up.

Display your photos electronically for great results.

Even though my personal creations have largely been devoted to electronic display, it is just as easy to bring end results to life using printed media.  In fact, it was quite surprising to see how many people can look at a nice photo composition and still ask if the work looks good when printed.   Maybe there is a premium on getting things printed these days.

In a few short years, digital cameras have significantly changed the way people think about taking and printing their photographs.  For the average person, film cameras have practically disappeared from the shelves.  In place of developing film, stores have shifted to printing hard copies of digital photos.  Some of the readily available printing services are high quality, and some are little more than over priced junk prints, but the popularity of digital services is here to stay.  One of the best selling ideas behind digital photography is that nobody has to waste money on printing “mistakes.”  Bad pictures can be deleted without paying to develop a blank or useless roll of film.

Though many photos can easily go directly from the camera to a digital picture frame, the added step of matting pictures before digitally framing them is made economical by using the right resource.  Additionally, if you prefer to print and frame your photos in a traditional frame, you can get excellent results using digital matting for much less than allowing a frame shop to matte the pictures using old methods.  There are people who refuse to engage in all the latest technical gadgetry, so physical prints of matted photos can help to bridge the gap between the high and low technology groups. 

Despite the rise in digital picture frame technology, old fashioned framing methods still vastly outnumber electronic ones.  Right now, the main choices are to cover lots of walls with individually framed pictures, or to cover lots of pictures in a single frame.

Excelent results can be obtained by using digital matted prints in regular picture framing.

In the world of physical matting techniques, another way to accentuate and raise the interest level of framed artwork is to add a variety of insets or inlays to compliment the matting treatment.  For example, a common technique used is to embed wood or metal borders into the matting, or surrounding the picture, to achieve an effect that is visually enriching.  The technique can suggest a “frame in frame” type of effect, or just provide a richer accent to the texture already provided by the matte foundation.

A second approach is to provide other accents that compliment the subject of the picture itself.  An example of this kind of treatment is often seen in framing pictures with a Southwest theme, using miniature arrow heads, dream catchers, feathers, and other items to add dimension to the picture. 

The added materials used to create interesting insets and accents can also add cost, weight, thickness and complications to the process of achieving a finished product.  Some potentially eye-catching materials are generally not very practical to use in conjunction with traditional matting and picture framing.  With digital matting techniques, all the physical limitations and much of the cost of real materials can be eliminated by the process of virtualization.  By limiting inset materials to electronically reproduced equivalents, traditional materials like wood and metals can be used at equal cost.  Beyond the traditionally used accents, other materials like tiles, stone, plastics, and other virtual equivalents can also be brought into the creative process to accomplish new effects which were previously unavailable or unusable.

Virtual objects can be manipulated to become part of an overall digitalized image, to provide almost limitless possibilities for new ways to package, present, and deliver a truly artistic combination of visually stunning prints.  With digital images, the cost of a work of photographic art can be factored by its presentation and esthetic value, at a greatly reduced production cost. When photographers begin to envision the potential treatments they have in mind for their compositions, a new dimension of artistic possibility can be opened for the benefit of an appreciative audience.    

Digital technique allows new inset combinations like this one with marble, paper, and gold textures

For anyone who has been around a while, the old adage, “The clothes make the man,” may or may not apply in modern society.  With relaxed culture in the work place and casual dress, there are more and more jeans-clad executives running around inside many businesses.  Yet, even to this day, people still react noticeably when a casually dressed person encounters someone wearing a sharp business suit. 

Bringing this analogy over to the world of photography, using an attention getting matte treatment on an otherwise less interesting picture can make a big difference as well.  Even though the subject of a photo is the same when presented with or without the matte, there is something about this extra step that silently raises the inference that this picture has more value than pictures that stand alone. A photographic matte treatment is a way of saying, “Take a good look at the value of this moment.”

Test your own response to the benefit of adding matting to photos by looking at pictures you have seen that impressed you in a public place or a gallery.  Whether a picture is framed or printed, artists use both subtle and bold techniques to aim for the impression they want the audience to get from viewing the picture.  More often than not, the reason a photo is not matted is due just as much to the cost as it is to how well the photo subject expresses itself.  In a way it is like saying that an undressed person can eventually express the positive characteristics of their best personal image, but it is much easier to catch what that person wants you to see if they use proper clothing to create the desired effect.

If your pictures are worth showing to other people, why not dress them with the kind of clothing that makes the best impression for the viewer?  Many people get so into their own pictures, they forget how boring it can be for other people to sit for hours and look at images they are viewing out of context with the owner’s perspective on the shots. An interesting matting treatment may still result in a boring shot, but the end result will be one step closer to interesting.  Matting your best shots can also provide you with a way to choose which pictures to show others, and give you a good cut off point for when to stop.  Using mattes can also help show you when you might need to crop or rethink the value of an individual shot.  

Using the right combination of frame and matting, ordinary becomes unique