Photo Matting Creations

Make your vacation pictures even better with photo matting from Matte Watch

Digital Calendars

A custom calendar can help you use your photos for beautiful creations.

Digital Awards

We make all kinds of cool awards for any occasion.

Inspirational and Humorous Plaques

Got some inspirations? Don't hog them to yourself let me help you spread them around.

Custom Greeting Cards

Who needs to hear from you today?

Custom Promotional Products

We would love to help you brag about your company.

Commemorative Photo Treatments

Got good photos? We have nice matting, so let's put the two together.

If you want me to create a unique or custom design from your photos or specifications, just send an email to jdir@bhotechnologists.com and tell me what you have in mind.  Please do not attach photos to your email.  I will tell you everything you need to know about how to start getting the most from your digital picture frame content.  If you want to use any of the work posted on this site, just pay $3 per image at how to buy matting services and then send me an email to let me know what you use or want to download.

Thanks for visiting, and come back often.  If you like what you see, tell your friends.  If you don’t, then keep coming back until you find something you do like.  Your comments are welcome, especially if they are good ones.

Beginning in July 2009, we will start the first set of weekly photo contests which have the potential of rolling forward into monthly and even yearly winnings for those who wish to participate.  When people submit their photos into the contest on a weekly basis, the top three winners will receive a weekly award for best submissions.  From this group of top three winners each week, we will automatically enter them for monthly prize eligibility. 

When we have a year’s worth of monthly winners, we will take the top three monthly winners and automatically qualify them for prizes established for the top three best photos of the year.  In the beginning stages of our contest plans, we will need to get the word out and wait for participation to build.  During the weeks and months when we get no entries, the prize levels will not be awarded for those periods.  This makes winning much easier for people who discover us first, and get busy participating before the crowds find out about our offers.

Once the real challenge begins, it will still be possible for contestants to win multiple times during any given month, and to continue to receive weekly and monthly prizes throughout the year.  The more weekly wins a person has, the more chances they have to win the monthly prizes and prizes slated for the yearly level.  While there is a lot for people to get acquainted with about our lower level contests, we are not going to fill in the details of our yearly prizes, but they will be greater than what we offer at the monthly levels when they start to kick in.

To help keep things fair among all our participants, we may need to look at making some adjustments to the way our contests are structured from time to time.  For example, we may adjust our criteria or create different submission categories to level the playing field for more people to have chances to win.  We reserve the right to change criteria, or disqualify certain entries due to things like inappropriate material, improper submissions, or other circumstances we have yet to experience.  Our contests are being created to showcase the talents of our loyal visitors, and give people a chance to see what we can do to raise the bar for their digital photos.

As this month begins a new showcase of favorite items, the first offering swings back to yet another kind of comic award, which toasts Katie Couric and anyone else who might be the recipient of such an acknowledgement.  The item works best as a personalized presentation, but could get some laughs in its generic form as well.  There is plenty of celebrity fodder to create this kind of humorous twist.

Use faux celebrity awards to impress friends and add a twist of humor.

 The second favorite is a screen wallpaper matted photo of Spring colors in a budding tree.  While the picture shows accents of light and shadows, the matting compliments the shot using photo textures, color gradients, and more textured matte accents to make the end result a more interesting and unique look.  See if you are not drawn in by the mix.

Matting techniques enhance interest in this shot.

Our last item is another calendar page design to demonstrate a unique way to display the month’s personalized events, matted photo highlights with color accents and subtle gradient shading around the photo and events listing, and a complimentary contrasting gradient shading as the calendar background.  With the combinations of color, composition, style, and texture, it is easy to see what a wide variety of personalized designs we can offer.  We can do an entire year’s worth of calendar pages varying only the photos, or creating a unique page with every shot that is showcased.  For $3 per page, you will get a lot more to look at than the “built in” calendars available with some digital frames, and a lot less

B-O-R-I-N-G.

Calendars provide both utility and beauty when enhanced by personal photos.

We work hard to bring you interesting material on this site.  You are welcome to use the images you want by donating $3 per image for each item downloaded.  We are relying on the “honor system,” and copyrights so if you use our stuff and don’t contribute, it will not be around to take forever.  Thanks for viewing, and if you like what you see, tell a friend, or lots of friends would be even better.

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

Using digital matting techniques, it is now easier than ever to experiment and move beyond the understated traditions of neutral and muted colors.  If you look at any good color photograph, it is alive with various color tones and combinations that are waiting to be accentuated.  The old adage that beauty is in the eye of the beholder applies to how we look at scenes and compositions that capture our attention.  Light and shadows, colors and tones all contribute to setting mood and impacting our feelings about the world around us. 

A presentation can be subtle or bold in the way it aims to capture the eye of the beholder.  Neutral and muted matting allows the viewer to find their own mood and statement in the context of the photograph on display.  By adding texture, colors matched from the photograph itself, or combinations of the two, the effect can make specific aspects richer and bolder, giving the life of the photo more zing than otherwise possible from surrounding it with subdued colors and tones.  With traditional mattes, finding the right color matches and putting the product together successfully would be both costly and time consuming.  Digital matting can allow you to grab a viewer’s attention and point them at what your composition is saying to you. 

When your photo is not meant for public display or appreciation, and you are highlighting it simply for your own enjoyment rather than its potential commercial value, you can take your experimentation to a greater level.  Trying out different color combinations with or without textures can give you a chance to find just the right statement of framing and mood that works to suit yourself.  Compared to the hundreds of dollars it takes to matte and frame one picture, the low cost digital matting process can provide a variety of alternatives to choose from until you find exactly what you are looking for. 

From a recent customer’s feedback, I heard an interesting story about the impact of one set of mattes I had done.  The customer had printed out the two digitally matted photographs in a 4 x 6 format, and framed them as a gift for a co-worker.  My customer later learned that the person who received the gift had replaced the original pictures with their own, but had also taken the time to use the digital mattes around their replacement photos by cutting out the original photos.  Even though there is only so many ways to matte a photo, the new options available with digital techniques have significantly broadened the potential horizon.

Texture and colors add zing and draw the eye to specific matches in the photo

Textures and colors create mood and highlights for compositions

Traditions are time honored practices that people carry forward from generation to generation, to preserve the benefits associated with such activities.  When it comes to photo matting traditions, many of these practices should have been overthrown a long time ago.  Even applying the most simplistic concepts for creating a basic matte, the time consuming job of measuring mattes to fit frames, then matching the right colors, and finally making sure the matte is cut to appropriately fit the picture can be troublesome for both amateur and professionals alike. 

It is the need for precise cutting, placing and measuring that keeps many people away from trying to do it themselves to any great extent.  One of the most vexing parts of this precision activity can be the fitting of the picture to its matte without losing too much around the edges, or leaving gaps on any of the sides.  In some cases, I have seen poorly matted and framed placements slip apart or get off center while being transported from a frame shop to home, or taped together combinations come apart over time and need to be redone.  Another problem with the traditions of matting is that more complex layers and designs add increasing amounts of thickness and weight to the framed picture.  If easy is not enough, the added complexity means added cost to accomplish the desired visual effect. 

There is undoubtedly a worthwhile visual impact associated with matching up a picture to a nicely done matte, even if the matte itself is just a basic colored border.  When I started creating digital photo matting techniques, it was like a light bulb going on in my head.  Digital methods allow me to keep the traditional advantages of picture matting, while solving many of the traditional problems associated with manipulating the physical materials.  With digital mattes, I do not have to worry about the problematic measurements to fit the matte and picture to the frame, because the finished product can be printed to fit the right size frame, be displayed perfectly in a digital picture frame, or be used with a variety of other display methods. 

Traditional problems of edge loss with conventional mattes can be completely eliminated with digital matting techniques, because the picture and its matte are fused together in a single printed image, while a complete view of the photo is displayed.  With the digital system, any loss in the photo composition is intentional when choosing to round off corners, or create non-rectangular freestyle shapes.  As complexity of digitized matte layers increase, there is no increase in the materials, thickness, or weight required to produce the end result.  All the visible elements of the matting technique can be printed out on a single thin sheet of photo paper. 

So, what is the bottom line here?  What it all boils down to is a major reduction in labor, cost, and time needed to produce excellent matting results that range from simple to highly sophisticated designs.  Traditional mattes can only be used in the solid frames they are designed to fit when they are created.  Digitally matted photos can be used in a variety of ways and sizes without going back to the drawing board and starting from scratch.  Say goodbye to cardboard and cutters, the digital revolution is knocking on another door.

Digital matting adds creativity and solves problems of traditional mattes

It has long been recognized that truly good photographs may come by design, or pure accident.  Professional and novice photographers alike continue to capture images that resonate with those who view them, and allow an audience to share in the quality of those brief moments.

Making a good picture better can involve a number of different techniques and changes in framing, lighting, filtering, effects, cropping, and other enhancements.  One of the single most dramatic ways to enhance the quality and highlighting of a photo is to use a good matting technique, and to be mindful of the type of frame that will be used to showcase the photograph.  With digital photography, there are lots of new ways to manipulate images that were simply not available with old style film techniques. As growing numbers of people grab their digital cameras and use the associated software that comes with them, it is easier than ever to create interesting and unique results.

When it comes time to showcase your images, I think there should also be a less expensive and improved alternative to the old school techniques for matting and framing your pictures as well.  While digital picture frame manufacturers work to sort out their best ideas for how to display your digital photographs, I turned my attention toward focusing on creating digital matting techniques that broaden the scope and lower the costs associated with achieving excellent matting results. 

For a tiny fraction of the cost associated with physically matting a photo, my digital techniques allow better results and more variations at the same price.  My matted photos fit perfectly in the common frame sizes without worrying about meticulous placement or having to purchase frames thick enough to handle the usual heavy matting boards.  This means lower cost frames can achieve great showcase results.  Best of all, low cost matting can allow everyone to highlight and display more of their favorite photos without paying through the nose to do it.

If people wonder why they have not yet heard about digital matting for photographs, they would be in the same place I was when I started developing my own techniques.  Looking back at the digital phenomenon, the evolution of photography and its presentation makes sense.  First, there were cameras which got started and improved over time, then digital picture frames for displaying electronic versions of photos, and now my digital matting techniques to expand and improve on the time tested practices of picture display enhancement.  Whether or not my personal efforts succeed to raise awareness of this exciting new prospect, I have no doubt the idea will continue forward in its own good timing.  At worst, anyone who applies these new techniques will have a house full of beautiful pictures for their friends and family to enjoy. 

With digital matting and your picture frame, you can transform your photos for as little as $3