what to do about a Matte

I have been commissioned by my wife to frame a bunch of autographs I have collected over the years instead of hoarding them in my closet lol. Here is a sample of a layout I wish to frame. The matte is an image of mine from the 2007 Daytona 500.

What I am wondering is if it is too busy or if it fits the scene. I have 5 more layouts to do so I want to see if I am on the correct path here.


http://img58.imageshack.us/img58/601...tdesignks0.jpg

I like it. But I wonder if it would be better with a matte background image was the same racetrack scene without the cars. It would reduce the busy-ness a bit but still give you the track ambiance that looks cool.

I'm finding that I value the seemingly boring shots now for just such occasions as this --- backgrounds and graphic treatments. Unfortunately, I still forget to get those shots when I'm out shooting.

mbb

I changed it up a bit to reduce the busy-ness of the BG to make the images pop more. Does this look better?

http://img382.imageshack.us/img382/1...esign04vp1.jpg

You might try a little Photoshop drop shadow on each of the inset images. That and the softening you did of the background would probably be all you need. :thumbsup:

mbb

Well since the matte is the only real concern here there's no real need to drop shadow it. I plan on printing out the matte and the images inserted here in PS are actual images that I scanned in to plan the matte. The drop shadow will sort of appear naturally with the thickness of the matte board once the images are inserted into the frame.

As a side note.. framing multiple 8x10's like this is a bit of a pain and there are no commercially available frames for doing this so in the end it's all gonna be custom work on my end. Does anyone have any suggestions, tips, pointers for making picture frames?

Got it! :thumbsup: Should be good then.

mbb