Custom Picture Frames vs Standard Sizes

What custom framing actually buys

Four separate things get bundled into one price, and they are worth very different amounts depending on what you are framing.

The standard-size workaround, step by step

This is the method, and it handles any print whose dimensions are smaller than a stocked frame size in both directions.

1. Measure the print. The paper, not the image, unless you intend the mat to cover the paper edge — which you usually do.
2. Find the next stocked frame size up in both dimensions. The ladder is 8x10, 11x14, 12x16, 16x20, 18x24, 20x24, 24x36. All of these are stocked by every line.
3. Order a pre-cut acid-free mat for that frame size with an opening sized to your print. Pre-cut mats come in the standard step-down pairs.
4. Check the border width. Below 1.5 inches the mat reads as a manufacturing gap rather than a deliberate border. If the arithmetic gives you less, go up another frame size.

The full mat matrix has every stocked frame-to-opening pair, and how to mat a print covers cutting your own if the pairing you need does not exist.

The four cases where custom is the right call

1. The artwork is original or signed. A unique object deserves archival hinging and acid-free everything, and a framer will do both correctly. A stock frame with a cheap backing board is actively damaging over years.
2. It faces a window. UV-filtering glazing is only available through a framer, and daylight fades pigment permanently. Nothing you do later recovers it.
3. The dimensions are larger than any stocked size. Above 24x36 the stock market thins out fast. Made-to-size from a line that offers it is the middle option — see large frames.
4. The piece is three-dimensional. Jerseys, medals, pressed flowers and anything with depth need a shadow box built to the object — frame versus shadow box.

The cheapest fix is upstream: buy prints in standard sizes

Almost every expensive framing decision starts with a print that was bought in an odd size. If you are buying the art as well as the frame, this is the whole problem solved before it starts.

Ask for the paper size before ordering, and prefer 8x10, 11x14, 16x20, 18x24 or 24x36. Watch for two traps specifically:

• A4 and A3. European print sizes are close to, but not the same as, 8x11 and 11x16. A standard US frame will not fit them, and the error is small enough that people only discover it on assembly.
• Square formats. 12x12 and 16x16 are stocked but far less widely than the rectangular ladder, and the matted step-downs barely exist.

Every standard frame size is listed with what it holds, and affordable art prints covers where to buy prints already cut to those sizes.

The middle route most people miss

There is an option between a stock frame and a full custom job, and it is the right answer more often than either: a made-to-size stock frame.

Some lines will cut a standard molding to your dimensions and ship it with acrylic glazing and a backing board. You get the exact size, which is the main thing custom was going to sell you, without the conservation materials and the labor you were not using.

What you get and what you give up:

Craig Frames is the line in our picks that offers this. If your only problem is that the print is an awkward size, start there rather than at a framer.

For how the made-to-size route sits against the other ways of buying a frame, where to buy picture frames online compares all four and lists the listing fields that decide whether the frame fits the print you already own.

The most common non-standard object people try to frame is a finished jigsaw — a 1000-piece Ravensburger measures 27 x 20 inches, which matches nothing on the standard list. Best picture frames for puzzles works through that case.