Questions

The print

What am I actually buying?

An archival pigment print of one photograph, made to order on cold press fine art paper: textured matte, 100% cotton, 340gsm. Nothing is stocked. Each print is made for the person who ordered it and posted directly from the lab that made it.

What sizes are there?

Three, named by the short edge of the image: 12, 16 and 24 inches, or 12, 18 and 24 for the 4:3 photographs so that their middle size is a standard 18 × 24. The long edge follows the photograph’s own proportions, so nothing is cropped to fit a standard frame.

Not every photograph offers all three. A print is only offered at a size the original file can genuinely carry, so some works stop at 16 inches and a few stop at 12. If a size is missing from the buttons, it is missing on purpose.

Does the print have a white border?

Yes, on every print. The size you choose is the image; the border is added outside it, and the total sheet size is printed under the size buttons.

The border is what a mat opening sits on. Don’t trim it to fit a frame you already own — measure against the sheet size.

Why is there a border at all?

It is the part a frame or a mat has to hold. Every frame has a lip that overlaps whatever sits inside it, and a mat window is cut to overlap the artwork too — so a print with no margin loses about a quarter inch of the picture on every side when it is framed. The border gives that away instead. It is also what lets you handle the print without touching the image, which matters on a pigment print.

Which size should I get?

Art over furniture generally looks right at roughly two-thirds the width of the piece beneath it, hung with its centre 57–60 inches from the floor. A 72-inch sofa wants about 48 inches of art: one 24-inch print reaches 42½, and two 16-inch uprights hung three inches apart come to exactly 48. A 48-inch desk wants about 32, which is a 16-inch landscape.

The 12-inch is the size that groups — hallways, stairwells, a wall built up over time. All three are drawn to scale here.

The free test: cut a rectangle of paper to the sheet size, tape it to the wall, and live with it for a day. It settles the question better than any number.

What frame do I buy?

A ready-made frame with a mat is the cheapest route, and the frame has to be big enough for the sheet. 12 × 18, 16 × 24 and 24 × 36 are all common ready-made sizes and none of them will hold your sheet. Go up one:

The 12-inch is the happy case — an 18 × 24 frame is one of the commonest made, and the mat comes out even on all four sides. At 16 and 24 the margins are not equal on both axes; a ready-made frame in a 3:2 world never quite gets there, and a framer cutting to the sheet will. The mat window is cut a quarter inch inside the image on purpose, so the mat holds the print down and no white edge shows if it shifts.

Float mounting is the third option: the whole sheet is mounted on a backing with a gap around it, so the paper’s own edge shows inside the frame rather than hiding under a mat. It suits a bordered print.

Is it framed?

No. Framing is not offered right now. What arrives is the print itself — no frame, no mat, no glass, no hanging hardware. I had framing on for a while and took it off because I wasn’t happy enough with how the framed pieces looked against what they cost. If you want one framed, email me and I’ll quote it by hand.

Is it signed or numbered?

No. These are open editions, unsigned and unnumbered, and there is no certificate. The lab prints and posts direct to you, so I never physically handle your print — I couldn’t sign it without adding a leg to the journey, and I’d rather not pretend otherwise. If a signature matters, email me before ordering.

Why cotton paper rather than ordinary paper?

Almost all paper is wood pulp; this is not. It is 100% cotton — the same fibre as a cotton shirt, pressed into a sheet. Wood pulp contains lignin, the compound that holds a tree upright, and lignin is what turns old newspaper brown at the edges. Cotton has none of it. Take the wood out of paper and you take out the thing that ages first. That is the fact behind the words museum cotton rag on the product page.

The sheet is 340gsm, three to four times the weight of office paper. Weight is most of the difference between a print and a poster: a poster wants to curl and needs glass to hold it flat.

Will it glare under a lamp?

No. The surface is cold press — matte, with a fine tooth, and no sheen to catch a window or a bulb. You can hang it opposite the brightest window in the room and still see the photograph from every angle.

Why do the dark prints look different from the screen?

A screen makes light; paper only returns the light already in the room, and a matte cotton surface returns it diffusely. So colours read quieter on paper and the deepest blacks are not as deep. Every matte cotton print ever made behaves this way.

Which is why the files for the darker work are not the files you see on the site. Sent a file graded for a monitor, matte cotton renders the shadows as one flat shape with everything inside them gone — so those shadows are lifted until the detail still reads on paper, even though that makes the file look slightly flat on screen. The print is the thing being made, so the print is what the file is graded for.

Does it arrive flat or rolled?

It depends on the size. A rolled print will relax within a day laid flat under a weight. Handle it by the border rather than the image — pigment on matte cotton marks. Printed with archival pigment inks: pigment, not dye, meaning solid particles suspended in the ink rather than a stain that sinks into the fibre.

Will it fade?

Pigment inks on 100% cotton rag is the combination the word “archival” means in this trade. I’m not going to quote you a number of years, because I haven’t run a lightfastness test on these specific prints and I won’t repeat a figure I didn’t measure. The thing that actually matters: keep it out of direct sunlight. Sun fades any print on any paper, and it is a far bigger factor than the ink.

Can I see a sample first?

No — every print is made to order, so there is no sample programme. What I’d say instead: no screen shows a matte cotton print exactly. Cold press reads softer and less saturated than a backlit display, always. If an exact result matters, email me before you order and describe what you need.

Ordering and delivery

How long will it take?

Made in 2–3 business days, then 2–5 days in transit. You get an order confirmation immediately, and a second email with the carrier and tracking number the moment the lab hands it over.

How much is shipping?

Nothing. Shipping is free to every country the shop ships to — the cost is already inside the price, so the number on the product page is the number you pay before tax. No minimum and no threshold.

Do you ship internationally?

Yes, to 21 countries. I’d rather list them than say “worldwide”: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States.

Two limits, both the lab’s and both real:

• Germany is not on the list. The lab removed it over new import requirements. Rather than take an order I might not be able to post, checkout will not accept a German address at all.
• 24-inch prints ship within the US only. The lab has no international carrier for the largest tubes. The 12, 16 and 18 inch sizes go everywhere on the list.

Will I pay customs or import duty?

Outside the US, probably. International orders travel by USPS, and any duty, VAT or handling charge is set by your own country and billed to you by the carrier on delivery. It is not collected at checkout and not included in the price. Clearing customs also takes longer than the transit figure above.

How do I pay?

Card payment through Stripe Checkout. No account, no password, no login — this site has no user accounts at all. Card numbers never touch cdriehm.com.

Can I change or cancel after ordering?

Email me straight away. Printing starts within a day or two, and once a sheet is on the press it can’t be pulled back — so the honest answer is “quickly, and it depends how quickly.” I’ll always tell you where the order actually is rather than guess.

If something goes wrong

What if it arrives damaged?

Email me within 14 days of delivery and it is reprinted or refunded, at no cost to you. That covers transit damage, a printing fault, a mis-cut, and anything that isn’t what you ordered.

Photograph everything before you throw any of it away — the print, the packaging, and the outer box including the damage to the box. Nothing needs to be sent back; the photographs are the claim. A transit claim is settled on the state of the packaging, and without those pictures it can be refused outright.

Can I return it if I just don’t like it?

No, and I’d rather say that clearly than bury it. Made-to-order prints aren’t returnable for change of mind — there is nothing to restock. Two exceptions:

• UK and EU customers have a statutory right to cancel within 14 days of delivery. Return the print in its original packaging at your own cost and the full price is refunded once it arrives back intact.
• Anywhere, if something has genuinely gone wrong that isn’t covered above, email me. I’d rather sort it out than win an argument.

The colour looks different from my screen

That is expected, and it isn’t a defect. No screen shows a matte cotton print exactly as the paper does, and cold press reads softer and less saturated than a backlit display. If an exact result matters, email before ordering.

The photographs

Why are the trees red?

Living plants reflect near-infrared light, which your eye cannot see. These were made on cameras built to record it, so foliage comes back bright and water and sky go dark. The longer answer is here.

Is the colour real, or is it edited?

The relationships are real and the hue is a choice. Foliage is bright because leaves genuinely reflect infrared; water is dark because it genuinely absorbs it. Straight out of a converted camera the whole frame is overwhelmingly red, so these are graded, and some have their colour channels swapped. Nothing here is a filter dropped onto an ordinary photograph — and nothing here came out of the camera looking like this either.

Anything else — cdriehmart@gmail.com.