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Photographic Syntax - The image edge

There are a range of reference points that can be made when dealing with the edge of the image. While each presents a different aesthetic device as a means of containing the image, a technique or process might also be referenced. A general audience unfamiliar with the process might only read the image from an aesthetic point. These edge devices tend to go in and out of fashion with different periods, and the comercial sector, advertising area and magazine presentation tend to pick up on the current trend and fog it to death. However they offer a variety of useful means of presenting the image as a final print.

no print boarder

Perhaps the most common photo-edge comes from the thousands of images that are produced by 1hr processing laboratories all over the world where the image extends right to the edge of the print.


If the print is mounted on a white background there can be award visual distractions set up between white areas of the print and the mount. Also, as you might have realized there is often crucial visual information in the negative outside the print area that is left out and this type of presentation can suggets that the negative has been cropped. While a more unusal variation of this can presented through a much larger scale, it remains the most common print edge or boarder.

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