About FrameBug

Framing something yourself usually starts with a scatter of half-answered questions. How wide should the mat border actually be around this print? Once the mat and molding are added, what outer frame size do you order or cut? Does this photo’s ratio even match an 8×10, or does it need cropping first — and how much of the image will that cost you? Is the file big enough to print sharp at the size you want, or will it look soft once it’s enlarged? Would acrylic be a lot lighter than glass for a piece this size? And once it’s built, exactly how high on the wall does the hook go so the piece actually lands at eye level instead of a few inches off? None of these questions are hard on their own, but working through all of them by hand, for every piece you frame, is where a simple project turns into a chore.

FrameBug exists to take that arithmetic off your plate. Instead of long guides you have to read end to end, the site is built around a set of small, single-purpose calculators, each aimed at one part of the job. The Mat Border Calculator works out the outer mat size and frame opening from your artwork size and a border width, or solves the reverse: what border a fixed frame gives you. The Frame Size Calculator builds outward through the mat border and molding width to the finished outer frame dimensions, plus how much molding to buy. The Aspect Ratio Calculator simplifies any width/height pair to its ratio and shows the largest crop that fits a target print size like 8×10 or 4×6 without distorting it. The Print Resolution Calculator checks the effective PPI of a photo at your intended print size, or works out the minimum pixel dimensions needed to hit a target PPI like 300. The Glazing Weight Calculator estimates how much a sheet of glass or acrylic glazing will weigh from its size and thickness, and compares the two materials side by side. And the Picture Hanging Calculator finds the horizontal center and exact hook height for a level, eye-height hang, accounting for the drop from the frame’s top edge to the taut wire.

Beyond the calculators, the blog and learn section cover matting, mounting, framing materials, and the reasoning behind the numbers the tools produce, and the Frame Museum is a browsable collection of frame styles, matting and glazing materials, and the ways pictures and photos get displayed, with every entry, image, and fact drawn from Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons.

A few things worth stating plainly. FrameBug is an independent site, not affiliated with any frame manufacturer, art retailer, or framing trade body. It is supported by advertising, which is how the tools stay free with no account required. Every result the tools produce — a mat size, a frame dimension, a crop, a PPI figure, a glazing weight, a hook height — is a general estimate built on the numbers you enter and on common framing conventions, not a professional conservation or appraisal determination. For valuable, fragile, or archival artwork, a professional framer or conservator will do a better job than any calculator. If something looks off in a tool or an article, or you think a calculator is missing that would help, the contact page is the place to say so.