Prints are still the most common way of viewing and sharing photos. Framing is certainly an option, but there is only so much wall space. Photo albums and portfolios are the most practical way to display prints to their best advantage.

Avoid the cheesy slip-in white plastic sleeve kind sold in supermarkets, get albums with thick paper pages where you can stick your prints with photo tape and optionally photo corners (available at most art supply stores). The better albums also have thin translucent buffer sheets to protect the prints. Make sure all the supplies you use (including the photo tape and corners) are archival (at the very least, acid and lignin-free, using archival polypropylene or polyethylene, not PVC or polymers with excess plasticizers from their manufacture, which can attack the prints).

Here are some good suppliers of presentation albums:

• Pina Zangaro, a San Francisco-based company, makes elegant designer portfolios and display cases, with a predilection for brushed aluminum.

• Kozo Arts, also based in San Francisco, makes exquisite hand-bound photo albums with silk covers, very popular for wedding albums.

• Kolo makes expandable archival photo albums in handsome linen and leather covers, and are widely available in arts supply stores. Kozo Arts albums are not much more expensive, however and preferable in my opinion.

• Prat and Panodia are two French brands of photo presentation and archival supplies, commonly used by professionals for their “books”.

Update (2003-01-27):

Unfortunately, I can’t recommend Pina Zangaro’s “BEX” line of slipcovered presentation portfolios. I had two, and they came apart unglued in my admittedly very humid apartment. What’s worse, one was placed in a bookshelf and acted as a kind of fungus magnet. Apparently, the cloth used for the binding is very hygroscopic (absorbs and retains humidity), and something in the glue is very nourishing for molds and fungus.