Three services,
one standard

Every service at Sail Away Frame Shop is built around the same principle: use the best materials, do the work in-house, and don't hand something back until it's right. We're the only studio in the area offering all three under one roof.

01

Every frame
built by hand

We build all of our frames in-house using solid wood mouldings and exclusively archival, conservation-grade materials. If your work is worth framing, it's worth protecting properly.

Walk in with a painting, a photograph, a diploma, a piece of needlework — we've framed all of it. The design consultation is a real conversation: we pull corner samples, try mat combinations, and work through the options together until the framing serves the piece rather than competing with it.

Our moulding wall carries a curated selection of corner samples, and we extend that further with additional options organized in our flat file cabinets — so if you're looking for a specific finish or profile that isn't on the wall, we can usually pull something closer. Every moulding we carry is solid wood.

Mat cutting is done in-house on our Wizard Z1 CMC — the latest generation computerized mat cutter, capable of decorative cuts, precise bevels, and multi-opening designs with consistent accuracy across every job. No offcuts, no measuring errors.

Our standard

We do not offer non-archival materials. Every mat, backing, and mounting option we use is acid-free and conservation grade. There's no cheaper tier — just one right way to do it.

  • Solid wood mouldings — extensive wall selection plus additional options in flat file drawers
  • Wizard Z1 CMC — precision computerized mat cutting, decorative cuts, multi-opening mats
  • All archival materials — 100% acid-free mats, conservation backing, archival mounting
  • UV-protective glazing — regular and museum glass options to protect against fading
  • Canvas gallery wraps — we build our own stretcher bars and wrap canvas in-house
  • Design consultation — we work through the options with you, not just hand you a sample board
  • Needlework & fabric pieces — specialty framing for textiles and stitched works
Frame corner samples at Sail Away
02

Giclée prints that
do the work justice

Large-format printing with our Canon Pro-4100 on archival fine art media. For artists building a print collection, photographers who care about their output, and anyone who needs a reproduction that genuinely represents the original.

Canon Pro-4100 fine art printing studio

The Canon Pro-4100 is a 12-color, 44-inch large-format printer built specifically for fine art work. It prints on a wide range of archival media — cotton rag, fine art photo papers, canvas — and produces prints that hold up to gallery display and the demands of selling work professionally.

Most of our printing work is for artists who need reproductions of their paintings. The typical workflow: we digitize the original artwork, color-correct to match the source, and produce a gallery-ready giclée print — sleeved, with a foam backer, ready to display or sell. Artists can then call and reorder specific images by the unit without bringing the original back in.

We also print extensively for photographers. If you've had prints made elsewhere and been disappointed, there's a good chance the issue was in the file preparation or the profile used for your paper — both of which we handle carefully. We're also happy to work from your own files if you prefer to manage your own editing.

Gallery-ready delivery

Artist prints are delivered sleeved with a foam backer — ready to display, sell, or hand directly to a customer.

  • Canon Pro-4100 — 12-color, 44" large-format, purpose-built for fine art
  • Archival media — cotton rag, fine art photo papers, canvas, and more
  • Giclée reproduction — color-accurate prints from digitized original artwork
  • Reorder by image — artists can call and order prints without re-submitting files
  • Gallery-ready packaging — sleeved with foam backer, ready to sell
  • Canvas printing — printed canvas for gallery wraps or framed canvas pieces
  • Photographer-friendly — file prep, color profiling, and attention to tone and shadow detail

Want to know what your print will cost before you come in? Our pricing calculator gives you an instant quote for any size and paper combination.

Get an instant price estimate →
03

Your original work,
faithfully captured

High-resolution scanning and color-accurate digitization for artists who need professional digital files — for reproduction, archiving, print-on-demand, or licensing. We've been doing this since 2010.

A lot of artists find that getting a good digital file of their own work is one of the harder problems to solve. Phone photos have distortion and uneven light. Flatbed scans are limited in size and often struggle with texture and mixed media. What you need is a capture that's color-accurate, high enough resolution to print large, and properly corrected so the file matches what you actually painted.

That's what we produce. The files we deliver are suitable for large-format giclée printing, online sales platforms, print-on-demand services, and archiving. We handle the color correction and deliver files in the format you need — typically high-resolution TIFF or JPEG, sized for the largest print you're likely to make.

For most artists, digitization and printing go hand in hand — we digitize the original, produce the first run of prints, and keep the file on hand for future orders. It's a complete workflow in one place, and it removes the technology barrier that keeps a lot of artists from selling reproductions of their work.

Complete workflow

Digitize once, print indefinitely. We keep your files and can produce new prints whenever you need them — no re-submission required.

  • High-resolution capture — suitable for large-format printing and archiving
  • Color correction — matched to the original under controlled lighting
  • All media types — oil, acrylic, watercolor, pastel, mixed media, and more
  • File delivery — high-res TIFF or JPEG, sized for your largest intended print
  • File retention — we keep your files for future print orders
  • Print-on-demand ready — files formatted for online platforms and POD services
  • Pairs with printing — digitize and print in the same visit for a complete turnaround
Digitization setup at an artist's studio

100% archival,
no exceptions

Every mat, backing, mounting option, and piece of glazing we use is acid-free and conservation grade. We don't offer a cheaper non-archival tier. If you're going to put something in a frame, it should stay the way you put it in.

The same principle applies to our printing — archival inks on archival media, rated for 100+ years under normal display conditions. We're not interested in prints that fade.

Ready to get started?

Bring us your
work

Stop in during business hours or reach out ahead of time — especially for large framing jobs or digitization, a quick conversation first usually helps.

Design Your Frame Get in Touch

Location

112 N. Poindexter St.
Downtown Elizabeth City
North Carolina

Hours

Mon – Fri: 10am – 4pm

First Fridays

Join us for the monthly
Art Walk downtown

Get in touch

Contact us