How to print with "interesting" borders?

[Jon Shiu]

you can make a non-edge fade border by using a card cut out and raising and lower it during the exposure.

Jon

[rjbuzzclick]

For 4x5 contact printing, I hand cut out a frame out of cardboard, the center opening is just larger than my negative, which gives a slightly sloppy rough black frame around the image but leaves the rest of the 5x7 paper white.

[Bill Burk]

I was looking through Diane Arbus Revelations and found something relevant.

Diane Arbus transitioned from hard edge easel-masked borders to black edge filed-out-negative-carrier borders and then later in 1969 to soft borders.

Neil Selkirk tried to duplicate the technique Diane Arbus used when he made prints for an exhibition of her work.

He found strips of cardboard about 2 1/2 inches long by 1/4 inch wide with tape on the ends hanging from the enlarger column. She would tape these strips to the top of the negative carrier.

When they disintegrated, Neil tried better cardboard but it didn't look the same. To duplicate her edge he found the source of her strips was cheap cardboard boxes containing negative sleeves. When cut down to the right size the edges were hairy, and when he suppressed the hairs with saliva-wetted fingers it made the edges perfect.

[PVia]

Use the easel blades to hold the paper down but don't use them to mask the projected image...rough edges without having to file your carrier.

See an example here

[walbergb]

If you use "paper" of any kind, be sure it is opaque so the light doesn't darken the emulsion during exposure.

[Paul VanAudenhove]

You could simulate the look of hand coated paper by painting your borders on a transparent overlay. By painting the edges, you would have a white border; or by painting the center you could then overexpose the border to get black borders.