Dear Kim/Lady Z,

Hi, again =)!  Well, after my matte feeding frenzy
last night, I can offer some insight ;)!  Do you
know how the matte is stuck into place =/?  Try
separating a corner or edge of the matte and see
how easily or not easily the matte separates from
the backing =/.  I found that most of my mattes
(the She-Ra ones and one for an expensive Swan
Princess cel) came apart quite easily =), so the
matte was hardly damaged at all when I removed
it.  They were basically stuck together with
double sided sticky tape =P!  The only matte I had
difficutly removing (and the matte paid the price)
was for that cheap production drawing I mentioned.
They glued that sucker in for keeps =6!

It was difficult for me to enjoy any of the cels I
had in mattes because they were all basically
stacked against a wall =P!  After jINx's insight
into the mattes, I went bonkers last night =D,
woo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!!!

So, if you're afraid of damaging the matte, then
see if how well the matte is glued into place
before attempting to remove it =/.  I knew from
the start of my frenzy that the one production
drawing's matte was glued tight, so that matte
would be destroyed utterly (although if I decide
to put the production drawing back into the matte,
on the surface (if you glue or tape the matte back
in), you would be able to tell it was destroyed
inside =D).

Also, most of the tape I found inside holding the
cel into place to the background I found was
archival friendly =D and could easily be removed
without damaging the background or laser photo
copy =).  The exception to this were most of the
She-Ra cels though -_-!  They scotch taped the
cels to the glossy background =(, so sometimes the
tape wouldn't come off so easily without a little
damage -_-!  Apparently, they weren't packaged to
be archival friendly =(!

I hope this helps!  I'm still pondering whether to
de-matte this one LONG cel and production drawing
I have though =/.  Like I said, the box it's in
makes a lovely place to store extra long cels that
can't fit into anything else =).  Good luck!


Sincerely,

Sonia who is also pondering the prospect of
de-framing some of the framed cels =/, but wonders
if she should or shouldn't -_-!