Picture frames are a multi purpose tool used to hang the picture sturdily to a wall, as well as enhance the picture itself. Over the years most of the time picture frames have been made out of wood. Today you can find picture frames made out of all sorts of things, wood, metal, all the way to sea shells. More recently picture frames have been constructed to be electronic and digitally enhanced.

The standard use of picture frames is to protect and support a picture that a person wishes to hang on a wall. Originally paintings were the only thing available to put into picture frames. A person could take a painting and by using a picture frame hang in on a wall without being forced to put a nail or screw through the picture itself.

The picture frame can be used to protect the painting. A sheet of glass was placed between the frame's sides and over the painting. Today Plexiglas has replaced glass for most picture frames. This would prevent insects from landing and harming the painting. It also prevented dust from landing on the paintings and damaging them. Lastly the glass was used to prevent people from touching and or harming the fragile works of art.

The picture frame can be used to do more than hold and protect the picture. It can enhance the picture that it contains. Picture frames can be made to be beautiful works of art on their own and can visually better the look of the picture. Artists interested in creating through woodcarving can carve into wooden frames making lovely designs. Metal frames can be modified by metal workers, who mold the metal into desirable shapes throughout the surface of the frame.

Not all pictures are used to house beautiful works of art in the modern age. Our family portraits, baby pictures, and baseball team photographs can be contained by picture frames. Most of the time simple wood or metal is used for our household pictures, as no one wants to spend the money for a professional to craft them an original picture frame.

Modern technology has greatly changed household picture frames. Electronic picture frames allow people to insert light bulbs into the picture frame. This could add just a little more Christmas cheer to our holiday pictures, with red and green lights surrounding it.

The newest advancement in the picture frame industry is the use of digital picture frames. With these picture frames you do not even physically require a picture to be held within it. These picture frames take a digital picture taken from a person's personal digital camera and display it on the screen held inside the frame. Some of these frames can display pictures as a slideshow. This means that they can take several pictures and slowly rotate through which ones are shown on the screen at a particular time.

By using a single digital picture frame a person can do the work of dozens of normal picture frames with the printed out pictures inside. Digital picture frames can also be used to store MP3 audio files so you can listen to music while looking at your picture you have put on display. Some people may say that these qualities makes the digital picture frame superior, others say it is not comparable because you are not actually looking at the picture itself but a screen portraying its image. This is for the consumer to decide, which one meets their needs, as well as their visual preferences.