James:

Before I run the risk of sticking my foot in my mouth, please understand that I have never done a gallery wrap in my life . . . unless you count the time I could not afford anything to hang on the bare walls of my army-issue government quarters. I found cheap cotton fabric remnants with interesting patterns and colors, built frames, stretched the fabric tight and fastened in the back, then hung them on the wall like pictures.

In any event, my understanding is that when you do a gallery wrap, there are several things you can do vis-à-vis the edges:

1. You can let the image wrap around the edges and to the back. In that case, you would loose part of the image which may or may not matter. As long as the subject is sized and positioned correctly, this would seem to be the easiest. But,

2. If the composition of the photo makes this impractical, you could create a shadow or border around the image to cover sides of the frame. That's what you did. Depending on the image, this might not be the most aesthetically pleasing.

or,

3. You could mirror the outside edges of the image so you didn't lose any detail from the shot. I would think, depending on the image,this might be more aesthetically pleasing than No. 2.

There are Photoshop plug-ins available to help with the task. (e.g., http://ultra-canvas.com/photoshop-plugin/en/home.html) I thought they could be especially helpful with No.'s 2 & 3, but I imagine if cropping is involved, even if you are doing No. 1, it might help with setting up the printer. I've never used them, but thought maybe they might help cut down on trial & error waste.

Here's a couple more links similar programs:

http://www.alienskin.com/blowup/gallery-wrap-panel.aspx

http://www.photoshopsupport.com/tools/plugins/perfect-resize-plugin-genuine-fractals.html

Jim