I need some advice on how to prepare my print ready to be framed.

Any of my wall sized prints I have always had the lab mount them. I have never wanted them to be matted so the print size just went into the frame. But now I have a print where I want a 3 or 4 inch mat and I need to prepare my print for this. At first I just thought that I could print a 1/2" white border around the print and this would allow for the mat to flush up against the print, but then it dawned on me that this would create a void behind the mat and this may cause problems once it is framed.

So then I thought I need to create a print that has the border as wide as the mat and upsize the footprint of my print, e.g. if I want a 2" mat then I would need to make a 24x16 a 28x20 w/ a 2" border and then mounted on matboard or styrene. This will raise the cost of entire print. I cannot imagine any other way to handle this, is there?

Thanks for the advice,

Doug