Nope, sadly I never learn a good solution.
The only thing I could ever come up with was to edit the images themselves.
For *some* images, to surgically separate them into two.
But not too many lend themselves to that.
Some images can also be edited to add some kind of leafage or cross-hatching or some other "background-like" filler, so that it doesn't glare so very whitely.
Otherwise, I just have that big white-space hanging there.