Author Topic: Cropping/Resizing for Digital Frame Help ?!!?  (Read 1529 times)

  • Offline Mardoni

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Cropping/Resizing for Digital Frame Help ?!!?
on: February 03, 2009, 13:51:59 PM
My Dad was bought an el cheapo 7" digital frame for Christmas and has finally got around to sorting out pictures for it.

Now the thing is that the manual says that the native resolution is 480 * 234 and that video playback is 4:3 letterbox or 16:9.
Last night I showed him how to resize his pictures to 480*234 (losing aspect ratio) but when these are displayed on the frame one of two things happens:

1) Frame in "Original" mode:
The picture is rendered in the middle of the screen with (fairly chunky) borders around the four edges. The picture looks like it does on the PC but it doesnt fill the 480*234 display, even though that is the size of the image.

2) Frame in "Fill" mode:
The frame stretches the picture to fill the display. The picture looks ok but it is apparent that the image is being stretched !

What I cannot understand/work out is how to get a picture into the native aspect for the display.
That is to say that the display is 480*234 therefore its ratio is 2.05 and not 1.778 (16:9)

Is this a case of playing around until I find an approximate size that looks right on the frame or am I missing something ?

  • Offline zpyder

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Re:Cropping/Resizing for Digital Frame Help ?!!?
Reply #1 on: February 03, 2009, 14:24:23 PM
Couldnt you resize the images on your comp to 2x that of the frame (or any size so long as you keep the ratio) - then when it fills it wont stretch, but rather, shrink?

  • Offline Mardoni

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Cropping/Resizing for Digital Frame Help ?!!?
Reply #2 on: February 03, 2009, 15:31:55 PM
Ive just tried 1280*720 (a 16:9 aspect) and they look ok.

Ive got an app called Faststone Photo Resizer. It allows for batch resizing, rotating and cropping. Im going to have a play and see what I can do.
The only information Ive found on the web suggests cropping to the exact screen res but that doesnt seem to work on this frame.

  • Offline zpyder

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Re:Cropping/Resizing for Digital Frame Help ?!!?
Reply #3 on: February 03, 2009, 15:45:41 PM
Yeah, it sounds almost as though the specified screen size/res is less than the actual one, resulting in the stretching.

Ive had it a couple of times on things like phones etc where I have ended up having to increase the resolution and letting the device scale it down, to get a decent image out of it.

  • Offline Mardoni

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Cropping/Resizing for Digital Frame Help ?!!?
Reply #4 on: February 03, 2009, 16:24:39 PM
Got it, sort of.

I just dont seem to be able to create a picture at the native res of the display. No matter how small or large I make the picture it always ends up displaying centered with borders :s

But I have found that creating a picture with the shortest side resized to 720px and using a 1.78 (16:9) aspect ratio crop produces an image that the frame can then use to "Fill" the display with little/no distortion.

Bit of a mission really. Certainly not as easy to use as just sticking your images on a memory card and putting it into the frame !

Cropping/Resizing for Digital Frame Help ?!!?
Reply #5 on: February 03, 2009, 20:55:42 PM
hows the re-sizing app working out ?

Ive got a good one if you need it, simple drag and drop etc... fast too :-)

pm ;)

  • Offline Mardoni

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Cropping/Resizing for Digital Frame Help ?!!?
Reply #6 on: February 04, 2009, 10:38:17 AM
Think Im good thanks :)
Freeware too ;) :)



Re:Cropping/Resizing for Digital Frame Help ?!!?
Reply #7 on: February 08, 2009, 17:57:04 PM
lol I just found faststone resizer and was about to suggest it, but I see youve found it already!

the "smart crop" seems on the face of it to work very well

  • Offline Mardoni

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Cropping/Resizing for Digital Frame Help ?!!?
Reply #8 on: February 11, 2009, 09:41:27 AM
Yeah its actually a really good tool.
I had to play around with the settings but it is quite powerful and seems to do everything I want :)

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